The difference is not pronounced enough to make it that hard to understand. More likely, it was an English person who had good knowledge of the language on paper, but who never really spent time speaking it with French people, so she didn't know how to say many of the words.
When I was learning English, I had issues with a few words, like "maple". It took me a while to learn that I'm supposed to pronounce it like "May-ple", not "Mah-ple". It also took me some time before learning that all English words, other than some prepositions and determinants, are pronounced with an emphasis on a particular syllable, while the rest are meant to essentially be half-tones that you just flow through.
In French, there are many words that have silent letters you don't pronounce at all. (English too, like the word "through", but French takes it to another level.) Words like that have those silent letters for one of two reasons: 1) either to differentiate them from other words that have similar spellings and that could cause confusion when reading them even in context, or 2) because it made the words look nicer on paper. And I'm serious about the second point, that's literally the reason many French words are spelled the way they are. So if someone who learned French only through reading tries to speak it, I wouldn't be surprised if many words end up sounding so butchered as to being unrecognizable. It's really not like German, where every letter needs to be pronounced.
But anyways, I wasn't there, and it was nearly twenty years ago, so I can't really say exactly what they meant. I vaguely recall them mention a thick English accent being the cause, which would make more sense to me than a French in a place like Toronto, but who knows.
The French teacher may have also been speaking Parisian (aka real) French while in Quebec they speak Quebecois French which has some differences.
The difference is not pronounced enough to make it that hard to understand. More likely, it was an English person who had good knowledge of the language on paper, but who never really spent time speaking it with French people, so she didn't know how to say many of the words.
When I was learning English, I had issues with a few words, like "maple". It took me a while to learn that I'm supposed to pronounce it like "May-ple", not "Mah-ple". It also took me some time before learning that all English words, other than some prepositions and determinants, are pronounced with an emphasis on a particular syllable, while the rest are meant to essentially be half-tones that you just flow through.
In French, there are many words that have silent letters you don't pronounce at all. (English too, like the word "through", but French takes it to another level.) Words like that have those silent letters for one of two reasons: 1) either to differentiate them from other words that have similar spellings and that could cause confusion when reading them even in context, or 2) because it made the words look nicer on paper. And I'm serious about the second point, that's literally the reason many French words are spelled the way they are. So if someone who learned French only through reading tries to speak it, I wouldn't be surprised if many words end up sounding so butchered as to being unrecognizable. It's really not like German, where every letter needs to be pronounced.
But anyways, I wasn't there, and it was nearly twenty years ago, so I can't really say exactly what they meant. I vaguely recall them mention a thick English accent being the cause, which would make more sense to me than a French in a place like Toronto, but who knows.