Shadowing Practice: Geography Now! Canada - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Here at Geography Now, we got over 40 people that emailed us to help out with this episode from Canada.
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So without further ado, here comes the Canada episode!
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It's time to learn geography now!
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Hey Geography Peeps, I'm your host Barbie.
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A lot of people sometimes have trouble distinguishing between Americans from the US and Canadians.
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Here's a little analogy.
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Americans are kind of like teenage boys.
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They're opinionated, energetic, and confident, whereas Canadians are kind of like teenage girls.
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They'll be polite to you to your face, but then they'll talk crap behind your back.
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That being said, let's see if we can dissect the flag.
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The flag consists of a red field with a white square in the middle.
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In the middle of the entire flag lies a single 11 -pointed red maple leaf.
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Red symbolizes the sacrifice during both world wars, and the white symbolizes the peace, tranquility, and neutrality of the country.
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The maple leaf has historically been a symbol of Canada for centuries, even during British rule.
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Some Canadians will tell you the 11 points symbolize the provinces and the last one being for the territories, but eh, that's not really true.
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That's just kind of how the leaf looks.
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Also keep in mind Quebec would much rather fly this flag instead of the maple leaf, but we'll discuss more about that in...
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Alright, so Canada is huge.
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It's the second largest country in the world, so it's pretty safe to say that you can bet
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that there's gonna be a lot of interesting things when it comes to administrative divisions.
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First of all, Canada is located on the North American continent right above the United States, It's bordered by three oceans, the Atlantic, the Arctic, and the Pacific on all three sides.
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The country stretches over six time zones and is divided into ten provinces.
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Yes, people New Finland and Labrador are together one province.
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And three territories in the north, the capital of Ottawa being in the province of Ontario.
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Hoo -hoo -hoo -hoo!
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Now let's have some fun.
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Now, the thing is, Canada's domain is lavished with sovereignty enigma and semi -autonomous wonder.
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First of all, let's talk about the border.
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At over 8 ,800 kilometers or 5 ,500 miles, with thousands of markers along the way, Canada and the US have the world's longest border between any two countries.
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Things are a little tame on the East Coast except for that one island they have a dispute with Denmark over, and that one other island within kayaking distance that France refuses to let go of,
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until you get to the Quebec -Vermont border and things get a little messed up when you reach Derby Line and Stansted.
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Since the town was built before modern -day borders were properly established, the town has a variety of houses, businesses, and buildings that lie directly on the border.
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Haskell Free Library even marks the border in its reading rooms, and has an entrance for people on the US side
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and the Canada side people of each country must enter on their side, and if they exit on the opposite country, they must stay on the sidewalk and report to the customs office.
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Failure to do so and stepping on the road can result in arrest.
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And this delightfully accidental slab of confusion known as the Northwest Angle that belongs in Minnesota, mostly owned by the Ojibwe tribe, situated on the Lake of the Woods,
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where you can find the reassuringly perfect getaway spots, Massacre Island, and Little Massacre Island.
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The rest of the border tries as best as it can to cut straight on the 49th parallel, even though it zigzags a little bit, and four airports have runways that either straddle or are exactly parallel to the border.
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Somewhere around 80 % of Canadians live within 100 miles or 160 kilometers to the border of the US, and the further north you go, things just get a little kind of fuzzy and neglected.
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They still have a little bit of trouble integrating the rest of the land the further up you go.
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There are only two main highways that lead to the Yukon and Northwest Territories from the south, whereas there are virtually no roads leading to any of the provinces or territories into Nunavut.
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The only way to get into Nunavut is to either fly or take a boat.
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I mean, technically you could walk across the border, but that would suuuuck.
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Speaking of none of it, Canada has the most northerly inhabited place in the world.
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Alert Canada, a perpetually icy, frozen, desolate settlement typically operated by as few as five people year -round,
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functioning as both as a militaristic station and a seasonal research facility.
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Now the one thing you have to know about Canada's administrative divisions is
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that it all kind of constitutionally fits together until you get to Quebec.
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Although Quebec is still considered a province of Canada, they've made it very clear in the past
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that they have a strong sense of Quebecois nationalism that many even take to the separatist extreme.
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Nonetheless, many of Canada's divisions and functions are heavily influenced by the landscape, such we will discuss in...
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Okay, so once again, Canada is huge and often referred to as the Great White North.
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However, not all of Canada is a chilly Arctic tundra.
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First of all, Canada's physical features are built with a strange yet complimentary mix of geological and meteorological...
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Yes, that's a word.
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Meteorological facets.
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Looking at Canada, one of the most notable features that sticks out would have to probably be the Hudson Bay.
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The second largest bay in the world after the Bay of Bengal, and the largest bay that freezes over in winter.
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This bay provides a drainage basin that hydrates about half of the entire country, and a little bit of the northwest of the US.
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The strange thing is that the Hudson Bay actually sits on a gravitational anomaly in
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which gravity here is actually a little bit lower than the rest of the planet's average.
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It has to do with some kind of science -y reason about ground convection, ice melt rebound, yadda yadda yadda.
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Hey guys!
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Want to lose some weight?
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Try the new workout and diet trend!
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Hudson 90X!
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Our diet and workout plan includes - going to the Hudson Bay!
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No, but seriously, almost nobody lives along the Hudson Bay.
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It's almost impossible to build roads with the rugged, splotchy rock landscape with too many ponds and lakes getting in the way for any straight highway to be built.
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Speaking of which, at around 2 to 3 million, it's actually speculated that around 60 % of all the world's lakes
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and about 30 % of all the world's fresh water can be found in Canada.
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Tap water can actually have better quality than bottled water in Canada.
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This has to do largely with the domineering, freckly, crevice zone that takes up about half of the entire country, the Canadian Shield.
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The Canadian Shield is a wide plateau of exposed Precambrian igneous rock that harbors little soil and vegetation, but offers a glory field of mining.
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Canada has some of the world's richest deposits of metal ores like nickel, gold, silver, and copper.
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Two -thirds of all the cesium in the world comes from one mine in Manitoba, Burnic Lake.
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Fun little side note, Canada has the world's largest third order lake island.
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That's an island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island.
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Located on Victoria Island, this little squiggly four -acre rock was discovered by map nerds who scrolled Google Maps just a couple of years ago.
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The island has no name and has most likely never had anyone stepped foot on it.
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I mean, I'll do it if nobody else will, but I might need a corporate sponsorship.
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I'm looking at you Aunt Jemima.
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Canada also has two of the top ten largest impact craters on Earth.
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Sudbury Crater in Ontario and Manacoucan in Quebec with its almost perfectly circular imprint -blooded
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and now a reservoir that you can see from space.
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Okay, there's a lot more in this section, so I'm just gonna kind of rapid fire throughout all the rest of the facts.
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About 40 % of the country is covered in forests, and about one -tenth of the world's forests are in Canada.
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Over 60 % of the world's polar bears live in Canada.
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The Bay of Fundy has the world's highest tidal range, with the highest point being over 16 meters.
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Niagara Falls looks cool.
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Mount Thor has the world's highest vertical drop.
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Quebec alone supplies about 70 % of the world's maple syrup, and they actually have a maple syrup reserve with over 222 ,000 barrels of maple syrup.
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Prince Edward Island has a weird natural phenomena in
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which the sands on the beach make this weird squeaking noise when you step on it.
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Here's some footage.
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The largest inland lakes besides the ones shared with the US on the Great Lakes are the Great Bear
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and Great Slave Lakes, named after the Slave -y people.
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No, I'm not talking about slaves, I'm talking about the Slave -y people.
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There's a difference.
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One we'll discuss in...
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Canada is one of those places where everybody kind of fits in, but there's always a little bit of gossip going around every corner.
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First of all, Canada has about 35 million people, making it one of the least densely populated places on Earth, about three quarters of whom identify as white, Asians make up about 14%,
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Natives and Aboriginal peoples make up a surprising 5%, Blacks at 3%, Latinos at 2%, and the rest are just kind of everything else.
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Now again, Canada's population takes another turn because in addition to ethnicity, Canada also has linguistic groups.
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About one out of every three Canadians either speaks French fluently or understands enough to get by.
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The whole Quebec thing kinda plays a paramount role in Canada's societal operations.
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They kinda have to work really hard to make sure that this one province cooperates.
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Also, keep in mind, Quebec isn't the only place in Canada where French is spoken.
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Communities in Ontario, Manitoba, and especially the Maritime Province like New Finland, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia have huge communities of French speakers.
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The difference though is that these French speakers have an even deeper level of segregated culture.
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Many people in the maritime provinces have a unique Acadian French culture that differs from Quebec.
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Fun side note, the Cajun people of the US in Louisiana are generally descended from the Acadian people
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that were expelled and deported from these provinces by the British in the 1700s.
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Back then, the Louisiana Purchase didn't happen yet, so all of this area was still French.
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Yadda yadda yadda, they came over and invented gumbo.
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So that's why Cajuns speak French, America, because Canada!
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Nonetheless, about one out of every five Canadians was born outside of Canada, making Canada pretty diverse.
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Especially by US entertainment quota standards.
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Alright, tossing a black guy, an Asian girl, hey, why not throw in one of those Indian guys?
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Those people are trending these days, but make sure the lead is a handsome, attractive, rocket white guy.
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And this is where I want to make a geography now spotlight.
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Canada has a somewhat shrouded community of under -highlighted individuals that typically go unnoticed, even by Canadians.
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Sure, we can talk about Toronto, Vancouver, heck, even Calgary has some chips on the table.
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But nobody really gives these guys a chance.
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So Yukon, Northwest, none of it.
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I'm putting you guys on display.
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All together the population of all three of these territories is only about 110 ,000 people, making it the most sparsely populated area of all of Canada.
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First of all, indigenous peoples of Canada number about 850 ,000
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and all together have about 630 reservations speckled throughout the entire country.
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The largest reserves are located in these territories.
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Indigenous people in Canada are generally categorized into three separate groups.
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The First Nations, the Metis, and the Inuit.
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The Metis are mixed race indigenous, the First Nations are generally southern tribes that typically live in forested areas, and the Inuit are straight up Arctic folk.
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Here's how you can kind of distinguish the three territories.
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Yukon is predominantly white, the Northwestern territories has a lot of First Nation tribes, like the slave people who can be found close to the great slave lake, although many of them prefer to be called the Dene.
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Cool side note, the Navajo tribe in the U .S to some extent trace their heritage to these people.
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SEE HOW EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED PEOPLE?!
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Finally, we reach Nunavut, which is almost exclusively Inuit.
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The Northwest Territories in Nunavut actually used to be part of the same territory, but then in 1999, Nunavut was like, I ain't having Nunavut, and became its own thing.
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No, but seriously, Inuit culture is one of the most underrated and culturally fascinating things you'll ever encounter.
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They speak Inuktitut, a cousin of the Greenlandic language, they can pretty much understand each other, and they have their own written script that you can find on street signs and traffic posts.
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They have a long history of vibrant traditions, rituals, games, music, and even cuisine.
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If you ever come here, make sure you try some whale blubber and watch a throat game song which looks like this.
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What a great way to make friends.
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Which takes us to...
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Canada is friends with everyone.
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The end.
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Nah, okay, let's elaborate just a little bit more.
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Okay, so Canada does kind of typically maintain a foreign policy
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that does encourage diplomacy outreach to pretty much every country that they can grab at.
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Heck, they even had good ties with Cuba after the US put an embargo on them.
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Nonetheless, Canada's relations kind of typically shadow those of the US.
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Allies with the same allies, and opponents with the same opponents.
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I mean, have you seen the movie Argo?
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First of all, Canada is not only part of the Commonwealth, but the Commonwealth realm.
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Yes, there's a difference.
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So in general, they pretty much get along with everything that was once part of the British Empire.
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Then you get the Francophone countries that also jail well with Canada as well.
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The funny thing is, although the US complains about the immigration procedures of Mexicans into the US, Canada is actually trying to coerce and entice Mexicans to come in.
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With its low birth rate and a need for a bigger workforce to assist the aging population, Canada has relaxed its immigration and visa policies in order to gain skilled workers, and specifically from the Central American region.
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Flyers and advertisements are spread all over Mexico, encouraging them to move in.
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Of course, when it comes to those closest to them, Canada does have their top pick.
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The United States.
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Some say Canada is like the little brother of the U .S., some say it's like the best friend, but in all honesty, Canada and the U .S are kind of like teenage high school sweethearts.
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Canadians and Americans have been there for each other since day one.
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The US is the largest export and business partner of Canada, and shares the closest diplomatic ties both nationalistically and militaristically.
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The difference between Canadians and Americans though is that Americans gain their independence by force, whereas Canadians by diplomacy.
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American immigration policy is like a melting pot where people are kind of expected to assimilate, whereas Canadian foreign policy is kind of like a mosaic.
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People are encouraged to be distinct culturally.
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In all honesty though, they are kind of like a cute little teenage boyfriend -girlfriend couple.
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Sometimes they like to poke fun at each other, but at the end of the day, they're totally dating, and they're totally making out with each other in the back of the movie theaters.
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In conclusion, Canada, you little sweet cheek, you.
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I'll pick you up at 7.
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We're going out for some pancakes on that island, in a lake, on an island, in a lake, on an island.
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Stay tuned!
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Cape Verde is coming up next. so
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Why This Video Is Great for English Speaking Practice
The "Geography Now! Canada" video is ideal for IELTS speaking practice and improving conversational fluency. Its casual, engaging tone mirrors real-life dialogue, making it perfect for shadow speech—a technique where you repeat phrases aloud in sync with the speaker. The mix of facts, humor, and storytelling keeps you engaged, while the clear pronunciation and varied sentence structure help build listening and speaking skills. Whether you’re learning English with videos or refining your accent, this clip offers diverse material to practice with.
Breaking Down Natural English Phrases
Let’s analyze a few lines to see why they sound authentic:
- "Hey Geograpeeps, I'm your host, Barby": The nickname "Geograpeeps" and casual self-introduction create a friendly vibe, common in conversational English. Mimicking this helps with tone and rapport.
- "That being said, let's see if we can dissect the flag!": "That being said" is a natural transition phrase, often used to shift topics smoothly. Practicing such connectors improves flow in speaking.
- "I mean, technically, you could walk across the border, but that would suck...": The filler "I mean" and colloquial "suck" make the speech sound unscripted. Learning these nuances helps you sound more like a native.
A Simple Shadow Speak Routine for This Video
Try this shadowspeak exercise to boost your skills: 1. Watch a 30-second segment of the video, focusing on the speaker’s rhythm and intonation. 2. Play the segment again, pausing after each phrase to repeat it aloud, matching the tone and speed. 3. Record yourself, then compare it to the original. Note differences in stress or pauses. 4. Repeat daily with new segments. This loop trains your mouth to form natural sounds and improves your ability to speak fluently in real time.
By using this video for shadow speech, you’ll not only learn about Canada but also build the confidence to speak English more naturally—key for IELTS speaking practice and everyday communication.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being said · is located · is divided |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | they've made · has most likely never had · has relaxed |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who can · Nunavut, which is |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.