[shijie]

Something I’ve learned as someone with high proficiency in another language that I learned in adulthood (I would never say fluent, maybe “functionally” fluent):

Poor pronunciation (I.e. thick accent) but good grammar is usually more forgiven by a native than great pronunciation but poor grammar. Because then you sound more native, but you sound a bit… mentally slow.

I am in the latter camp. My Mandarin Chinese accent is really quite good. But I sound like a child.

So my suggestion to all learning a new language: keep a bit of your accent and heavily index on correct grammar and vocab and listening skills.

[zwieback]

I agree. I've been speaking (American) English 99% of the time for the past thirty years but still have a noticeable German accent, never get any flak for that. Apparently Joseph Conrad spoke with a heavy Polish accent so that's my excuse.

What's sad is that educated people look down on people speaking "grammatically incorrect" even if their way of speaking is consistent within their group and conveying meaning perfectly. I just call that snobbery.

[hyggetrold]

> but still have a noticeable German accent, never get any flak for that.

My experience of working with Germans in tech is that the accent is actually an asset. It's totally playing into a certain stereotype of all Germans being great engineers. "I mean...he is German...he must be smart!"

[init]

Henry Kissinger has a heavy German accent that didn't prevent him from becoming one of the most influential American politicians of the 20th century.

[fsckboy]

Henry Kissinger was also known as a ladies man. Once he was in his hotel room with a pretty woman when a world crisis broke out that required his attention. However, he was not answering the phone, so a desk clerk was sent up to the room. He knocked on the door and said "Mr Kissinger, I have a message for you". From behind the door he heard, "Go avey!" but it was important so he knocked again and said "Mr Kissinger, it is urgent that I speak to you!" and again "Go avey!" so for the third time he said "It is urgent, are you Kissinger!?" and the reply "No! I'm fuckingher! Now go avey!"

My gf's mother told me that joke back in the day, with a very heavy South American accent, but it still worked, maybe a little better because she said "Kissin-gher".

I saw Henry himself just a few years ago, right before Covid, in a NYC restaurant. He's extremely old, but he seemed very together.

You might call him a "statesman", but he wasn't precisely a politician. Also, the post WWII/Cold War era opened the door, so to speak, to a large number of displaced Europeans, scholars, to give advice about East and Middle European issues, advanced science, etc. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Werner von Braun also come to mind.

[Barrin92]

>but still have a noticeable German accent

my German accent only got less notable after speaking a ton of English living in English speaking countries for several years. For some reason losing the accent was way harder than getting rid of an accent in French.

Especially words like 'strength'. If German is your first language there is something about 'r' and 'th' sounds that's so hard to get right.

[fsckboy]

a segment of Americans pronounce that word "shtrenkth", kinda drives me crazy. Colin Powell did, and my little sister does. I have no explanation.

[causality0]

Epenthetic stops between nasals and fricatives are indicative a native English speaker. StrengKth, warmPth, prinTce, etc.

[yafbum]

Related things I've learned after moving to US:

- If your accent is not noticable, people will assume you have native-like fluency, speak fast and use colloquialisms that you may have trouble understanding. Try to work on comprehension at least as much as accent.

- Everyone in the English-speaking world has an accent anyways. Californians don't speak like Texans, English don't speak like Scottish, there are people throughout the former Commonwealth that speak a version of English that is what "native" means in their country but sounds like acquired language to others.

- When speaking with people who lack fluency in comprehension, better to speak their language if you can, even if you struggle with it. They will have less trouble detecting your incorrect expression. Too often, people who lack fluency in comprehension are afraid to say they don't understand.

[bluGill]

I.can often tell people who a fluent non native speakers because I can't figure out where they are from. Different areas have different accents and foreign learners end up with a very understandable accent that is an average that no native speaks.

[gerdesj]

All countries/languages have multiple accents. My mother was from Devon (and the forties!) and could make herself nigh on unintelligible to me and my brother and I lived in Plymouth (Devon) for eight years.

You are probably familiar with the generic south west of England accent - "aarr me hearties" and all that fake pirate bollocks. Now listen to the greatest Cockney who ever lived - Dick van Dyke - "Cor blimey Mary Poppins. Very different accents. If you drift up north, why not take a detour via Wales - several accents, quite noticeable when put side by side. The midlands has the Black country "yam yam" and Brummie, go east and there is a whole host of the bloody things. Carry on up and you got "eee bah gum" - Yorkshire and more - bear in mind that Yorkshire alone has a larger population than each of the other nations of the UK and is rather more diverse than even many Yorkies think. Lancs, Mancs and Cheshire, oh and don't forget Liverpudlean (find a recording of the Beatles speaking - they are from Liverpool). Nip on up through Geordie land and Cumbria (Cumbric has only recently died out as another Brythonic language). The Borders, where England and Scotland blur somewhat and the it gets a bit tartan flavoured.

Scotland manages to deploy a lot of accents for roughly 5.5M people. Glasgow and Edinburgh are distinguishable for me and they are only about 50 miles apart. There's Aberdeeeeeen and Perrrrrth and many more!

Over in Ireland (the island) there are several accents. The Dublin "brogue" is considered the easiest accent for a foreigner to understand, which is quite ironic. The Republic of Ireland is home to multiple accents as is Northern Ireland (UK).

The accent that D van D deploys in Mary Poppins is generally known as "Mockney" and that pirate thing is a variety of "Mummerset". Mummer is an old word for actor and Somerset is in the south west of England. This comment is getting lengthy, so I won't delve into Cockney rhyming slang, which is worth looking up if you fancy a right larf, me old septic 8)

[yafbum]

In the English speaking world, high tolerance for accents does seem to be the norm. My experience is that there are also countries outside of it with a much stronger normative accent seen as the "right" way to speak the language.

[smcl]

Fellow good accent, poor grammar haver (but in Czech) - hello! I agree completely. In fact we are not alone, here’s a video where a YouTuber is praised for his use of English (including contemporary idioms etc) in comparison to someone who has a good accent but comparatively poor command of the language itself: https://youtu.be/-81TSnMUA68?si=4j4mxiSssnQIBVRq

Personally when it comes to speaking English I find a false American or English accent quite unnerving.

[praveen9920]

I will have to disagree here. I have a South Indian accent and a good grip on grammar, at least when I'm speaking, Most of the native English speakers I encountered had trouble understanding some of the words I was pronouncing even if it was within context.

My understanding is that everyone's brain is wired to expect a word in a certain way and unless you have encountered other accents, the speaker has to repeat what they have been saying.

[deadbeeves]

I think what the GP means is that if you speak in grammatically correct sentences and are intelligible, people are less likely to complain or look down on you. I.e. that's a deliberate choice on the listener. If your pronunciation is so off that your listener can't understand you then that's something that's outside of their control; either they pretend to understand and go "uh-huh", or they have to ask you to repeat yourself.

>My understanding is that everyone's brain is wired to expect a word in a certain way and unless you have encountered other accents, the speaker has to repeat what they have been saying.

Nah. People get used to understand certain sequences of sounds and eventually get used to your particular accent, even if initially they had no idea what you were saying. One time I had to work with a Vietnamese woman (let's call her Anna) who said "transaction" like "trunsun" or something; definitely one syllable too few. After several months I was quite able to understand most of what she said, although occasionally I needed her teammate (Barbara) to translate for us. To restate GP's point, both Anna and Barbara spoke grammatically correct English and had definite East Asian accents, but Barbara pronounced things correctly and Anna didn't, so Barbara was easier to speak with, while when speaking with Anna I often had to ask her to repeat herself.

[bafe]

That's been my strategy for a long time and indeed it seems to pay off more than any of my other friends who have a perfect pronunciation but can hardly detect sarcasm or can't write a complex text

[queuebert]

The problem I've had with Mandarin is keeping my accent means imparting tones to the words which could change their meaning. But I agree with your general point.

[mkarrmann]

There's a difference between an accent and incorrect pronunciation, and using the wrong tone is the latter.

[diehunde]

Is that common though? I haven't met people that have a great pronunciation but poor grammar in a second language.