Like many people in France I've learnt English by watching movies (the french  system for languages is very bad). As a matter as fact, 95% of movies are american, meaning I learnt american english. But is there a real difference between American english and Bristish English? Hell yes

The first time I spoke to an english native person it was very complicated for me. At first, I said to myself while the guy was speaking, "he is speaking english"? The accent is so difficult to understand if you're not used to. Besides they have many words (and expressions) that differ from american: thats rubbish (they love this one), a roundabout instead of traffic circle, pavement instead of sidewalk etc etc. They dont even have the same spelling, for instance in england you say centre or theatre while in the us you say center/theater (that seems more logical by the way). Anyway, little by little you're getting used to the Bristish way of talk and as far as my english is concerned it's not bad thing (-;