When you first meet someone from another country, say England or Russia, you are often quick to notice their accent and can tell they might not be from around here. For a lot of Canadians however, this is not the case. In general (at least from my experience in the western half of Canada), we don't talk that much different from the average American. After all, most of us speak English, some in addition to French, so it's just a matter of how we pronounce certain words.
When meeting someone for the first time, they often have no idea I am from Canada until I mention something myself. What follows after that usually falls into one of three general comments:
1) You don't have an accent!
2) Oh, I have family in Canada! They're from (insert city), do you know them or have you been there?
3) Canada, EH?
Now like I was saying before, a lot of Canadian's where I'm from don't have much of an accent and I'm the same. When people say I don't have an accent this I always go on to say how it's really only certain words that I say differently. For example, for semi-truck, I say "sem-ee truck" rather than "sem-eye truck" and for asphalt, I say "ash-vault" rather than "ass-vault". This resulted in a lot of laughter and jokes from my American friends and family, but strangers or acquaintances tend not to notice.
As for the second common comment, just like the average American, I have not been to a lot of places in Canada. It's not as small as people seem to think. Yes, the population of Canada is less than that of California, but by land mass, it's actually bigger than America. I'm also only 20 so I haven't seen as much of the world as I would like to. It is quite safe to say that I have not been where your family lives, let alone that I know them. Especially considering a lot of Canada's population is in B.C. and Ontario, neither province of which I have ever really been. (And side note, it is not cold there all the time, it's actually quite beautiful in the summers!)
Now as for the third comment, I have to plead guilty. The word "eh" is a frequent one in my vocabulary, though not nearly as much as it was before. I have dropped it a little bit, not due to the giggles and imitations that followed my saying it (though that was a regular occurrence at Bible college), but because I've picked up more on what the people around me say the longer I've been here. Now often in place of saying "eh" I have begun to say "huh" instead. This is something my family, specifically my grandpa took the liberty of pointing out. It is now a common joke between my American and Canadian family to go back and forth mocking each other with "HUH?" and "EH?" jokes.
As I briefly hinted above, Bible College was made even more interesting by being Canadian. All of my friends thought it was really cool that I was Canadian but that didn't save me from the jokes and giggles when I would say something different. It was a real eye opener for me because up until that point I had always just assumed that people in the states were just like me. I didn't know there were any differences and I never thought it was a big deal to be Canadian. Luckily, we Canadian's have a fairly good reputation in general and are known as friendly so I haven't had any terribly negative experiences when people find out I am Canadian.
That didn't mean, however, that I didn't have to put up with some serious flak from my husband's family when I first met them (mainly his dad, who I doubt will read this but will probably hear from word of mouth 😉). Even my husband insisted that I said some words not just different, but straight up wrong.
Now to be clear, I was never genuinely hurt by their comments, especially when I realized that was their way of accepting me into the family and showing love. So as a sort of initiation I put up with jokes about our mounties, our small military, Justin Bieber and stereotypes like how we're too friendly, it's always cold there, and how we're apparently scared of the dark (that one I had actually never heard before).
But now that I have put up with it, the jokes have become less frequent and I only have to hear the occasional one here and there which I give as little of a reaction to as possible (usually me shaking my head as my face goes red and I give up a small smirk).
Overall meeting people as a Canadian living in the United States has been a positive experience. I am thankful America is so accepting of Canadians even if we have to put up with a few jokes from time to time. After all, just because we're friendly doesn't mean we don't give American's a hard time when they come to Canada. Just ask my husband. 😏
When meeting someone for the first time, they often have no idea I am from Canada until I mention something myself. What follows after that usually falls into one of three general comments:
1) You don't have an accent!
2) Oh, I have family in Canada! They're from (insert city), do you know them or have you been there?
3) Canada, EH?
Now like I was saying before, a lot of Canadian's where I'm from don't have much of an accent and I'm the same. When people say I don't have an accent this I always go on to say how it's really only certain words that I say differently. For example, for semi-truck, I say "sem-ee truck" rather than "sem-eye truck" and for asphalt, I say "ash-vault" rather than "ass-vault". This resulted in a lot of laughter and jokes from my American friends and family, but strangers or acquaintances tend not to notice.
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| Banff, Alberta (August 2014) |
Now as for the third comment, I have to plead guilty. The word "eh" is a frequent one in my vocabulary, though not nearly as much as it was before. I have dropped it a little bit, not due to the giggles and imitations that followed my saying it (though that was a regular occurrence at Bible college), but because I've picked up more on what the people around me say the longer I've been here. Now often in place of saying "eh" I have begun to say "huh" instead. This is something my family, specifically my grandpa took the liberty of pointing out. It is now a common joke between my American and Canadian family to go back and forth mocking each other with "HUH?" and "EH?" jokes.
As I briefly hinted above, Bible College was made even more interesting by being Canadian. All of my friends thought it was really cool that I was Canadian but that didn't save me from the jokes and giggles when I would say something different. It was a real eye opener for me because up until that point I had always just assumed that people in the states were just like me. I didn't know there were any differences and I never thought it was a big deal to be Canadian. Luckily, we Canadian's have a fairly good reputation in general and are known as friendly so I haven't had any terribly negative experiences when people find out I am Canadian.
That didn't mean, however, that I didn't have to put up with some serious flak from my husband's family when I first met them (mainly his dad, who I doubt will read this but will probably hear from word of mouth 😉). Even my husband insisted that I said some words not just different, but straight up wrong.
Now to be clear, I was never genuinely hurt by their comments, especially when I realized that was their way of accepting me into the family and showing love. So as a sort of initiation I put up with jokes about our mounties, our small military, Justin Bieber and stereotypes like how we're too friendly, it's always cold there, and how we're apparently scared of the dark (that one I had actually never heard before).
But now that I have put up with it, the jokes have become less frequent and I only have to hear the occasional one here and there which I give as little of a reaction to as possible (usually me shaking my head as my face goes red and I give up a small smirk).
Overall meeting people as a Canadian living in the United States has been a positive experience. I am thankful America is so accepting of Canadians even if we have to put up with a few jokes from time to time. After all, just because we're friendly doesn't mean we don't give American's a hard time when they come to Canada. Just ask my husband. 😏
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