"All your base are belong to us"
::::ducks, runs like hell::::
I was lying on the beach in my parents’ native country of El Salvador early in the afternoon. My cousin came to lay down next to me, he looked over at me and said “Too bad you can’t do this in America! Some damn kids might come over and start playing baseball in front of you!”
Now that’s a bit unfair. I always thought that episode was making fun of people that believed in those stereotypes rather than Australia itself. It’s like that episode where Lisa gets married to an English guy. Everyone had an upper-class accent and lived in stately homes. I wasn’t insulted by that, the Simpsons is a comedy after all.
I’m Australian and it wasn’t insulting at all. It was pretty funny hearing those “Australian” accents actually. “A dingow eit may baboiy”
I was a Canadian in Singapore, speaking with a Kiwi gentleman. He asks why all of us Canadians speak like Americans. I replied for the same reason all you Kiwis speak like Aussies.
I wasn’t being flip, I thought it was a good analogy.
He was very offended and would not speak to me further.
Yikes! I wasn’t offended by his question and hardly expected him to be offended by my answer.
Ooops.
Sorry, ruadh, I was being flippant. I hope I don’t have to resort to the use of smilies in future. 
That WAS a good analogy elbows. It’s usually a bit difficult for a foreigner to distinguish between an Australian and a New Zealand accent, although us Aussies and the Kiwis can distinguish each accent right away. I imagine it’s the same regarding American and Canadian accents. Also, could you please tell me what are the phonetic differences between the two aforementioned accents?
This Aussie also liked that Simpsons episode. It’s not like they didn’t make fun of the US either in it.
As for Aussie and Kiwi accents being the same… wull, thut’s rubbush.
::runs like hell before Ice Wolf reads this:: 
One thing I noticed through my travels, and my 3 years living in Europe is that many Europeans seem to have a hard time visualizing the size of America. I think most KNOW how large the US is, but it seems to be hard for them to comprehend for some reason. I grew up in Southern Illinois, and when I would mention this, they would all say, “Ahhh…Chicago.” I was nowhere near Chicago of course, but most Eurpoeans seem to see the US as being 3 cities. New York, LA, and Chicago. Oh, and probably Disneyland. We need to get the tourists to the rural areas to really show them what America is like.
We have the same situation here in Canada. Except that the 3 cities are Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver.
Also, although I haven’t experienced it myself, I grew up on stories of American tourists coming to Canada in July with skis on their roof racks and European tourists (especially French) who, as soon as they get off the plane, looks around and are amazed that there are no teepees and Indians all over the place.
Being a Texan dating a Canadian and having worked for a Canadian company, I would say that the canadian accent is closer to midwestern standard (the base accent that most actors and other media types use) than Texan or Deep South.
About the only thing I’ve noticed is an occasion use of a short a (cat) where I would use a different a (far - I don’t know what you call that)
I was telling an Icelandic countryman that I was going to university in China:
“You mean they have SCHOOLS there?”
“Ehm, yeah.”
“Yeah, but like, even college? I mean do they even speak any English?”
“Yes. Yes they do.”
“But what can you do there when you’re not in school?!?”
“Ehm, I dunno. Today for example, I might watch some football on TV, maybe even go to a match.”
“Wait, they have TV AAANNNDDDD FOOTBALL TOO?!?!?!”
He was almost catatonic at this point, and since he was not kidding I ended the conversation.
— G. Raven
Hmm… dumbest thing I’ve heard said about the US? Well, when’s the last time Tokyo Gov. Ishihara opened his mouth? This would probably also qualify as the dumbest thing said about China, Korea, Russia and the Philippines as well.
Personal experience? Well, when I was teaching English in Japan, whenever I would introduce myself to a new class, invariably someone would ask if I owned a gun or did drugs, 'cos that’s the Americans on the news are always doing, right? Oh well, at least they asked and learned something new.
–sublight.
The stereotype is that something Americans would say with the “OU” sound in “ouch” or “how”, canadians say with a double-o (like “boot” or “smooth”). Like “It’s aboot time” instead of “It’s about time.” In practice, I find that most Canadians either don’t do this at all, do it faintly, or do it only when they’re upset.
One that I’ve found to be more reliable as a way of spotting Canadians is the way they say the word “sorry.” The way Americans say the first syllable, it rhymes with “far” – “sah-ree” – but Canadians pronounce it “sore-ee” (you know, rhyming with “door” or “bore”).
similarly, US mid-western accents sound “clipped” to me - “roof” pronounced “ruf” where I would say “rooof.”
There are several words which are pronounced “properly” by Canadians, where the usage in American has not followed standard pronunciation rules.
The only ones I can think of right off the bat are “progress” and “process,” which are pronounced with a long O in Canada, but a short O in the US. I.e., Canadians pronounce the O like in hopeless, Americans pronounce it as in moderate.
When I went to England, once when I said I was from Chicago, the fellow responded, “Oh, Chicago. Gangsters!”
The exact same thing happened to me when I was in Cap-Chat, Quebec for the 1972 total solar eclipse (clouded out, damn it).
<slight hijack>
Mistaken ideas about the US are not limited to foreigners.
I lived near San Francisco for a few years. On one occasion I mentioned to a California native (a fellow consultant) I was from Chicago and the response was “They’re mostly blue-collar there, aren’t they?” From another fellow consultant the response was “Oh, they’re all farmers.”
</slight hijack>
Zgy’s story reminded me of one my dad likes to tell when making fun of East Coasters. When visiting New York quite a long time ago, my parents struck up a conversation with someone at a restaurant. The lady asked where they were from. “San Francisco,” they told her. “Oh,” said the lady, “It’s nice there, but too smoggy!” My parents tried to correct her: “The smog is in LA. San Francisco is foggy.” The lady refused to accept this and probably believes to this day all that white stuff covering the Golden Gate Bridge in postcard photos is the result of terrible air pollution. FTR, San Francisco has some of the cleanest air of any large city in the US.
My cousin was Bar Mitzvahed in February in Mexico City, and most of my family went down there. It was quite the family reunion, and I spent a day touring with another cousin, who lives in LA. I live in the Bay Area. My young cousin looked at the two of us and said, “You guys probably get to spend a lot of time together. The drive from San Francisco to LA is like 45 miles, right?” Okay, he’s only 13 and he lives in Mexico, but he’s been to both LA and San Francisco several times, and he was shocked when we told him it was closer to 500 miles.
The stereotype is that something Americans would say with the “OU” sound in “ouch” or “how”, canadians say with a double-o (like “boot” or “smooth”). Like “It’s aboot time” instead of “It’s about time.” In practice, I find that most Canadians either don’t do this at all, do it faintly, or do it only when they’re upset.
**
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OK. Here’s the poop on the main difference between Canadian English vowels and American English ones. It’s called Canadian Raising.
In diphthongal syllables ending with a voiceless consonant (“rout”, for example), the first element of the diphthong is raised.
For example, both Canadian and American pronounces row (meaning “fight”) as /ræw/. (/æ/ is “a” in “hat”). But whereas the vowel in rout is the same as that one in American, it is “raised” to [rVwt] in Canadian. (/V/, the “u” in “shut”, is a higher vowel.) So the diphthong in “rout” is pronounced aah-oo by an American and uh-oo by a Canadian.
Similarly, the diphthong in “night”, phonemically /najt/ and so pronounced by an American, is raised to [nVjt] by a Canadian: uh-ee becomes aw-ee.
I suppose these differences stem from the difference between Scottish English and English English. A much greater proportion of the English-speaking settlers of Canada were Scottish than those in the US; so features of Scottish English (in which they do say “aboot”) are found in Canadian that aren’t in American. Accordingly, where the Scottish population was densest (Nova Scotia), the stereotypical Canadian features are most prominent.
(IPA symbols rendered in Kirschenbaum ASCII system: see http://www.cs.brown.edu/~dpb/ascii-ipa.html).
:oops: That should be: uh-ee replaces aw-ee.