Originally, both the British and the American spoke with a rhotic accent. Rhotic essentially means an accent where the letter “r” is pronounced strongly after a vowel (元音). Rhotic accents are strong in both the US and Scotland, but seem to have disappeared from British English and its derivatives, such as Australian English and New Zealand English.

The major American accent –– the typical accent of the mid-western US –– is rhotic, and British English is, as a rule, non-rhotic. Specifically, US speakers pronounce every “r”, wherever they appear in a word. Most British speakers (and you will note that there are some British Isle accents that are strongly rhotic, like US) do not pronounce every “r”. Americans stress the “r” at the end of words such as “teacher” or “neighbour”, but in many non-rhotic British accents it is more of a “schwa” (an unstressed sound) so it comes out as, “teacha” (unstressed) or “neighba”.

This main difference also differs across the country of origin. For example, the US has a clear difference in the accents between people of the north and south, not to mention less clear differences across the states. Similarly, British people have a different accent according to their locality. The “cockney (伦敦东区)” accent is greatly different to the middle and upper class accents.

Another common difference appears to be that Americans pronounce words such as “herbal” without the “h”. Syllables (音节) may be stressed differently, too. “Oregano” in the US tends to be pronounced “o–reg–a–no” while in British English it is more likely to be “o–reg–AH–no”.

【小题1】When a rhotic accent occurs, ______.

A. the letter “r” is silent in any positions         B. the letter “r” is sounded after a vowel

C. the ending syllable of a word is stressed      D. the ending syllable of a word is unheard

【小题2】The underlined word “derivatives” in the first paragraph probably means “_____”.

A. neighbours                      B. ancestors           C. symbols                   D. branches

【小题3】In non-rhotic British accents, ______.

A. “bother” sounds the same as “buther”                 B. “cheaper” sounds the same as “chapter”

C. “worker” sounds the same as “worka”                D. “painting” sounds the same as “paintin”

【小题4】Even in the original country of the specific English language, accents differ ____.

A. from area to area                                        B. from person to person

C. from word to word                                    D. from stress to stress

【小题5】American people trend to pronounce words like “herbal” with the “h” ______.

A. stressed                          B. silent                                                           C. changed                 D. loud

The deer was lucky that it just missed ____

1. A.
   catching
2. B.
   to be caught
3. C.
   being caught
4. D.
   to catch

“Boys and girls, you should ________ when having lectures,”asked the teacher．

1. A.
   behave yourself
2. B.
   behave yourselves
3. C.
   behave you
4. D.
   behave yours

Mary kept weighing herself to see how much ________ she was getting.

1. A.
   heavier
2. B.
   heavy
3. C.
   the heavier
4. D.
   the heaviest

These crosstalk artists often made the audience ________ them.

1. A.
   applauded
2. B.
   to applaud
3. C.
   applauds
4. D.
   applaud