A TikToker Says Most Americans Can't Understand When Canadians Say These Words (VIDEO)

When it comes to the differences between Canada and the U.S., there are definitely quite a few of them but the way we understand words is probably not something that comes to mind.

Over on TikTok, a video from the account @zacktalk run by Zack Meredith explains a linguistic auditory phenomenon that might affect the way that Canadians and Americans hear words.

"So let's talk about the Canadian accent — to clarify, the white Canadian accent," Zach said in a video that has over 55k likes.

"I learned about this in one of my English classes in university," he explained, saying that as a native "Canadian speaker," he never saw the difference as kid.

"We learned about diphthongs and Canadian raising," Zach continued. "And so the best example that my professor gave us to help us understand is just this kind of little activity."

He then said the word "writer" accompanied by a visual demonstration of him writing followed by saying the word "rider" and a visual of him pretending to ride a horse.

"So, writer, rider, rider, writer, writer, rider," he said, flipping between the two words which almost sound indistinguishable in his accent.

"Most American people won't be able to tell the difference between those two," he explained.

Interesting stuff!

In a more humourous approach to why some people might not understand Canadians, @whitechocolategangster made a few videos about how we sometimes get misunderstood.

When someone asked a Canadian if he wanted to go for dinner, the Canadian responded with an enthusiastic "Oh yeah, no. Yeah, yeah, for sure, no. Yeah, no. No, yeah."

"Is that a yes or a no?" the question asker wondered

Seems like a pretty clear "yes," at least to this Canadian!

This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.