or inside canada, how do you tell someone from atlantic provence's from a some one who hails from BC?
Any word containing the -ar sound will give away someone from Atlantic Canada. Car, garbage, heart...it has to do with where your tongue is in your mouth during the vowel. In the west, the tip of your tongue is forward, and your tongue is pretty flat. In the east, you tilt your tongue back toward the roof of your mouth, and tense your jaw a bit. Try it a few times, that's the only way to hear the difference. If you're getting it, then "car" begins to sound like "cur", although of course it's not that extreme.
You can tell someone from Ontario because they almost stick an extra sound in words like "Canada" or "can't", making it sound like "k-yanada" or "k-yant". So if you want to see if someone is from Ontario, get them to say Canada. My Ontarian friend hates it when I point it out, but it seems so obvious to me! The kids on Degrassi Junior High/Degrassi High all had Ontarian accents. Ontarians also make the vowels much shorter - more like the Scottish sound - in "out" or "about" - the two favourite Canadian words for US'ns to make fun of. I mean, we all say them differently from US'ns, but it's much more pronounced the farther east you go.
