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Can someone please post a good short video clip of a French Canadian speaker and another one a European French speaker so that i and other non-french speakers can hear the difference.
As a native spanish speaker, i can assure you formal Mexican Spanish is much slower and clearer than many other Spanish accents.
Here is a clip from a TV show in France with the guest being the guy who hosts the same show but in its Quebec version. Gives you an idea of the two accents:
Ok, that's fair. Admittidly, I have a hard time telling the difference between different Irish accents. Doesn't mean they're not there. My American ears just can't detect it as easily. Perhaps because I studied French (but have forgotten most of it) I can tell MOST of the time.
I learned English as a second language as a young French Canadian child growing up in "English Canada". I've lived among English-speaking Canadians much of my life and even today I sometimes have a difficult time telling their accent apart from that of neutrally-accented Americans. If the conversation is fairly short and does not include any of the usual "tip-off" words that the person is Canadian or American, it's very hard for me to tell. (Of course, not talking about the strong and distinctive accents like New York or the US South here.)
I learned English as a second language as a young French Canadian child growing up in "English Canada". I've lived among English-speaking Canadians much of my life and even today I sometimes have a difficult time telling their accent apart from that of neutrally-accented Americans. If the conversation is fairly short and does not include any of the usual "tip-off" words that the person is Canadian or American, it's very hard for me to tell. (Of course, not talking about the strong and distinctive accents like New York or the US South here.)
Many Americans, despite what you my have heard, often cannot tell if someone is Canadian either. As geographically far apart as they are, the accents of southern Ontario and California can sometimes be very similar.
Many Americans, despite what you my have heard, often cannot tell if someone is Canadian either. As geographically far apart as they are, the accents of southern Ontario and California can sometimes be very similar.
In Canada, obviously the "default" is to consider people you hear speaking English with a neutral North American accent to be Canadians, but anywhere outside Canada I have lots of trouble picking them out from the crowd unless they are wearing, say, a "Red Deer Minor Hockey Association" windbreaker...
When I was younger and travelled a lot and had time on my hands, I used to play a game and try to guess based on certain vocabulary or pronunciation cues, or even personality.. Sometimes I'd get it right but often the person I assumed to be from Canada was from Oregon or Colorado, or a person I assumed was American was actually from Toronto or Halifax.
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