I once happened to be in linguistic confusion. A British English speaking acquaintance of mine used the British word lift in our conversation, a word that puzzled me for some hundreds of a second as I would have preferred to use its American equivalence, elevator. Situations like this are not rare, but maybe not very common either. However, there are words that differ between American English and British English vocabulary even though they carry the same meaning, and now and then these differences bring confusion into conversations. Therefore, to be totally understood when speaking English one needs to know the differences in American and British vocabulary. The aim with my investigation was to find out whether Swedish students prefer to use AmE or BrE vocabulary, and possible influences on their choice. In my study 82 informants participated: 38 students in 7th grade and 44 students in the 3rd year in high school. Another aim was therefore to see if there was any difference in preference between the 7th graders and the students in high school. The students took a vocabulary test and answered a questionnaire. The vocabulary test consisted of two parts, one in which the students were asked to translate twenty words into English and one in which they were expected to read a short text and on ten occasions circle either an American or a British word (for them unknown). The results of the vocabulary test showed that AmE words were selected somewhat more often than their British equivalents. The questionnaire mainly concerned the students’ nationality and interests, and the answers here revealed that they preferred American TV shows, movies and music to British ones.