Canadian vs. American Accent (Canadian Raising?)

what's the difference between Canadian and American pronunciation what's the difference do you know well I think there's two issues here are we talking about accent or the pronunciation of certain words okay we pronounce certain words very differently for example I look at this letter in American English it's pronounced Z and Canadians say Z okay that's a difference it's a very conscious difference okay take a look at this word foyer or Fourier which one is it okay this front room in a building is called a foyer or a foyer now Americans say foyer okay this might be the foyer of a hotel the main lobby the front room of a hotel and Canadians would say Fourier for you okay so there's another conscious difference okay and we also have some different vocabulary that we use okay like washroom and bathroom but Canadians say bathroom as well maybe we just say washroom a little bit more okay so there are differences between Canadian English and American English but when we're talking about the accent they're actually very similar it's a very similar accent now when people think about the Canadian accent they always say this Lewton a boot boot actually we don't say that we say out in a boat it's not in a boot it's out in a boat okay this means going out of your house and doing normal daily activities okay maybe you go out and you go shopping you fill in gas you pick up the mail and then you come home and I ask you where were you you could say oh I was just out and about just doing normal things okay now there's something called of canadian raising canadian raising that's where Canadians change the sound of certain diphthongs okay a diphthong is when we have two vowel sounds next to each other and they almost make one sound okay like this ow ow ow like if someone hits you it's it out out okay now Canadian raising is when Canadians change these two diphthongs okay I and ow now we change these before voiceless consonants before voiceless concepts okay take a look at these words around now Canadians and Americans say this word exactly the same around around but look at this word about about okay Canadians change it because T is a voiceless consonant and this diphthong comes before the voices constant so we change the sound of it a little bit okay an American would say around about the same sound Canadians say around about it's a little bit different can you hear the difference okay so this is what's happening in Canadian raising now if you haven't seen my lesson on pronunciation of vowels in English you can go watch that so that you understand this a little bit more but it's not very important this is just showing what's happening in Canadian raising okay so let's take a sound like I I okay I now look at the word bike bike bike bike Americans would say bike key but Canadians say bike bike it's changed a little bit because K is a voiceless consonant okay so it gets a ray a little bit instead of starting down here I it starts up here I I bike bike okay it's the same for the sound ow ow so Americans would say house house of Canadians say house house okay so instead of starting down here we start up here ah house it's okay so that's what Canadian raising is and that's the most distinct difference I think between the American accent and the Canadian accent there are some other differences for example we say sorry and Americans say sorry sorry sorry okay we make that sound a long oh sorry and so there are other words that are like this as well we're Canadians say the long Oh and Americans say ah okay so that's you know one difference but when people talk about the American accent I always think it's a little bit funny because which accent there are so many different American accents you know the USA is a big country there's a lot of different accents okay like the accent from that someone would have down here is very different than they would have up there it's a very strong the southern accent is very strong for example they might say I'm gonna start a fire down Mississippi okay so it's a very strong accent and someone up here in Minnesota actually would speak more closely to a Canadian their accent is more similar to the Canadian accent than it is to the Louisiana accent and they're both Americans right this person and this person they're both Americans this person they're all Americans but they speak very differently okay so I think it's a little bit it's a little bit funny when people talk about the American accent because really there are lots of different American accents so are there differences between Canadian English and American English yeah there are some differences but when it comes to accent I think they're very similar okay so I want to know can you hear the difference between the Canadian accent and the American accent you know very often I can't even hear the difference I've done a lot of traveling around the world and I've met a lot of Americans and sometimes they think I'm American actually most of the time they think I'm American and sometimes I meet Canadians and I think they're Americans or I meet Americans and they're actually Canadians or I think they're Americans and they're actually Canadians okay so really there's not a huge difference you have to have really good ears to hear the difference so if you can hear the difference you have really really good listening skills but anyway let me know if you can hear the difference down there in the comments and I'll see you over in the next episode of madding TV take care you

Channel: Mad English TV

Views: 188,114

Rating: 4.9146962 out of 5

Keywords: Canadian vs. American Accent, canadian accent, american vs canadian accent, what is canadian accent, canadian raising, how to speak like canadian, canadian english, canadian pronunciation, canadian vs american pronunciation, american vs canadian pronunciation, canadian pronunciation lesson, canadian pronunciation class, how to talk like a canadian, canadian pronuncation tutorial, canadian pronuncation lecture, what is canadian pronunciation, what is canadian raising

Id: vBjC-KBhJRo

Length: 7min 56sec (476 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 14 2018