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Yes, I am an accent coach and many immigrants do not accept this fact. They resist and resist out of stubbornness or laziness. I try to explain to them that peo
by throaway955 1y ago
Yes, I am an accent coach and many immigrants do not accept this fact. They resist and resist out of stubbornness or laziness. I try to explain to them that people will react better if they can speak the native language like the natives to but to no avail. It's not even a matter of "correctness." It's great that you speak Kenyan/Punjabi/Ukrainian English! But we don't speak that here!
- uncircle 1y agoThat said, if you have a foreign accent people expect a certain (low to average) level of fluency and can get quite confused if you use native idioms or slangs, which they only expect from native speakers with a native accent. There’s no way to pull off an “innit” unless you speak like a native Brit. Vocab is easy to learn, losing one’s native accent is exponentially harder the older you learn a language, and as you probably know only through hard work with an accent coach you can eliminate that uncanny valley between fluent second-language speaker and native. Also, not everyone wants to invest in a coach unless they really have to. You can learn a language on your own, not everybody has time, money and need to hire an accent coach.
- Throaway629 1y ago"Hard work," really equals taking a few lessons on tongue & mouth positioning and working on changing your vowels one at a time.
- uncircle 1y agoIt's work most people don't need to do unless they're an actor or they really need to pass for a native speaker. So maybe not hard, but often unnecessary and costs $$$.