And as usual, you are all being too f*cking politically correct.
I totally disagree with all of you immediately got your hackles up and were offended by my post instead of seeing that what I’m ranting about could have a huge fat kernel of truth.
If I don’t think some of you multi-language speakers out there can speak the English language properly, then it’s true because you cannot vouch for every single multi-language speaker out there to be perfect the way you are.
Anyway, I am not targeting YOU specifically, I am saying IN GENERAL, it’s a good rule to stick to if you are multi-lingual.
I’m not saying that ALL speakers who can speak multiple languages suck at anything BUT their native language, but quite frankly if it’s a language you’ve just learned, or just aren’t comfortable with for whatever reason.. OR….. you just freaking know you have a very strong accent then you need to be aware that I can’t understand you.
(Hell, sometimes I don’t understand my own parents).
That and this was and is not about mocking them, so don’t get all up in my stuff about how admirable it is that they speak many languages, bla bla bla.
I know.
The rule applies to English people learning another language too, not just other cultures. Think about it in reverse, an Anglophone trying to speak Chinese.
It’s a hell of a job to understand what they’re saying because they just don’t have that language down pat- they have never had to learn the 4 tones in Chinese and they mix up the word “death” with the number 4 just by a slight tonal change.
Better yet, let’s use me as an example.
Case in point: I wish I could speak French fluently but I don’t (yet, and some really nice people have emailed letting me know they’d love to help me), and even if I tried, it would take me years before I could ever speak it like a native French speaker (and even then, prognosis = DOUBTFUL).
So when I try to pronounce words like “truc” or “concombre”, I have to go slower or just try to avoid using that word altogether because I just can’t say the “eu” in TRUC or the “bre” in CONCOMBRE
Or I just have to spend my life in front of a mirror practicing French words like that if I am picky about being perfect.
In addition, BF also speaks 4 languages. Even he has admitted that sometimes words in English get him confused because he can’t pronounce certain words with a proper “H” on them, so “hate” comes out like “ate”, and when he says:
“I (h)ate snakes!” … I’m hearing it as “I ate snakes!“. Capisce?
See how confusion can happen when you’re on the other line listening and then you hear that your love has eaten snake for dinner?
(A mortal FB enemy, as I am extremely scared and nervous about snakes since they’re on the ground slithering near my feet where I rarely pay attention. I suppose I should be thrilled that he ate member of the Animal Kingdom that I am scared of… but I totally wasn’t.)
So he goes slower on that word to try and pronounce it better, or he just uses another word entirely like “dislike” or “detest” which is close to the French word.
Some East Asians (Indians) and Asians in particular have this problem if they’ve just moved to a new country, and when they speak English, it’s like they forget that they have a strong accent, are speaking in another language that isn’t their native tongue that they’ve worked hard to learn, and they just rush through the words, biting off the end or slurring vowels and talking in the same style as their mother tongue (very fast).
I worked with Brazilians on my last project and they were pretty good as first-timers because even though they have never really used their English skills, they went slower, and used simple words, which really helped.
So, what prompted the rant, Eric, (good question by the way), was trying to get some computer service help (I needed an activation code for a program), and the Indian guy (as most IT is outsourced to India) on the other line was talking so fast in his faux English that I couldn’t even make out what he was saying.
I’m tellin’ ya, on the phone, it’s a lot harder to understand WTF anyone is saying because I cannot see their faces or their lips.
And they have no clue what I am saying in return, so I ended up repeating myself 5 times before he asked me to spell it.
If someone is asking you to repeat yourself, or constantly saying “PARDON ME?”, then you need to pick up the f*cking hint and slow down and enunciate more.
I also have a slight problem with strong Russian accents or strong Australian accents. But it just takes some adjusting before I get used to how they pronounce the actual vowels and consonants before I’m comfortable understanding them.
Even native English speakers have this problem of speaking too fast when they speak in front of audiences. But at least I can understand them most of the time, even if they slur words or go too quick.
And unless you practice ALL THE TIME with your 2-7 languages (like one day of the week dedicated to JUST speaking one language), you are never, EVER going to be 100% fluent in all of them, all the time speaking like a perfect native of that language — the brain forgets a lot of things because it can only hold so much.
There are going to be times where you get confused, lost or mix up the words between the languages as BF does all the time (which is the cause for lots of confusion followed by laughter).
So I’ll repeat myself:
GO SLOWER and ENUNCIATE MORE, and STOP trying to pretend like you haven’t thought the same thing, or something similarly un-PC about other people in your life.
I’m not a saint and you aren’t either.
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
If the issue was with someone in India they really do speak English – it’s one of their two official languages. Like Canada India has lasting influences of British colonial rule including English. While their accent is often mega-strong it’s just an accent in much the same way as Australia, the hundreds in the British Isles, South Africa, Botswana etc. Finding people hard to understand isn’t always due to a lack of fluency but a lack of familiarity. It took me 5 tries to get a glass of water on a plane to Canada despite the drinks cart context simplifying the likely vocab – and I have a mild New Zealand accent that internationally speaking is pretty neutral -the ‘r’ wasn’t the same and that was enough.
I'm a little late to the party here, but you'd find me impossible to understand – Australian with a lisp! That said, I don't think my accent is particularly strong – no Crocodile Dundee here!
I think I could understand you. I’m a native English speaker, so I can understand pretty much every accent given some time….
I do have problems with anyone who talks super fast and mumbles though, which is what I find with a lot of reps.
fb, i’ve had the same experience calling customer service. in fact, the guy yelled at me for constantly asking to repeat. i’m not the one who can’t speak english! i think they flagged me as a difficult customer. call during regular business hours, you’re more likely to get a north american customer service rep.
Actually…fluency and accent are independent of each other. You can speak with perfect grammar and vocabulary but have an accent, and you are fluent. But I have to write more or else I’ll be thought of as didactic and dull…
I’m American. While living in Edinburgh, I took a night class in the archaeology of Pompeii. Everyone in the class knew me as “the American who isn’t loud”, heh. Anyway, we had an American guest lecturer from one of the Ivies, and he was impossible to understand – all his words ran into each other, and there was zero intonation/emphasis. I had fun watching my classmates – they were trying so hard to tune into his weird speaking habits, and kept asking him to repeat things. At the break they asked me why he was so difficult to understand, and I had to admit that it was no easier for me than it was for them. It did make me giggle that they were looking for an English-to-English translation, and I was classified as “bidialectal”.
As for argumentative comments – just wait until they have to call a customer service line and find themselves bounced around a call center in India. Don’t give into the trolls.
I would not say exactly so. If you try to learn German and not French, ypou would find it much easire, at least with respect to language pace, pitch, tone and pronounciation. Which does not happen to French, for instance, as languages are not so related.
Case in point, Italians would easily learn Spanish (they can understand half of it without any training).
living in a culture speaking the language you would like to learn helps preventing the accent in your native language influence the language you learn.
and it really depends on native skills and how much time do you spend in that culture.
(of course, I am not native in English)
My BF does the silent “h” thing as well. He also has a a problem with T sounds like “th”. I love teasing him about it. He is French Canadian. I can not do the “r” in French. It drives me nuts!
I missed whatever prompted this rant (or forgot it) but I have to say this: even native speakers lose the ability to pronounce properly, lose syntax, lose their grasp of the grammar over time. It just happens! I grew up speaking my native language, and English, equally fluently and now that I use English more, I find myself occasionally floundering in my native language even though I use it every day at home.
Other native speakers encounter the same problem. My Portuguese friend learned English as a second language in her thirties. She promptly “loses” her ability to speak English when she’s in Portugal, and vice versa when she comes home. She has a strong accent no matter what language she speaks. I just can’t tell what that accent is.
Happens. I need British and Australians to slow down just because I get so caught up in the sound of their pronunciation that I miss the actual words, or subtle nuances. Yet, I do speak English fluently.
I don’t know what the point is, but language is awesome, multiple languages are awesome, and no matter how many languages any of us speak, we’ll still have misunderstandings.
I guess it’s difficult for you to take ANY criticism.
Hahahaha. Seriously, this is why I hope my blog never gets popular because I say stuff that is actually offensive sometimes and I don’t think I could deal with people overreacting and getting butthurt about it.
I really just wanted to know the story behind that post… Now I’m glad I do.
Eff the haters, girl, and do your thing!
I’m sorry, but you get way too defensive about these things.
When you post comments like you did, you have to know that some people will disagree. When you start a blog and allow comments, you must know that people will leave comments disagreeing. Yet you get so defensive!
In fact, I’m expecting you to write a whole post on my comment right now, because I’m probably saying something you don’t like.
I’ve been a reader of yours for awhile now (and haven’t commented til now) because I appreciate the honesty and candidness with which you talk about your financial life and I also like your random posts about fashion, moving, etc.
But stuff like this… just relax a little please. You’re going to have hypertension at a young age.
I agree with this. I speak 2 languages as well and still have the same problems, yo.
Just because I CAN speak French very quickly, doesn’t mean I SHOULD. Like you said, if I don’t practice it all the time I lose my edge a little bit.
Since it’s NOT my mother tongue, even when I speak with my Francophone friends I slow my words down. My accent is slight but just enough to confuse them if I speak too fast. When people start asking me to repeat myself, I step back and look at what I’m saying and HOW I’m saying it, and adjust accordingly.
There are so many nuances to a language and its delivery. You just can’t speak the exact same way in every language, there is no one-size-fits-all option.
I think that’s the problem FB is having with those Indian tech support people. They don’t bother to speak properly, they just assume they can speak English the way they speak their mother tongue, and you just CAN’T. It will never come across correctly.
I don’t know why you bother trying to explain things to humorless nincompoops! I knew what you meant.
Hah, wow. I can’t believe some people.
I TOTALLY agree with your last post and this one. You weren’t being offensive at all… *headdesk*
That’s all. 🙂
Yup, if the listener is fully engaged and has to keep asking for repeats, it’s pretty clear that the speaker needs to do something different. I’m saying that as someone who lived abroad for several years and butchered the local language mightily for a while, even though I’d studied it in school for four years.
” And unless you practice ALL THE TIME with your 2-7 languages (like one day of the week dedicated to JUST speaking one language), you are never, EVER going to be 100% fluent in all of them, all the time speaking like a perfect native of that language — the brain forgets a lot of things because it can only hold so much.”
Honestly – that’s BS.
Every language you learn as a child (and I mean, speaking it to your parents, nanny, etc) you will be able to speak perfectly for the rest of your life. I grew up in an English and German speaking family and had a Spanish nanny, and to this day still speak all three languages fluent and without any accent, even if I don’t speak Spanish that often anymore.
Just out of curiosity, what other language besides English (well, and learning French) do you speak ?