Learning Canadian…

Since being in North America, we’ve had to learn bits of a new language! Sure, it’s all English, but we’ve got quite a few funny looks and people asking ‘What did you say?’, and lots of times we haven’t understood others too!

So I started to make a list…

Australian words and their Canadian (and sometimes American) equivalents:

Toilet (especially public) = Washroom (Canada) or Restroom (USA) – sometimes it’s honestly like people don’t know what a toilet is, they look at you so strangely when you ask for one! But to us, a washroom sounds more like a laundry…

Tea/dinner (night time meal) = supper – Easy to get caught out thinking that ‘supper’ is after dinner/tea!

Holiday = Vacation

Powerpoint = Outlet

Puffed (exhausted…) = Winded – they didn’t understand when we said ‘puffed’

Fortnight – they have no equivalent for this, and no idea what we’re talking about!

Note (money) = bill

$1 coin = Loony

$2 coin = Toony

Jumper = Sweater

Beanie = Toque (‘Tuke’)

Thongs = Flip flops

Give Way (traffic sign) = Yield

Roundabout = Traffic Circle

Fuel = Gas

Manual (transmission in a car) = Stick shift (USA) or Standard (Canada)

Ute = Truck (except they’re about twice the size over here…)

Truck = Semi (any kind of big truck)

Bonnet (of a car) = Hood

Boot (of a car) = Trunk

Windscreen (of a car) = Windshield

Footpath = sidewalk

Breastfeeding = Nursing – gets a little awkward if you ask to have a nurse of someone’s baby!

Dummy (for kids) = Soother (Canada) or Pacifier (USA)

Cot = Crib

How’re you going? = How’re you doing?

‘Cool’ = Neat/Awesome

Jam = Jelly

Jelly = Jello

Biscuit = Cookie

Scone = Biscuit

Devon (processed meat) = Bologna

Mince meat = Ground beef

Muesli/Muesli bar = Granola/Granola bar

Lollies = Candy – No one knows what you’re talking about when you mention lollies!

Porridge = Oatmeal (USA)

Bin = Garbage can/trash can

Big bin = Dumpster

Small bag = Baggie

Dam (a small one, on a farm) = Dugout

Header (farming, at harvest time) = Combine

And a couple of things that we don’t say at home:

Give her (‘Giv-rr’) – Have a go, or Your turn, or Go hard (goes for anything really!)

And as we’re having such a hard time being understood and understanding things sometimes, we’re practising up on our Canadian accents… J

Also, Canada is officially metric, like Australia. However… There is a bit of reluctance to actually become metric rather than imperial, it seems! Basically, anything official seems to be written in metric measurements (ie. Grams, Litres, kilograms, kilometres etc), BUT things are measured in the imperial system first. So a block of butter, rather than being a nice round 500g like in Australia, is measured as a pound of butter, and the measurement written in grams (454g). And a small bottle of water is measured in ounces and written in ml (591ml (20 ounces) rather than 600ml, or 946ml (1 quart) rather than 1L) – or a big bottle of water is 1 gallon, so 3.78L rather than a nice round 4L!

If you go shopping for wood to make a bed in a van, like we did, all the wood measurements are in feet and inches, and even the nails are in sizes such as a third of an inch or an eighth of an inch, rather than in millimetres! Bathroom scales also measure weight in pounds rather than kilograms… Was a little surprising, as we knew Canada was officially metric like Australia! Some things are talked about in metric measurements (like how many hundred kilometres to another town, as the signs are in km!), and other things in imperial (like a couple of miles down the road, or buildings which are measured in feet!). Oven temperatures are measured in degrees Fahrenheit, as are often heating systems for houses, yet air temperatures are measured in degrees Celsius!

Lots of things to confuse ourselves about J