Do you dislike being mistaken for Americans?

Gah! I had the comment mostly typed out and tabbed out and it was gone. Alas, here we go.

Once I was in London (your London, not our fake one here in Canada) riding a bus. There was an empty window seat, so I asked the young lady "is this seat taken?" She looks up and me an scowls, clearing picking up what she perceived to be an American accent or turn if phrase and says: "it's not for Americans." I reply, "but I'm Canadian!" fully expecting it to end there. But to my surprise she says, "oh, in that case" and slides over to the window.

In Germany, I've gotten into vigorous arguments with Germans over the proper adjective to use to describe where I'm from. See, in German, the adjective "American" describes anyone from the continents of North or South America. So when I tell them I am not an American, they usually respond with "yes you are." Much debate follows, usually with beer involved.

Speaking of beer. I was in Stuttgart for an open source hacker meeting a while back. After spending the day around a conference table and whiteboard, we head to the bar. The Germans in our group are ordering beer by the litre, in very large steins. When the server comes around, I ask for one as well, and she says: "most Americans find out beer pretty strong. Would you perhaps like to start with a half litre?" to which I naturally reply "But I'm Canadian!". She just goes "oh, I'll bring you a litre."

There are many more such examples. :)

I was born and raised in England by my Canadian dad, and every time he heard the words "Is your dad American" I watched a little piece of his soul die.

Me, personally, it's not a big deal. But in several ways Canadian identity is based on comparing ourselves with the United States, as if it were the only relevant comparator. I see this in policy and people's national identification. So, I do think a good number of Canadians dislike being mistaken for Americans because it doesn't align with their identity. Separate from that - and the context of this post is travel - there's a popular idea amongst Canadian travellers - especially the hostel-going type - that the world perceives Canadians better than Americans. So, many will display Canada flags when they travel to preemptively fend off the idea that they're American

Nah its just statistics. Historically Canadas population has been less than 10% of that of the US, we've almost hit a record of 12% now.

I live in Germany but im from BC so i get hit more often with the "it must snow a lot there!" and i have to explain that it only snows a few days a year and that i'm a cold weather bitch.

Funny story though, i was on a pub crawl in 2018 in London (the real one) and i happen to run into a group of ~20 Canadian soldiers who had also joined it. There was 1 American on this pubcrawl and later in the night he comes up to me in a panic and says "NAME! You're american right!?!" Haha. He had never been the minority before.

I wouldn’t feel too bad for mistaking a Canadian for an American. Our accents sound so similar that I don’t think its a big deal, especially for non native, or non North American english speakers.

That’s what I tell every Canadian I know who’s travelling anyhow. Just kindly tell them you are Canadian if they ever refer to you as American. Or carry Canadian insignia if you are concerned about it.

Yes, we see ourselves as British or French

Nope. I unironically love America.

If I got any angry for being mistaken for an American, I would be angry all the time. I'm living in Japan. People's just assume I'm American. Makes sense right? Tons of yanks; not so many canucks.

You must have caught that schmuck on a really bad day. I'm not upset by it, because we are really hard to tell apart. Some people do take mild offence, but it's a pretty unfair thing to expect someone to guess.

Often, it's good to point out you're Canadian abroad, because we're just less hated globally. Occasionally being "American" can be handy, especially in America.

A lot of Canadians can be bothered by it. I've seen them bothered by it. It's sorta cute.

However, I'm ethnically Chinese (born in UK) and the ongoing joke is how Asians (Orientals if you're from the UK) hate being confused for one another as well.

Also, not gonna lie, I've confused Taiwanese/Chinese/Japanese/Korean/what-have-you people before. However, I don't get called racist because I'm East-Asian :P

Here's the deal. I don't care ... people are rarely ever doing it to get a rise out of you. Most of the time, these are conversation starters. Also, I'm a Chinese-Brit that was confused for being Japanese growing up. Then I moved to Canada and when I said I grew up in London. They all thought I meant London Ontario because apparently London England didn't exist. Then I moved back to Canada and they all thought I was American.

I wish I wasn't white.

Only been outside of Canada/USA once and it never came up