Please tell me whether Canadian and American accents are nearly similar or not.In the rules about pronouncing t and r,is the Canadian accent the same the American accent or not?(I know the rules of pronouncing of t and r in BrE are different to AE)
About Canadian accent
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There are various different regional accents in the United States and within Canada too. But people who are not from the North American continent do often mistakenly identify Canadians as being from the USA. There are differences, although the similarities are naturally greatest where the two countries border each other.
Most Canadians speak with a GA (General American) accent, the standard that you often hear on TV. So yes, the rules for pronouncing r and t are the same.
As cando said, there are some regional accents in Canada, but they are spoken by exceptionally few people in pretty rural/remote areas. These regional accents (Newfie, Maritime, Central Canadian rising) are also all rhotic anyway, the same as GA.
As cando said, there are some regional accents in Canada, but they are spoken by exceptionally few people in pretty rural/remote areas. These regional accents (Newfie, Maritime, Central Canadian rising) are also all rhotic anyway, the same as GA.
If you live in Canada for a while, you will be able to distinguish the characteristic difference(s) between “General American” and “General Canadian”. The most frequently cited one is the use of something like “oat” for the word “out”. Beyond that, as oakie says, the regional variations within each country will play a big role in any comparisons.
If there's such a concept as a "Received American" accent and a "Received Canadian" accent (like you'd hear from each country's national news anchors), then they're nearly identical. But a thick Quebec English accent would sound very distinct from a deep south American accent.
That's why the terms were in quotes. My experience is that there are many distinct regional accents in the US (with tell-tale sounds) and that if someone doesn't display any of them, I can't tell where they are from and it eliminates those regional accents - that would be as close as I could come to describe a "General American" accent
Many newsreaders from the national TV networks are like this.
So you say... But personally, I'm quite oblivious to this phenomenon.
Not that I pay close attention to my own pronunciation, but I don't think I speak like that, and I've never had anyone tell me that I do.
The only obvious Canadian regional accents I notice are those from Newfoundland and from Cape Breton.
Yeah - when I lived in England I thought I had no accent, eitherSo you say... But personally, I'm quite oblivious to this phenomenon.
Not that I pay close attention to my own pronunciation, but I don't think I speak like that, and I've never had anyone tell me that I do.
The only obvious Canadian regional accents I notice are those from Newfoundland and from Cape Breton.
I lived in Ontario for three years (on my way from the UK to the US) and oat/oot was one of the first things that hit me when I arrived, eh. By the end of my stay I could recognize someone from BC as having a different "oat/oot" than the Ontarians, even though much else was identical.
I have some family who live in Nova Scotia, and they definitely have a strong, (to my ears), "oat/oot" thing going on, eh.
I first noticed it at a summer camp I attended with mostly US kids but some Canadians too. We said almost everything approximately the same except "out," "about," and "tomorrow" (there might be other words that varied, but they didn't come up in the summer camp conversation) and those words were very noticeably different. Campers came from mostly the Midwest and Ontario; the camp was in northern Indiana.