are people with bad accents aware of it?

[nageov3t]

I mean, I assume they can't hear their own accent and I'm sure they sound perfectly fine in their own head, but after being asked "what did you just say?" repeatedly for decades, you'd think they'd put two and two together.

I have an Indian colleague who's the nicest guy in the world and a great worker, but goddamn, I can only make out one word in ten through his accent.

I try to encourage him to contact me via email or IM, but he loves the phone. probably calls me 20 times a day and each conversation takes far longer than it needs to because I have to decipher what he's trying to ask me (and while he writes like a 13 year-old girl with his use of abbreviations, I can at least make out what he's trying to ask)

 

[shortylickens]

RACIST!

No seriously, do you have a lisp like Scott Thompson?

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

There was a recent survey done to find out the most terrifying things you would never want to hear if you were held hostage.

In third place... We need to interrogate them.
In second place...We need to kill them.
In first place....American accents.

 

[nanette1985]

My brain surgeon is that way - I can barely understand anything he says - and if there's anyone you really want to understand every word, it's a brain surgeon. I have no idea what his first language is. One of the nurses back at the hospital was pretty good at figuring him out. Tempted to kidnap her before my next MD appointment.

 

[rudeguy]

I understand people who aren't native to our country. My problem is with people who were born and raised here that can't speak the language. Yes I'm talking to you Tennessee and Kentucky!

 

[nageov3t]

RACIST!

No seriously, do you have a lisp like Scott Thompson?

I'd need Platypus to weigh in, he's the only AT'er who's ever heard me speak and I don't have anywhere to upload a sound file... I moved around so much as a kid that I'm pretty accentless, though.

someone once told me that I sounded like Billie Joe Armstrong, but the Jersey sneaks through sometimes with words like cawfee.

for what it's worth, I have other Indian coworkers as well as Chinese who manage their accents perfectly well while working for an American company

 

[busydude]

Yes, we are aware of it, but we can't help it.

 

[silverpig]

I'm sure they can. I know I sound like a tool when I speak french.

 

[GustySoul]

I think they know.

I grew up in the Pacific NW and out there we were convinced we didn't have accents, and people from other regions did.

I then moved more east and met folks from Alabama & Tennessee, Boston & New England, and even Minnesota. Oddly enough, they largely all agreed with me... they had accents and I didn't.

 

[ImpulsE69]

No. They are not

I was in Mobile Alabama one time at a bar and watched these 2 local drunk chicks get into a cat fight over who had the bigger accent. Was hilarity at its finest.

"Nooo BEEETCH JOOOO GAWGHT ANN AAXXCENT!"

*disclamer - accent may not truly be representative of southern Alabamians and any similarity is subjective