[pablort]

Laziness might be a strong word, but I agree.

If you put effort in it, you can overcome. I always wonder why some people who emigrate from other countries (like myself) don't bother to put more effort in integration. It's always better to blend in.

[ldd]

I do not have a good defence as to why I have an accent, but I'll try to clarify my position.

Yes, it is true that you can get rid of an accent, and that you can overcome certain limitations that arise out of the 'state of affairs of the world'. I do not deny this.

Yet, sometimes you need a lot of effort to overcome certain obstacles. Perhaps I am somewhat inefficient with my efforts, and I should try harder. Or at the very least, consider asking for a tutor. In spite of that, I hope that you understand that we do want to blend in, and just like 'fat people', we sometimes lack the tools to appropriately do so.

So, in conclusion, I do not disagree with what you say, but I'll choose to focus on the actual actions that I can take to communicate more effectively. Right now, that means finding coaches that help with pronunciation.

[charlesism]

While it's arguably easier to learn vocabulary as an adult, it's certainly easier to learn an accent as a youngster.

If someone is even able to communicate in a second language, they've likely already put in a whole lot of time and effort to get to that point. Yet there are a lot of armchair quarterbacks in the world (especially unilingual people, I suspect) who are happy to trivialize the efforts of immigrants who haven't reached fluency.

It makes little sense to assume there are just a bunch of lazy foreigners in the world there who enjoy punishing themselves. Learning a second language, as an adult, takes time. Learning to speak without any accent whatsoever, once the learner is middle-aged is probably impossible, aside from a savant here and there.