British and American English

Can a person from the UK make himself understood by a person from the USA?

Is American English and British English the same language? What are the main differences between the English spoken in the United Kingdom and the English spoken in the United States?

These are just some of the questions that students ask me whenever we come across a text in which American words are being used. 

American and British English are just two varieties of the same language, in the same sense that the Spanish spoken in Spain and in, say, Cuba, is the same language but it has some noticiable variations which do not only concern vocabulary, but also pronunciation and grammar. 

However, we are going to focus on vocabulary since most of the words are not new for students (either they know them from songs, video games or TV). 

A good way to start is listening to this video and paying attention to differences in vocabulary.