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SillyMe Posted 19 years ago
Speech & Pronunciation

accents

Hello,

I just don't understand why you people are obsessed that much with your accents. For me there is only one thing seems important that is to be understood. I doesn't matter how you sound unless you are a stage performer. If we are foreigners we are supposed to speak with a foreign accent. From personal experience I can say that it makes me feel inconvenient when a foreigner is trying to speak with my accent in my native language; it sounds like a total humiliation. I think even if you are making small mistakes in your pronunciation you will be understood anyway, because we don't speak single words but sentences. So, mistakes in one or two words can rarely affect a clarity of speech. I believe I have a strong accent and I am proud of it. Giving up the idea of sounding perfect did improve my communication abilities in English.
  

Top answer

Hi, SillyMe I just don't understand why you people are obsessed that much with your accents. Who is obsessed? Most learners are not obsessed.

— Kooyeen

  • Hi, SillyMe I just don't understand why you people are obsessed that much with your accents.
  • Who is obsessed?
  • Most learners are not obsessed.
  • Actually, they usually don't care much about pronunciation and neglect spolen English.
  • I am "obsessed" because I like English.
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24 Answers
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Hi,
SillyMeI just don't understand why you people are obsessed that much with your accents.
Who is obsessed? Most learners are not obsessed. Actually, they usually don't care much about pronunciation and neglect spolen English.
I am "obsessed" because I like English. I like accents. Why shouldn't I care about spoken English? Why shouldn't I notice the way
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SillyMeHello,

I just don't understand why you people are obsessed that much with your accents. For me there is only one thing seems important that is to be understood. I doesn't matter how you sound unless you are a stage performer. If we are foreigners we are supposed to speak with a foreign accent. From personal experience I can say that it makes me feel inconv
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KooyeenHi,
SillyMeI just don't understand why you people are obsessed that much with your accents.
Who is obsessed? Most learners are not obsessed. Actually, they usually don't care much about pronunciation and neglect spolen English.
I am "obsessed" because I like English. I like accents. Why shouldn't I care about spoken English
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Anonymous
SillyMeHello,

I just don't understand why you people are obsessed that much with your accents. For me there is only one thing seems important that is to be understood. I doesn't matter how you sound unless you are a stage performer. If we are foreigners we are supposed to speak with a foreign accent. From personal experience I ca
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Believe it or not, accents play an important role in the social environment. In the Spanish speaking world, colombian people may have a hard time understanding us costaricans because of the way most of us pronounce the "r" and because of the accent itself. To us, some colombian accents are just terrible, while others are pleasant to the ear. And that's just an example; add Peru, Panama, Nicara
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CvillaBelieve it or not, accents play an important role in the social environment. In the Spanish speaking world, colombian people may have a hard time understanding us costaricans because of the way most of us pronounce the "r" and because of the accent itself. To us, some colombian accents are just terrible, while others are pleasant to the ear. And that's just an ex
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SillyMeI don't know much about Spanish. You know it better. May be proper pronunciation is important sometimes, but I think it depends on the place where you are living. There are no native speakers in my surrounding and everyone makes his/her own mistakes in speech. Moreover everyone tolerates them and nobody will point out mistakes made by others. Also a lot of my frien
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Cvilla
SillyMeI don't know much about Spanish. You know it better. May be proper pronunciation is important sometimes, but I think it depends on the place where you are living. There are no native speakers in my surrounding and everyone makes his/her own mistakes in speech. Moreover everyone tolerates them and nobody will point out mistakes made by
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SillyMeThere is no need to improve an accent. Sometimes some work on pronunciation is required, but no more than that. Everyone should just make sure that he could be understood and that is enough. I've seen a lot of people who thought they were fluent in the language enough to imitate a native pronunciation. Needless to say everyone had hard time understanding them. What
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Ok, I don't know what to say, if you don't want or don't need to learn a variety of English, it's ok, no one forces you. I just have a couple of comments:

Also a lot of my friends complain that they have a hard time understanding native speakers (they speak fast without a half of the letters in their words, another half sometimes is usually changed to totally
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