What are the differences between the Canadian and American accent?

Question

Please list the main differences.

Plus words that are different and the pronounciation for each accent.

Answer 1

There's way too many dialects in each country to say  what the accents of each are and the differences of how everything is pronounced.  Some accents in the States vary by the state. For instance I'm from Wisconsin and my first roommate in college was from Illinois and she had an accent to me. Maybe if you tried to narrow which dialects you're trying to compare it might be easier.

Answer 2

Canada is a really big country and has many distinct regional dialects. There is no "Canadian" accent per se.

The United States is also a big country with many distinct regional dialects. There is no "American" accent per se.

Your question is too vague as is. Can you provide more information?

Answer 3

There are many dialects in both countries.  Too many to discuss on this board.

To SteveN:  Please don't use the derogatory "N" word.  We are called Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

Answer 4

how about the word roof

you yankees always say ruuf

you don't know how to pronounce the word correctly

that is why you hire Canucks for your TV announcers

Answer 5

Which accent? There are many. Someone from BC or Alberta will sound different than someone from Quebec. Put a Newfie and an Acadian in the same rootm, and they may have trouble understanding each other.

The same holds true in USA...I can be in a room with people from Boston, Dallas, New Orleans, and Seattle and all of them will have their own unique accent from around the country.

That's part of what I like about our two countries. We all are a bit different, but we have common bonds.

I can tell you that the spelling of words are different in Canada than in USA. Some examples from Canada include the adding of a "u" in words like "behaviour", "flavour", and "honour". But the words still sound the same.

One thing I do know is different is the letter Z. Some Canadians pronounce it "zed" and others say "zee" like the Americans do. We use that so it does not sound so much like the letter C when it is spoken, as in "zed-six-jay-four" so someone writes Z6J4 instead of C6J4 for a part number that was ordered by phone.

Answer 6

I remember reading an article about how they had to train Michael J Fox (Canadian) to speak 'American' before he began the TV series "Family Ties".  

A couple of points were:



-He had to learn to say 'mom' instead of 'mum' and

-He had to learn to say 'sah-ree' (rhyming with the article of East Indian clothing)  instead of 'sore-ee' as the Canadians do, for the word sorry.

There were more examples, but those are the two I remember.

Answer 7

It depends.  There are lots of accents in both Canada and America.  Of course the stereotypical thing with Canadian accents is adding "eh?" at the end of questions.  I used to live in North Dakota, so I met a lot of people from central Canada.  They had an accent where a lot of their vowels were more rounded sounding than some other people you'd meet.  Especially their "o"'s.  So "house" might sound like "howuse".  Also some of them said "want to go with?" instead of "want to go with us?"  

A funny thing I noticed about North Dakotan accents was the smaller the town they were from and the older they were, the thicker their accents were.  Some of the older farmers from small towns sounded like they were from Norway or something even though their family had been here for generations.  Have you seen the movie Fargo?  There really are people in North Dakota and Minnesota with accents that thick.