yes, over here saying “mom” sound really dodgy with any english accent. “mam” works better if you’re a northerner.
Well, you probably understand why I don’t use the word nightdress huh lizardgirl? 
Hm… if I recall, the other term variation is “nightgown.”
And yet I’d really love to see you in one, TSS!
Yup, ‘nightgown’ is another term for nightdress, but a gown sounds so much more…posh, like it should be velvet with gold lace or something.
Of course, now I remember. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but now I remember that Singapore was under British operation, thus having British English applied. Hence, we use “analyse” instead of “analyze” as British do.
i wonder how many differences Aussie’s and Americans have.
Apparently, many.
Looks like Pewpewpew5522 got ahead of me first. 
Pew did beat you…so there are many differences other then “Crickie!”
One of my best friends is Australian, and as international phone calls are not exactly cheap, we talk on AIM and texting a lot. I love how we both speak English but there are so many small, subtle differences.
Nevertheless, I still don’t understand the allure of vegemite.
Variants on English are great fun.
Here are a few, in no particular order.
(To save typing, I’ll just use “UK” in this post when I mean often other places as well, such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc.)
In the UK, “fortnight” means “2 weeks” (short for 14 nights). Never used in the US. Same with “loo” (bathroom).
In the US, the bathroom is “occupied”, in the UK it’s “engaged.” Likewise, with a telephone (in the US, the phone line is “busy”… in the UK it’s “engaged.”) Made me think… if the bathroom is engaged to the telephone, will they marry, and what will their kids look like? 
Brits will often say “I’ll ring you.” Americans will never say this. It’s “I’ll call you.”
Brits will pronounce “schedule” as “shhedule” instead of “skedule” — yet “school” is still “skool”, not “shhhool.”
US: “Thank you for your business (or patronage).”
UK: “Thank you for your custom.”
US: “Clearance Items”
UK: “End of Ranges”
If talking food, note the difference in “pudding” between the US and UK.
(And no, I won’t even mention the “spotted dick cake.” Oops. I guess I just did!)
I was once told by an Australian that I had such a heavy American accent – and then told by a Brit shortly afterwards that she wasn’t sure if I was American or not, because I didn’t have much of an American accent!
When people sing, they tend to lose their accent (and this goes not only for US vs UK, but also localized [ahem, “localised”] regional dialects within a country). If you put three people with vastly different accents in a room (say an Aussie, a person from California, and a person from the deep US South), their speech patterns and accents will be quite different. But if you ask them to sing “Silent Night” for you, chances are you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.
For those who have studied music, the language is completely different! In the US, we use terms like “whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note, sixteenth note”, etc. In the UK, they use terms like “crotchet” and “minim” and “quaver” and “semiquaver.” In the US, it’s a “sixteenth note.” In the UK, it’s a “semiquaver.” Trust me, 99.99% of average musicians in the US do not know what a minim or semiquaver is (by those names).
Lastly, if you listen carefully, you can always spot a Canadian accent. Not just the standard “about/aboat” thing, but Canadians tend to pronounce their vowels longer. So “sorry” would be “sohree” instead of “sawree” and “borrow” is more “bohrow” instead of “bawrow.”
But that’s OK. We Americans are tolerant, and will wait for the rest of the English-speaking world to come around to the correct way of doing things… [j/k]
The american accent is heavily infuenced by the irish and german accents.
Well, in yorkshire [where I come from], there are many different dialects. there are some that are closer to the ‘typical’ one (“ah wen’ darn t’shop fo’ some’o’ t’tea”) [when I have put a ', insert a glottal stop], and some are less, like the leeds accent. The leeds and Ponntefract accents are very different even thoug they are only about 15 miles apart!
also, there are many different prononciations of “tt”. the ‘side of mouth’ where the sound comes from teh side of the mouth, the straight “t” sound [the proper way" and the Glottal Stop where they are not pronouced at all “Glo’h’ul”
(US)Store → Shop (UK)
Candy → Sweets
Adding a couple more off the top of my head…
Along the lines of “Candy/Sweets”, there’s
Cookie (US) vs Biscuit (UK).
What’s funny for an American, is to see the simple “sugar cookie” referred to as a “glucose biscuit” in the UK world. 
“Mains” vs “Power” or “Electricity”
In the US, it would be “power” or “electricity.” In the UK, it would be “mains” (when talking about plug-in power, as opposed to batteries). For instance, “The mains aren’t reliable in small villages” vs “The power isn’t reliable in small villages.”
Speaking of “mom/mum” as lizardgirl was earlier, I was wondering… is it as common in the UK to refer to your father as “dad” (as it is to your mother as “mum”)? If you’re talking to a friend and want to say “My XXXXX wants me home by 6:00” do you use “dad,” “father,” or something else? In the US, the standard default would be “dad” (“My dad wants me home by 6:00.”) “Father” would be way too formal for everyday speech in talking to people.
And of course, the British predisposition to say the word “Right” all the time. Such as “Right, I’ll pick up some wine.” It was once pointed out to me by an Australian, the American predisposition to use the word “Really?” when surprised by a statement.
Besides variations in English, if you want to have a lot of fun with languages, have a look at onomatopoeia around the world sometime, in various languages…
miafka- I tend to say skedule, not shhedule. And seriously, words like ‘minum’ and ‘quaver’ aren’t used in America? I just can’t imagine not using those words in terms of music. 
I always LOL when people say that they’re not pronouncing the English correctly when they’re from another country. It is English after all, and American English doesn’t count. Just kidding.
Cookies are, according to our language, a type of biscuit- cookies are the ones that usually have chocolate chips, or that sort of thing. Other biscuits are just…other biscuits. And I LOVE the word candy, because it always reminds me of the whole Charlie and the Chocolate Factory type scenario, whilst ‘sweets’ just doesn’t sound…sweet.
Oh, and we usually say ‘dad’ instead of ‘father’, too. So it’s mum and dad, especially as father does, as you pointed out, sound really too formal.
I love how different dialects and slang form within a single country or place. You can go to one part of a country and hear certain ways of saying things, and then go to another part and hear something so completely different. If I went up north, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t understand all of what was being said to me.
Then there’s the Japanese way of speaking English. It isn’t in their manner of life to speak ‘broken English,’ but some Japanese, while first picking up a language that’s not their own, would happen to make some hilarious mistakes…
For example, as demonstrated in an episode of the anime, “Detective Conan,” an inspector used a word to find out the culprit to a crime. Out of the four people who claimed that they are Japanese learning English, one of them is actually a pure American.
How did he prove that? By using the word, “Shiranpuri (pronouced ‘shee-run-poo-ree’),” of course! To a Japanese who has just started learning English, the term would sound like three words we commonly use today.
“Sit down please.”
Though the inspector deliberately mispronounced the words, you can tell from this demonstration that the Japanese 's manner of English can be quite varied and sometimes, comical as well. 
Oni’ where t’accent’s strong, lark barnsli!
I’ve lived long enough in Oz to get the intricacies of Oz-speak (though unlike my International peers, I had no trouble at all understanding what the locals say, cos’ my English was good to begin with).
I like the way Aussies like to shorten words and add ‘ies’/‘y’ to the back, like…Aussie. And brekkie. And footie. Barbie. Tassie. Bikkie (or cookies!) They’re also fond of 'o’s, as in rego (vehicle regulation), ambo (ambulance), arvo (afternoon), garbo (WALL-E 
). I like how they just shortened the phrase ‘utility truck’ to just ‘ute’ (took me a while to get what they were talking about in those car ads)
But really, it doesn’t take much explanation if you think carefully about some of their colloquial phrases… I instantly understood what “chuck a sickie” (hand in a doctor’s leave), “Onya” (good on you) and “Fair Dinkum” (a fair go) meant even when I haven’t heard them before, because I paid attention to the context they were used in and deciphered their meaning.
Many words are similar to British English for obvious reasons, like bloke, jiffy, kaput, quid and yobbo.
There are a couple of other slang words, but you have to watch out for the more vulgar or derogatory ones, and use them with extreme caution.
To get a good idea of how to pronounce stuff with an Oz accent, just watch Kath And Kim (“Lookit mooeeyyyy…”)
I’ll write about Singlish and Manglish in another post if you guys are interested.
Oh, and I don’t ‘get’ the Toy Story 2 quote you mentioned to WBoon, Rachel? 
And I use ‘coke’ at ‘Maccas’, even at their ‘chicken’ rival, which only serves Pepsi.
we say lollies and Full Stops. THat’s the NSPCC Motto.
FULL STOP.
Talking of carbonated drinks, what’s this ‘soda’ business about? I’ve watched American films and TV shows where someone might ask for a soda, which is, as far as I’m aware, a fizzy drink. But there’s lots of fizzy drinks, so if someone asks for a soda, how do you know if they want a Coke or some lemonade or something? Or does soda mean something else entirely?
I love watching Neighbours sometimes, just to hear the Aussie slang. It’s great fun trying to figure out what the phrases mean.
soda is liek a creamy drink to me, you can get ti in discount shops like LIDL and Aldi.
we just say coke, pepsi, lemonade, etc…
ALSO
(US) Chips → Crisps (UK)
(US) Fries → Chips (UK)
very weird about the whole potato thing.