Can Americans tell when someone is Canadian?
doom&gloom
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The accent sounds the same to us but does it sound different to Americans from their own accent or can they only tell the difference when a Canadian pronounces about "aboot" or when they end a sentence with "eh"?
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They could use that to make a comparison.
Of course. To them it would sound relatively different to a US accent.
Its effectively the same with an Oz/Kiwi accent, we Brits struggle to deferentiate them, but Im sure they can tell instantly.
I speak with a pretty Standard English accent and an American once asked me if I was British or Australian!! I guess familiarity changes your perspective
You want to hear my ex, she's from Norleans and speaks with a creole accent. My Daughter though, having grown up in Boston, speaks with the stereotypical Boston accent. Trust me, there's no way anybody would ever confuse either for a Canuck.
Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morrisette sound pretty obviously Canadian though.
Yep. There's not a distinct dividing line. I used to have a neighbor from Louisiana and I mostly just smiled and nodded when he spoke because I could hardly understand a single word. A friend's mother is from Minnesota though, and I reckon she's fairly used to getting confused for a Canadian.
Can't say I've noticed but from their names they sound French-Canadian maybe that's the difference.
Don't forget William Shatner and Michael J. Fox. I don't think many will know they're Cannucks.
Long vowel sounds.
When Ice Road Truckers started, their was a man from Yelloknife in Canada and it was like no language you have ever heard or more like a mixture of all languages.
I don't think they're very good with accents though.
I think we notice when a British actor is doing a bad American accent more than they do.
Very few of them knew Hugh Lawrie wasn't American until he went on the chat show circuit.
Speak for yourself OP. If you know what you're listening for, it's not hard to tell the difference between American (not that 'American' is an accent anyway, there are about a million different American accents) and Canadian, just as it is between Australian and Kiwi, or Glasgow and Edinburgh... It's just a case of tuning in to the accents. If you hear them very rarely then you're not going to tell the difference easily, but spend a bit of time listening and tuning in and it's not that hard.
It's like when you've lived somewhere for a very long time - you can tell very subtle differences between accents in next-door towns if you've listened to enough, which outsiders can't.
They don't all pronounce it like that.
True. Neither of them is actually Quebcois though.
Not in Hollywood movies they don't, I think we'd notice if Ryan Gosling started saying "aboot".
I rarely watch films, so I can't comment.
I'm going by personal experience.