How do we use English around the world?
Google Trends is free to use and you don't need a subscription. (Link opens on new page.) Different from analysing spoken English, Trends looks at internet search terms to see how we natives are using the language. I still think it gives a good impression of general usage differences and you can also see how the popularity of a search term changes over time. It's great for comparing words which have the same meaning, like motorbike and motorcycle below. (See Example) You can see that in:
- A: Motorbike and C: Motorbike, Australia, New Zealand and the UK showed a high regional interest for the search word 'motorbike'.
- B: Motorcycle and D: Motorcycle, the Philippines and the US are at the top, with the previous countries lower down the list
Example
A: Motorbike
B: Motorcycle
C: Motorbike
D: Motorcycle