Travel

[YourFutureMuse]

You have totally made me want to go there RIGHT NOW!! Its sounds like a really really interesting and diverse country
Now I am going to have to bully one of my friends into agreeing to go with me ... lol

[bertowud]

(29-12-2009 12:42 PM)YourFutureMuse Wrote:  Haha yeah but thats a mutual thing. My friend had her Canadian friend over during the Summer and when people mistook her for an American she got soooo angry lol... It was quite amusing

It's true. Of course it's funny to me to hear Canadians bash Americans because the area I grew up in has approximately 5,000 Canadians for about half the year. The whole area had about 50,000 locals, so the population they made up about 1/11th the population.

One of my best friends is from South Africa and lives in Toronto ON, Canada, now, so I really like giving her grief.

[JHyde]

I LOVE South African accents. That's also somewhere I want to visit.

[YourFutureMuse]

I love SA accents also Its funny cos when I had only heard them on TV I didn't like them but on work experience last year I worked with a south african client and everytime he spoke I was mesmerised!
Is there a difference between american and canadian accents? (forgive my ignorance lol)

[lwhite53]

(30-12-2009 03:38 AM)YourFutureMuse Wrote:  Is there a difference between american and canadian accents? (forgive my ignorance lol)

Canada is a pretty big country -- there are as many different Canadian accents as there are American accents.

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(30-12-2009 01:44 AM)JHyde Wrote:  I'm not an American basher at all. Whatever its faults, the US . . .

Haven't you learned from watching spooks that we don't have any faults . . . at least as far as we're concerned. LOL.

[YourFutureMuse]

So there's no actual way of knowing a canadian from an american by their accent? Or for someone like me who has only heard a handful of american accents

I can't tell a difference I was wondering if someone who was actually american might be able to lol

[JHyde]

Yeah Canada's a little like Belgium, in the sense that because it had two main different types of settlers, it has several different languages and a myriad of accents.

[lwhite53]

(30-12-2009 03:48 AM)YourFutureMuse Wrote:  So there's no actual way of knowing a canadian from an american by their accent? Or for someone like me who has only heard a handful of american accents

I can't tell a difference I was wondering if someone who was actually american might be able to lol

I think the bulk of Canadians have accents similar to those Americans in northern US states (because of the proximity of the borders), which is why Canadians get mistaken for Americans so often. But you wouldn't find Canadians with, say, typical American southern accents.

When I was in Vancouver, I couldn't necessarily tell who was Canadian without being told since the people sounded pretty much the same as Americans.

[bertowud]

Quebec (province of Canada) speaks predominately French. Some of the Canadian English dialects add "eh" (pronounced "ey") to the ends of their sentences, but as lwhite53 says there are lots of dialects.

You probably couldn't tell the difference strictly on dialect/accent, but you'd never confuse me with a Canadian because I'm from the Deep South of the US, so I bounce between a Southern accent and a non accented American English. I have managed to lose the drawl though, unless I've been around my dad.

There are parts of the Midwest that you'd think the people were Canadian based on dialect.

[lwhite53]

(30-12-2009 04:06 AM)bertowud Wrote:  Quebec (province of Canada) speaks predominately French. Some of the Canadian English dialects add "eh" (pronounced "ey") to the ends of their sentences, but as lwhite53 says there are lots of dialects.

Actually, northern Vermonters sound like they're from Quebec since both were settled by the same French-speakers. It's really kind of weird -- depending on where they staked their claim to which piece of land, members of the same family became American or Canadian by virtue of a border that was added at a later date.