根据文章大意及首字母，用适当的词完成短文（共6小题，每小题1分，满分6分）
Xiao Ming knows English plays an important r_______in today's world. So he works hard to enlarge his vocabulary, for he believes that the more English words he learns, the better his English will be. And his English is improving rapidly because of his hard work.
In this year's summer holiday, he went to the UK, where he grasped every o_____to speak to then_____English speakers. He tried to speak English with British a_______ . He also found that sometimes the Britons and the Americans use different words for the same thing. For example, the Americans say gas, e_______ ,apartment and candy, while the Britons say petrol, lift, flat and s______.