<p>I have a very good friend who was born in Germany. She has a master’s in English from an American university and a Ph.D. in journalism. No one would argue that she is not fluent in English; she has lived in this country for more than 20 years. I would put her up against any American I know as far as knowledge of the English language. However, I sometimes have to ask her to repeat something when she is sitting at my kitchen table. She has a heavy accent. Foreign speakers are going to have accents–I often wonder what we sound like when we speak foreign languages!</p>
<p>I think that young people have to adjust. They adjust when someone speaks quickly or has an accent from a different region of the country. Fluency and accent are two different things IMO.</p>
<p>On a humorous note, my friend was teaching a class at our local college and was talking about one of her hobbies: horse-back riding. She was telling her story and the expressions on her students’ faces were changing. They thought she was talking about wh***s. Oops.</p>