When I moved to the states at age 15, I came from a very prestigious English language school from my native country. As a result my written English was excellen

When I moved to the states at age 15, I came from a very prestigious English language school from my native country. As a result my written English was excellent, but nobody could understand my accent and I could not understand the American (or, more precisely, Californian) accent either. It was "Married with Children" with closed captioning on that taught me how to actually speak American English. It took me a while to figure out what a "hooter" is and why Bud Bundy would want to pretend to be a FIDE ranked Grandmaster without earning that title, but it was all very educational.