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Im sorey. But y'all Canadians have distinct accents. Ive been to British Colombia a few times. And theres a bit of difference in accents from across the border in Washington.
I don't hear an accent. My relatives and friends from Canada sound like my relatives and friends from Wisconsin. They do not sound like people from Indiana or Kentucky.
I used to live in Michigan which has almost the same accent as Wisconsin. I also spent some time crossing the border and heard many a Canadian talk. While I will admit the Canadians sound similar to upper Midwest folks, it is NOT the same accent. Upper Midwesterners and Canadians are often confused with each other, but people from Ontario can tell who is and who is not from Canada, and people from Wisconsin and Michigan can tell who and who is not from the American side of the border. Now if your in Kentucky I can understand the confusion, but it really is a different accent.
I'm from Oregon originally and some people from California have told me I have a 'Canadian accent', but it might be because I've picked up certain things from my family in Canada.
Canadians do say about differently, it kind of sounds like "a-boat". They also say 'proh-sess' for process, and 'uh-gaynst' for against, also sorry, borrow, and tomorrow are all pronounced with a long o. I have met some Canadians who are exceptions to these rules however.
I watch a lot of HGTV, and when one of the shows comes on that doesn't identify where the homeowners/buyers are from, I can always tell if the show is in Canada within the first minute of them opening their mouths. The hosts on that network who are Canadian also have obvious Canadian accents. About the only native of Ontario that I have ever had to listen extremely closely to to discern his accent is Alex Trebek, but then I think he has spent years on American TV consciously trying to sound like an American. Michael J. Fox has a very discernable Canadian accent.
We only live about an hour from the Detroit/Windsor border and visit Canada from time to time. The things I notice the most are the "oat and aboat", the "I'm sorey, but I will be out of that product until tomoreow. When I get some more in, they will cost ten dolers", and the "eh" (I hear this one a lot, even in southern Ontario!)
Canadians are extremely nice people as a rule, their country is neat and pretty, and who really cares if they talk with an accent? Personally, I find it charming.
Last edited by canudigit; 02-02-2014 at 06:05 AM..
Im sorey. But y'all Canadians have distinct accents. Ive been to British Colombia a few times. And theres a bit of difference in accents from across the border in Washington.
I'm sorey to say that renovating a washroom is a complicated pro-cess.
We don't (except for Quebec and Newfoundland). I'm from southern Ontario and I don't have a Canadian accent, neither do I know or have I ever met anyone else that does. We sound exactly like Americans, I see zero difference in how a Canadian speaks and how an american speaks with a general american accent. We're exactly the same! Why do you people in the states get the impression that we have accents and say aboot? that's ridiculous.
English-speaking Canadians west of Ontario (The Prairies, British Columbia) have Californian accents.
You could drop someone from Winnipeg or Edmonton or Victoria in Los Angeles and they'd sound like natives. It's sort of like their mouths are barely open when they talk. Every single vowel sounds like an 'O'.
"Mohm, con you put thot letter in the mailbohx? Dod forgot about ot."
You got the talk right, IMO, but it's not Californian. We have a lot of Californians here in CO, and they say "John" as "Jahn". Not so much as you Minnesotans, but still. A western Canadian would say "Jawn" almost like "Joan".
Canadians most certainly have accents. A lot of that is due to them retaining more British pronunciations and spellings (i.e. in many Canadian cities, "been" is pronounced "bean" rather than "bin", "record" is pronounced "recORD" rather than "RECKerd", and of course the "realize vs. realise" dichotomy - both spellings are common in Canada but 'realise' is still more prevalent, even with the heavy US influence).
The accent I am most familiar with is the one spoken in the Prairie Provinces - they have a rhotic accent similar to most US dialects, and is a lot like an Upper Midwestern/Minnesota accent in that "out" and "about" are basically "oat" and "aboat" (now the Minnesota "aboat" and the Manitoba "aboat" are pronounced ever-so-slightly differently, I think the MN version has a slightly rounder "o" sound) . Newfies have their own distinct accent, and to an untrained ear, can be virtually indistinguishable from a classic Irish brogue.
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