Tweet of the Week #164: University Entrance Exam Mixes American and British English

Last weekend, third-year high school students took their stressful two-day standardized university entrance exams. These exams will decide whether they can enter their university of choice next spring.

However, some weren’t too pleased with the tricky English comprehension test. They needed to know the difference between British and American English when counting floors.

The National Center for University Entrance Examinations does warn all the test-takers that in addition to commonly taught American English, they may use British English in the test questions because they deem it essential that students understand the diversity of vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation used in international settings.

Too wicked

共通テスト、イギリス英語出してくるのは流石に鬼畜すぎ pic.twitter.com/GMjarQHxMY

— 确 (@taka2434) January 15, 2022

共通（きょうつう）テスト、イギリス英語（えいご）出（だ）してくるのは流石（さすが）に鬼畜（きちく）すぎ

“To use British-English on the common test is too wicked”

US vs UK Floors

わからない人の為に
アメリカは日本と同じく
1階→2階→……

イギリスは
グランドフロアー→1階→2階→…

つまり、アメリカ日本にとっての2階はイギリスにとっての1階

— とりそぼろ(旧:自民のジミン) (@torisobor1213) January 15, 2022

わからない人（ひと）の為（ため）に

アメリカは日本（にほん）と同（おな）じく

1階（いっかい）→2階（にかい）→……

イギリスは

グランドフロアー→1階→2階→…

つまり、アメリカ日本にとっての2階はイギリスにとっての1階

“For those who don’t know:

America is like Japan

1st floor -> 2nd floor ->

In England:

Ground floor -> 1st floor -> 2nd floor ->

In other words, the second floor for the US and Japan is the first floor in the UK.”

The Japanese counter for building floors

In Japanese, you combine numbers with a counter, a single-kanji character, to count things—people (人), cars (台), long and thin objects (本), flat and thin objects (枚) and so on. In total, the Japanese language has about 500 counters, but not all of them are commonly used. Let’s have a quick look at the counter for building floors: 階.

Note that ３階 can be read さんかい or さんがい. The latter being more frequent.

Vocabulary

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA - Privacy Policy - Terms of Service