The English language we know today is about six hundred years old. For half that time, English was just the language of the people living in England. The modern English language grew by about the year 1400. Now English is the most widely spoken language in the world. It is one of the working languages at international meetings, business, science and other fields. The differences between American English and British English are not very great. Written English is more or less the same in both Britain and America, though there are some spelling differences. For example, centre, licence, colour and travelled are spelt as center, license, color and traveled in American English. In America "cock, rubber, ill, holiday, lorry, post..." are called "rooster, eraser, sick, vacation, truck , mail..." But people from the two countries can still understand each other easily. There are only a very small number of differences in grammar between American English and British English. The most important differences arc in spoken English. For example, Americans pronounce "tomato" differently from English people. You may wonder "Which is correct?" The answer is that it does not matter. You should speak either American English or British English. But do not try to speak both at the same time.

When was modern English language grew?