Saturday, December 31, 2005

American Canadians

Yesterday Erik, Steve and I went to look at another apartment. We are happy to say that this one had a kitchen (but no oven) and a double bed, so right now it is at the top of the list. The owners were an older French couple, and we went down to their apartment after seeing this one for a talk (or interview, it seemed). Anyway, they were very friendly, but couldn't believe that we were Canadians. All the Canadians that they know of are Francophone, so the husband pointed out that we didn't have a 'Canadian' accent (ie. French Canadian accent). She then told us that we were more like Americans, and she just couldn't understand that we weren't from the States. Very funny. We tried to bring them up to date on the status of English speaking Canadians, but alas, the French image of Canada prevails here in France.

On that note, I should point out that there are two kinds of English here in France. American and English. If is a book is translated from British English, it is said to have been originally written in 'English'. An American (or probably Canadian) book translated would have been originally written in American.

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