Quote:
Originally Posted by wrholt
It's true that the general Canadian accent is quite similar to the general US accent. However, Canada also has some regional varieties of English that are as extreme as some of the accents from the southeastern US or the coastal areas of the northeastern US: the two that are most pronounced are the the French-influenced English in bilingual towns in Quebec, especially in the Eastern Townships, and the stereotypical accent of Newfoundland.
The regional accents in the US are also more varied that it might seem from US films and television. While it's true that US regional accents are often classified into 3 groups (northeastern, southeastern, and everywhere else), each of these groups consists of dozens of smaller regional accents that tend to share a relatively small number of features but still have significant differences in both pronunciation and vocabulary. Urban areas such as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia are notable for having distinct accents between individual neighborhoods, although some of those differences have become less strong over the past 50 years.
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I completely agree that Canada has regional accents and slang as well, however I find even the strongest Newfoundland accent much easier to understand than say an African American person from New Orleans. And I think also with the Canadian you are much less likely to be exposed to a strong regional accent as compared to the US. The large majority of Canadians seem to have very similar accents whereas in the US, you can tell their origin much easier, at least to my ears
While I certainly agree there are strong regional variants and a Boston and a Long Island accent for example are very different, I couldn't pick one over the other for easier understanding. I find most of the east coast and southern variants equally as hard.