Speaking English with foreign accent

[floatingmoon]

English is my second language, yet my oral skill is quite good.

However, when I meet people with heavy foreign accent, it's a bit challenge to understand what are they talking about.

I am curious, as for those of you (who English is your first language), do you find it hard to understand English speaking with heavy foreign accent?

[bhchao]

I guess it depends on the individual, and how long you know the speaker and the length of time you were exposed to hearing them speak. At first I found listening to Arnold Schwarzeneggar's Austrian-accented English difficult to comprehend. But after continuously hearing him give interviews on TV, I become adapted to the way he speaks and have no problem understanding him.

Usually you can tell if a non-native English speaker is Chinese, Korean, or Japanese just by hearing their accent when speaking English.

[Senzhi]

And it's not only non-native English speakers ... also native English speakers can have a strong local accent, e.g. Scottish, Texans, ...

[adrianlondon]

as for those of you (who English is your first language), do you find it hard to understand English speaking with heavy foreign accent?

Initially, yes, but we get used to it.

I deal a lot with Indian call centres and their English pronunciation can be terrible, but as they all have similar terrible-ness, I've gotten used to it. So has most of the UK population, especially as we have many Indians living and working here.

My Taiwanese boyfriend, however, can't understand a word they're saying and if he has to phone one up (such as a mobile phone query) I'll usually make the call. He is getting used to it though, so it just needs acclimatisation.

It also works the other way around. When I was at BNU in Beijing, the teachers always seemed to understand what I was saying, and so would Chinese I met who had exposure to many foreigners. Others, though, struggled initially to understand what I was saying. I've sorted that now, as most Chinese believe their langauge is either spoken "right" or "wrong". And, obviously, I want to be "right" ;)

In the UK (probably most Western countries?), we accept people's accents. French people speaking English usually pronounce "th" in words such as "the" incorrectly. But as they all say "ze", we just accept it as a French accent and, to be honest, many people including myself think French guys (not women for some reason) speak English with a very sexy accent. They speak their own language with a sexy accent too. According to me.

[fireball9261]

I am not a native English speaker, but I did not have problem understanding people speaking English with an accent. When I was in UC Irvine in early 1980's (it was predominately white Americans at that time), we had an Indian Professor who had very thick accents. All my non-American/immigrant classmates had no problems understanding him. However, all my white American classmates (about 270+ of them) had problems understanding him. I think it was their prejudice affecting their listening abilities. I have encountered people who couldn't understand foreigners who speak their languages perfectly and without accents. These people included, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Americans. It's like their brains just shut down processing their native languages when a foreigner is speaking them.

[heifeng]

I think it was their prejudice affecting their listening abilities.

I also distinctly remember as a freshmen going to school also in the UC system just a few years ago, and attending out of state, and just having a truly difficult time understanding what was being said by some foreign professors. I don't think it's unreasonably to imagine even an English native speaker can have a difficult time understanding accents of foreigners speaking English because, as mentioned as a previous poster, everyones exposure to such accents vary. Now, I can probably make out the most horrific, mangled English, but it took some time to get use to different accents, and this didn't happen until I left my hometown and traveled around in the US and abroad. Even so, my worst experience was trying to figure out what some cab drivers in the south were saying, but in anycase, when in doubt its not that difficult to be polite and just ask what someone means if you don't understand the first time. To be honest I have some friends from other English speaking countries who might say something really quickly or throw in some local slang and I will be completely lost (long ago I think I even started a thread that no one replied to on this topic), but just ask what they're talking about and that will basically clear it up. Sometimes I let it slide but then it really bothers me that I can't understand 'English' (and sometimes the expression keeps popping up) so I am forced to ask what they mean.

So, maybe some of those students are prejudiced, but maybe they are just not as exposed to accents either. Some of my ESL friends go to school with students from around the world, so I could easily imagine that they have heard more English accents than Joe Blow down at the local hardware store in one of those red states or something. I have a Korean friend studying English in Canada with a buch of Brazilians. I am pretty sure he's going to understand their English much better than me if we all start chatting one day since he's been around them for the last few months and even picked up their English accent! On a whole, Americans are not really the most international travelors and not that many of us spend that much time in ESL classes with foreign students. (although admittedly, it probably wouldn't hurt for a quick review of the basics and I am sure they're are plenty of foreign students that can speak English more properly than some English native speakers!)

Also, I have a theory that listening comprehension isn't so much about listening to words as it is being able to predict what someone is going to say and the general idea. This is especially effective when put into practice during phone convesations, drive-through windows, the above mentioned Indian call centers, and people speaking through megaphones, walkie talkies, chirp phones, and police radios

So in conclusion it CAN be challenging at times, even for a native speaker, but it can only get so bad and then it starts to get better....

[Madot]

Spot on. It's really a matter of exposure. The more accents you hear, the easier it becomes to understand new ones. I am an American living in Australia and I work with over-seas students (many Chinese) who have come to study in Oz. They can all understand my English because they're used to American accents, but they have a devil of a time understanding their Australian lecturers. One suggestion which has been helpful is to download podcasts from the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company), which though mostly in 'Australian', do contain a variety of accents. I assume the same could be done for those of us wanting to try and cope with different Chinese accents.

Madot

[fireball9261]

Exposure is the basic factor, but the ones I mentioned had a lot of exposures already.

The white female banker in my mom's bank works in a location that has a lot of Chinese, and my English, after 30+ years in U.S. and close to 30 years with my native Californian husband, was close to no Chinese accent at all (I was told so by amazed American tourists in China who were helped by me as well as my American neighbors and co-workers).. She still has trouble understand my English, and we were discussing specific terms related to her job; i.e. my mother's bank account! Btw, she was blonde haired and blue eyed, and I am always suspicious when blonde haired blue eyed white people behave that way. I guess that is my prejudice after encountered a few of those people and some of the modern neo-Nazi attitudes.

My husband pronounced certain Chinese and Japanese very well and without accent. He liked to order his Chinese food in Chinese and Japanese food in Japanese in restaurants frequented by Americans in California. The Chinese waitresses and Japanese waitresses were taken aback by his orders and couldn't understand him until he speaks a few more times. The same thing happened when he tried to order a specific Japanese Anime DVD from a Japanese store in LA, California. The Japanese cashier had no ideas what he was saying until I wrote the Japanese words down for her. Then, she pronounced the words exactly as my husband did. That is why I said, "prejudice!"

[adrianlondon]

she pronounced the words exactly as my husband did.

To your ears, maybe. We get used to only hearing what we need to. Well, ok,we hear everything but the brain only presents what it thinks it needs.

Find someone who's never spoken Chinese before to say "knee how". They'll say it perfectly. But with the tones all wrong. Not because they're stupid, but because they don't "hear" the tones and hence don't reproduce them.

A Taiwanese friend of mine, when helping me with my pronunciation, couldn't spot the difference between me saying "ing guo ren" and "ying guo ren" (I wanted to know which was correct). I, of course, can clearly year the "y" at the start; he couldn't. When I told him what I was doing, he was "oh yeah! Now I can hear it".