Can you tell Canadian English from American English?

[NanteNa]

There is a difference.. but it depends on what area and how heavy the accent is. Honestly, I think the words that a mostly different are how Canadians pronounce 'house' (kinda like heuws) and 'bag' (baig)..

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by NanteNa

There is a difference.. but it depends on what area and how heavy the accent is. Honestly, I think the words that a mostly different are how Canadians pronounce 'house' (kinda like heuws) and 'bag' (baig)..

The thing is, this is a common accent in parts of the US too. I can hear how she pronounces the ou sound in that video, but it doesn`t stand out as Canadian. Just definitely not southern US - and I would likely have guessed "Northern US or Canada".

French Canadians are quite different, and often have a pretty clear French accent in English.

[ModusOperandi]

I live in the greater lakes region and I honestly can't distinguish between the so-called Canadian accent and some of the accents from the Americans around me. Unless maybe said Canadian is from Quebec -- and even then, I might definitely assume they're French.

Also, I've never been, but I'd assume that there are some Alaskans that may share accents with Canadians.

[steven]

To me it sounds like she is speaking in a "californian" accent. While it's very convincing, when she said "about" it was obvious that she wasn't from california, or wherever she is trying to sound like. To me, I can tell when someone is Canadian, or at least from (like others have said) nothern US/Canada. I don't know if this is representative of all Canadians, but I've notice they tend to overpronounce (coming from a Californian). Also, I hear words like "been" being prounced as "bean" and other small things like that which I honestly can't think of right now. One more thing is that I've noticed more Canadians than I have Americans pronouncing "pronunciation" as "pronounce"-"ciation". There can also be a slight intonation difference as well... while it's pretty close to American intonation, every now and then there is something that sounds slightly to very English.

So I think that if the Canadian was trying REALLY hard to try to sound like they weren't from Canada I'd have a hard time. If they were just talking as usual, I think I'd have a chance at picking it out.

[bELyVIS]

Canadians always say "Ayy" at the end of a sentence, and "Aboot" instead of about.

[steel]

Here is a good visual map:

http://aschmann.net/AmEng/

http://aschmann.net/AmEng/#LargeMap

[Umihito]

For me, I usually can't tell the difference between the two.

BUT there are a few trigger words that when spoken by a Canadian will be able to make me tell whether it's a Canadian accent or not. e.g. 'about'

[Rinai]

What the hell *is* an American accent anyway? {You can tell by the 'o' sounds. Especially when she says 'about'.} But yeah. Uh. America isn't just one whole accent...

*plooka plooka*

[Suki]

Okay, when I say Canadian English I mean native English speakers from Canada -Ontario, for instance- NOT the ones who speak French. I know those are easy to pick out.

Originally Posted by Rinai

What the hell *is* an American accent anyway? {You can tell by the 'o' sounds. Especially when she says 'about'.} But yeah. Uh. America isn't just one whole accent...

Who said "America is one whole accent", smart ass? Go back to my original post and you'll find I said "standard American English", and if the word "standard" still doesn't give you a clue as to what kinda accent I'm talking about then I guess you got lots of television to watch, because there is such a thing as an standard American accent.
----

I found it hard to believe when I found out that Jim Carrey was from Canada. I couldn't have told from his movies nor from the interviews I'd seen with him in which, I guess, he speaks with his natural accent, which ought to be a Canadian one by default.

[Nyororin]

I think it can be summed up something like this;

There is a slight difference between a Canadian accent and a standard American accent. The difference is present in small parts of speech. (Not evident in all parts of speech.) It is usually clear that it is not a standard American accent - however, it is not identifying as a Canadian accent.

I would say that most people would probably be able to point out that it isn`t a standard American accent if they heard the pronunciations that are different than the standard, but NOT be able to point out where the speaker was from. Both because the accent isn`t Canadian only (overlaps into the US), and because the difference is so slight that it normally wouldn`t stand out enough to draw attention. In a situation where the native accent of the listener is VERY different from the standard, they may not really notice a difference at all - only that the accent is different from their local one, and close to the standard.

There is a MUCH larger difference between most regional accents in the US and the standard than between the Canadian accent and the standard. Because of the huge variety in the US itself, I think it would be pretty strange for someone to assume that such a tiny difference in accent would indicate that someone is from outside the US.

An added note on "Standard American English" - there really is no such thing in everyday use. Announcers all play down their regional accents and also often affect their speech to sound "warmer" and more "friendly" (this is particularly true of news programming). They all strive for the "standard", but there is no location where "standard" American English is actually spoken by the majority of the population. Every location will have some kind of difference when compared to the television standard. I think this is why it is so hard to look at the Canadian accent as a distinct accent - the amount it differs from the standard is so low that it is likely lower than most of the English spoken in the US itself.