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Yes, if they are from the eastern part. My sister married a Canadian who has what almost sounds a bit like a U.S. Eastern accent to me. Boston or New York. Can't quite put my finger on it. His friends sound the same. It's different from the American regional accents with which I'm familiar.
I'd say the average American needs to be fairly attuned to various Canadian cues in order to tell an English-speaking Canadian apart from some random accents that might exist somewhere in the U.S. (Which is probably the assumption that is made most of the time - the U.S. having so many regional accents within it.)
The main exception is Newfoundlanders, who probably get mistaken for Irish people quite a bit.
I am from New Jersey and go to Ontario frequently. Most of it isn't that different from the way people say things in some parts of the U.S. Some pronunciations of words throw me off. For example, "I saw a hock flying." We say the "w" in "hawk", and the Canadian I know says it as if it were spelled "hahk". (Then again, we Jerseyans stick that "w" into "walk" and "talk" and "cawfee". )
I think more of a giveaway are actual words that are not used in the U.S. If you rolled up to a NJ diner and asked if they serve brekkie, people would snicker. Nobody says that. Also, "I'm having my eavestroughs cleaned" made me think for a while until I finally said, "does that mean gutters"?
For the most part, though, I think some of the pronunciations like saying "Don" and "Dawn" the same or "Mary/marry/merry" the same happen in parts of the U.S. We would notice that it was a different accent in New Jersey but wouldn't necessarily peg it as specifically Canadian until an "aboat" came out.
I can definitely tell the difference maybe a little confusion with people from the upper-midwest, but overall Canadians pronounce afew things that give them away. I can't tell people from Vancouver and BC, but I can for the rest of Canada. It's subtle, but to me it sticks out vividly I remember I first went to Canada the guys at the border sounded very Canadian to me. In California accents are very easy to pick up, since moving here i've been hearing many accents that I never used to realize back east like NE accents, but now even a slight accent is noticeable.
Interesting. I can definitely tell an Ontarian at the very least by a few vowels, but generally Canadian accents are in the North American paradigm, which is to say that whle Canadian accents have distinguishng marks, in general, they do not deviate for from the North American standard
All but the most extreme Canadian accents, like Newfoundland (or Quebequois, obviously) are in the mean of general North American accents. Accents from the Deep South/Texas, or the BosWash are more deviant from the North American average than most Canadian accents, for example.
Also, I can also spot people from the prairie provinces because their "eh" often sounds more like, "heh".
Most Americans just don't have enough exposure to Canadian accents to know the difference.
Canadians who live east of Lake Superior (southern Ontario) generally will have the "aboat" accent, but it's usually very subtle and not everyone will have it, especially people under 30.
People in the Maritimes have a different accent altogether (think Trailer Park Boys) that has Scottish and Irish influences, though this is similar to southern Ontario in that not everyone will have that accent.
Western Canadians (northern Ontario west to British Columbia) all have a neutral "Western" accent, which to me sounds indistinguishable from a Californian accent.
It's only certain words that give Western Canadians away, like "against" (a-gay-nst), or "pasta" (pass-duh), or "process" (proe-sess).
Shhhedule, recORD, etc. are pretty dead giveaways too.
When I travel in the states, I'm spotted as Canadian and it's not just the accent, it words that we use, like washroom, garburator, referring to grade one instead of first grade, Second World War instead of World War 2 etc and many others that most Canadians don't even realize are said differently in the US.
Some words that we say differently, but there are variations since Canada is massive.
Processed
Pasta
Drama
Mum. Even Canadians who may spell it MOM, say MUM, not MAWM.
Produce
Roof
Vase although some Canadian may pronounce it the American way.
Lever. Most Canadians say Lee-ver, as opposed to LEV-ers.
Permit as in a city permit.
Foyer
...tons of others.
Last edited by Natnasci; 10-31-2018 at 02:06 PM..
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