During a semester of my second year of university, when I was working instead of taking classes as part of cooperative education, I worked with a lady from Newfoundland. It took me some time to get used to the tempo of her speech and to learn many english words unique to Newfie dialect. It took her even longer to understand my St. Lucian/Canadian accent.
Please repeat that
I never understand why people pretend to understand my speech when they don’t know what I’m saying. Are they being polite or is it a sign of disinterest? It’s one thing is if I’m speaking to someone who doesn’t speak English, but if we both speak English, why not ask me to repeat myself? I promise I won’t get annoyed. It’s more annoying when you nod and smile and make some sort of response that’s inappropriate to my comment. That’s a giveaway that you’re either not listening or not understanding what I am saying.
As an example, English speakers sound very different from country to country, region to region. Combine that with a fast tempo, and it can be very difficult to interpret the speaker’s words. Add in accents and I notice that many people do not understand English as spoken by people from different regions of the world. Many times during my travels, I’ve found myself translating from English to English. Why do we have such a hard time understanding people who don’t sound like we do?
Transcending expectations
Apparently, we have expectations of how a language will sound, and when it doesn’t sound that way, we are faced with a greater cognitive load to understand the speaker. Other factors include the tempo of the speech, volume, background noises, pitch, and distance from the speaker. The more exposure you have to people who sound different, the easier it is to understand a wide variety of English presentations.
This explanation resonates with me. I have family members in many different countries. The first time a cousin of mine visited St. Lucia from England, I had a lot of trouble understanding him. But then I moved to Canada, India, Sudan, Japan, Czech Republic. And I’ve depended on English to help me converse in over fifty countries. So I’ve had a lot of opportunity to hear English spoken in different ways. Sometimes, I still have trouble understanding people when they speak English. This may be due to their accent or to the tempo of their speech, their word choice, their intonation or inflection. I also have a difficult time with slow speech; I have to remind myself that life does not have a speed setting.
What’s your experience?
How well do you understand other people who speak your native language? Have you found any useful strategies to help you converse with people who speak in a way that’s different than you? One thing I wonder is if we’re more forgiving and accepting in languages that we’ve learned later in life, or that we learned after our native language.
Whatever language you speak, if you encounter someone else who is trying to converse with you, please be kind about it. Let’s treat each other with generosity and kindness. For many of us, learning another language is difficult. It breaks my heart when I hear someone berating or unkindly correcting someone else’s English. I want to remind that person that they’re visiting another country where English is not an official language and they are fortunate to have someone even try to speak with them in English.
If you’re speaking to another native speaker in your language and they don’t sound like you, consider it a learning opportunity. Explore another way of speaking with curiosity, not judgement.
During April, I’m participating in the writing prompts challenge from WordPress.com. Want to participate? Find the prompts here.
Featured image credit: Oleg Laptev
You are right, Damianne! I have heard people criticizing others for putting wrong emphasis on a word when speaking English. Interestingly enough, all those I know who find it difficult to understand others speak only one language and have lived in one or two countries their whole lives. A friend of mine who is a native speaker and had moved to another country finds herself correcting others speaking the same language. Mind you, she had lived in her new country for over fifteen years and cannot even greet others in the vernacular. Expecting everyone to speak the same way as you do does not allow you to appreciate other cultures!