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Amusing anecdote. I was in a class with a Japanese instructor. I had a great deal of trouble understanding him. A hand was raised and a person began talking wi
by lebuffon 5y ago
Amusing anecdote.
I was in a class with a Japanese instructor. I had a great deal of trouble understanding him. A hand was raised and a person began talking with a very different accent (Finnish) and I understood very little of that. The Japanese instructor understood the question and replied. I however understood almost nothing of the entire exchange. This may be the future for native English language speakers or perhaps is already the norm in some parts of the world.
- trainsplanes 5y agoAs a non-native speaker of a non-English language, I'm often the "translator" for other non-native speakers, helping native speakers understand them. Really all I'm doing is repeating what the non-native speaker said verbatim, but with an accent that the native speaker is more familiar with.
- astrange 5y agoIf they were speaking Japanese, Finnish (and Spanish) have very similar phonetics, to the point a lot of Finnish words also mean totally unrelated things in Japanese.