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by overcast 2509 days ago
Unless English is an easier language to understanding all broken up, nearly 100% of the time I can figure out what someone who claims to be "bad" at it is saying. English speakers, particularly in the US seem to be pretty tolerant of it. While other countries seem to be dismissive of anyone attempting their language, as if they can't POSSIBLY understand a single word you're saying.

tldr: I'm sure you sound fine, and we can all understand you.

1 comments

English speakers have contact or familiarity with a huge variety of foreign speakers, enough that we can categorise French accents, Swedish accents, Hindi accents etc etc. And we simply get heaps of practice with non-native English speakers. I don't think the same thing occurs so strongly in other languages.

English has a massive variety of vowel sounds within its different accents, as well as other variations in length, emphasis, consonants etc. Native English speakers have a subtle ear for a massive range of vowel sounds (and plenty of people can reproduce them when speaking in an accent). A Spanish person can be confused if you substitute or mispronounce a single vowel in my experience.