<p><a href=“although%20I’m%20always%20tempted%20to%20ask%20someone%20with%20an%20English%20accent%20to%20say” title=“Harry Potter”>quote</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>At the restaurant I work at, this girl’s name is Mallorie but some of us call her Malfoy so that’s what she has on her nametag, and we have this British regular that was talking to her the other day and called her that. I loved it.</p>
<p>OH GOD. Newfies. They are special to say the least. Im an Ontarian, so we are pretty well American-ized… though we do say “zed” if you count that as an accent.</p>
<p>And applicannot… weird… Ive never heard anyone say it like that… although, we spell it centRE instead of centER… so maybe you just ran into a dumb Canadian who though decal was spelled decle? And when you say Canadian, do you mean a person from Quebec? They sound like theyre from France half the time.</p>
<p>“One trick is to tell an obvious lie and see if they are racist enough to call you on it. Say ‘China’ or something. It makes the Americans uncomfortable, and you can see the discomfort in their eyes, because they don’t want to say ‘***, you don’t look like you’re from China’.”</p>
<p>Haha, that’ll be awesome ^_^</p>
<p>Haha I’m staying near Guelph, and the first time I heard someone say ‘zed’ I was SO confused. I was like *** are you saying?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>i can’t tell the difference between the accents of people i live with in western canada and most americans. i’ve been to phoenix, vegas, and LA and i don’t notice that they have any different accents than us.</p>
<p>people from new jersey have accents though.</p>
<p>To be honest, I think accents <em>are</em> very cool - I love linguistics - but some of those people are downright rude. If they ask you about your accent, why don’t you juyst ask them about theirs in the same mock-excited tone? Maybe it’ll cause them to realize how annoying they are.</p>
<p>…did people really believe you ride dolphins?</p>
<p>…really?</p>
<p>Go to youtube and search Russell Peters Canadian accents. I don’t know many people from out west so I can’t speak for them. I guess when I say Canadian I mean Ontario.</p>
<p>yes New Jerseyans have accents, and unless they’re super ignorant we’re well aware of it haha.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>The trouble is that if you do anything other than answer or perform, you either look like an attention seeker or an arsehole. After all, all they did was ask you a polite question, right?</p>
<p>Tricks like the one you describe sound plausible, but they just prolong the conversation and make it look like you have a chip on your shoulder.</p>
<p>With hot girls, I’ve found mocking them a bit works. “What, you’ve never met someone from outside the state before?” puts them on the defensive and keen to impress :p</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>haven’t noticed accents in people from ontario either. without seeing the video i’m sure he just exaggerates stereotypes. to me western canadians, people from ontario, people from phoenix/LA/Vegas all sound the same. However people from the east coast of canada and quebec have obvious accents.</p>
<p>I’m guessing that you talked to people who are ESL (1st language french) in ontario as a lot of people in ottawa and whatnot are french canadian.</p>
<p>people used to ask me to say things in chinese. I’ve been tempted to say “go **** yourself” in chinese, but I just kept quiet.</p>
<p>dude I have the same problem. I’m chinese but I was born here so I don’t speak very good mandarin or cantonese. People always ask me to say something but I refuse since it will sound god awful.</p>
<p>The worst is when if you do say something, people try to repeat what you say and they get it completely wrong.</p>
<p>yea that’s why I keep quiet, not because I can’t speak chinese well, but because I cringe at the sound of Americans trying to speak chinese, and I’m too nice to tell them “gee you really suck. why don’t you plug up that hole for the betterment of the both of us.” I mean I wonder if the Spaniards, Italians or French feel the same way.</p>
<p>I cringe at the sound of anyone speaking chinese.</p>
<p>One issue is that language classes, for various reasons, always tell people that they are better at a language than they really are. Hence the phenomenon of people thinking they speak ‘fluent’ French only to not understand a word anyone’s saying when they actually go to Quebec/France.</p>
<p>That might explain why so many Americans don’t know they have sucky Chinese accents – and I suppose why so many Chinese don’t know their English sucks!</p>
<p>It has nothing to do with the classes you took. It has to do with how familiarized you are with the foreign language. If you hear someone speak Albanian, you won’t be able to distinguish what part of Albania he’s from because it’s all gibberish. Whereas if you’re an Albanian, you’d know he’s from this isolated little town where they practice polygamy.</p>
<p>Personally, I’ve been away from Chinese long enough to be completely oblivious where someone is from. I can still tell people speaking that nasty Taiwanese dialect, but nothing beyond that. Chinese people, however, can tell I’m from this province judging by my accent.</p>