13 ms·

"Colour" and "favour" are predominate in every English-speaking country except the U.S. (eg: Canada prefers "colour.")

arrrg 13y ago
Yeah, but what are people who learn English taught? For example, the books in my Bavarian school seemed to slightly prefer the British English spelling (but the vocabulary always also included the American English spelling and later on we were reading lots of American and British text intermixed) and for tests the teacher always told us that she didn’t care which spelling we picked, all that mattered to her was that we were consistent (i.e. use either only British English or only American English). I always picked American English but the preference of the books of British English screwed me up somewhat, so I will sometimes mistakenly use both variants in one text. For me it would consequently not seem obvious that someone using both variants is a native speaker who tries to fake another spelling variant.
- officemonkey 13y ago
  It's my experience that Europeans are taught British English in schools (due to the easy availability of teachers from the U.K.) Japan, Korea and China very likely are mixed between British English teachers (from India and Australia) and American English teachers (from the U.S.) In Japan in the late 80s-early 90s, there was a definite preference for American English teachers.
  - arrrg 13y ago
    Are English teachers in many European countries native speakers? I have only very limited experience, but from my experience in Bavaria (education is a state responsibility in Germany, that’s why I’m constantly only talking about Bavaria) I can say that none of the foreign-language teachers I’m aware of (of any available foreign language, English, French, Spanish, Czech) were native speakers. They were all Germans.
- asveikau 13y ago
  You might be surprised what kind of inconsistencies you'll find in individuals, even restricting yourself to native speakers. I was born and raised in the US and only recently realized that distinguishing "storey" (of a building) and "story" (a tale) is British usage; I had been writing it that way my whole life unaware that in my country we're supposed to only use the latter spelling. My father spent his first years in the UK and as a kid I picked up a few verbal things from him (most of them disappeared later on). I still think I'm more likely than most people I know to say things like "whilst" or "amongst".

arrrg 13y ago

Yeah, but what are people who learn English taught? For example, the books in my Bavarian school seemed to slightly prefer the British English spelling (but the vocabulary always also included the American English spelling and later on we were reading lots of American and British text intermixed) and for tests the teacher always told us that she didn’t care which spelling we picked, all that mattered to her was that we were consistent (i.e. use either only British English or only American English). I always picked American English but the preference of the books of British English screwed me up somewhat, so I will sometimes mistakenly use both variants in one text. For me it would consequently not seem obvious that someone using both variants is a native speaker who tries to fake another spelling variant.

officemonkey 13y ago
It's my experience that Europeans are taught British English in schools (due to the easy availability of teachers from the U.K.) Japan, Korea and China very likely are mixed between British English teachers (from India and Australia) and American English teachers (from the U.S.) In Japan in the late 80s-early 90s, there was a definite preference for American English teachers.
- arrrg 13y ago
  Are English teachers in many European countries native speakers? I have only very limited experience, but from my experience in Bavaria (education is a state responsibility in Germany, that’s why I’m constantly only talking about Bavaria) I can say that none of the foreign-language teachers I’m aware of (of any available foreign language, English, French, Spanish, Czech) were native speakers. They were all Germans.
asveikau 13y ago
You might be surprised what kind of inconsistencies you'll find in individuals, even restricting yourself to native speakers. I was born and raised in the US and only recently realized that distinguishing "storey" (of a building) and "story" (a tale) is British usage; I had been writing it that way my whole life unaware that in my country we're supposed to only use the latter spelling. My father spent his first years in the UK and as a kid I picked up a few verbal things from him (most of them disappeared later on). I still think I'm more likely than most people I know to say things like "whilst" or "amongst".