Speech pattern and typographical variations across Canada

[Aylmer]

I like the Québec English accent's quirks like the differentiation between 'Merry' and 'Marry' (I don't know of any other accent that does that) and the use of some words in a French way (Close the lights; The commerces on Princiaple; Me I like that when you cook).


Another funny thing is that I find that, as I learn more languages, little grammatical and lexical ticks get added to my English and French:

- From German, I get the sentence-ending interrogative 'oder?' which roughly translates to '...or is it something else?'; So I'll often catch myself saying things like 'Do you want coffee, or?'

- From Swedish, I get the overuse of the greeting 'Hej' [Heïï] and the word 'Jo' [yoo], which is a way of saying yes to a negative affirmation like 'You didn't cut the lawn. Yoo, I did'.

- From Japanese, I get そう [Sôôh], which roughly translate to 'aha' or 'is that so?'


I try to keep these little artefacts to a minimum, since they aren't always understood by the people with whom I'm speaking, but sometimes it can be surprisingly hard, especially when there isn't a good translation (like in the case of 'oder?' and 'jo').