Can’t hear the difference: 03 (American accent vs Canadian accent)

This is another one where lack of exposure also causes problems.  Luckily, they don’t mind when I identify them wrongly.

    A Canadian hitchhiker in Scotland to whom I gave a lift to Glencoe back in 1984 didn’t have long enough time to go into the details, so he told me that the rule of thumb is that the American accent is more nasal.

    Someone else told me there’re some vowel sounds that give them away.  “Mac” rings a vague bell.

    Googling has produced this:

Quote

Vowel Sounds:  Canadians tend to have a slightly different set of vowel sounds compared to Americans, particularly in the “a” sound.

Unquote

(from googling) Canadian and American English are closely related, with Canadian English often described as a variant of General American English. The most notable difference is Canadian Raising, where Canadians raise the vowel sound before voiceless consonants in words like "house" and "bike," resulting in a higher pitch. Americans tend to pronounce these sounds with a lower pitch.