<p>Accents aren’t easy for many non-native speakers to correct, even when they do their darndest. </p>
<p>This isn’t only obvious to me as someone who has older relatives/friends who have had issues with this even after several decades in the states and speaking daily with native-born Americans. </p>
<p>It’s even more obvious to me when I encountered Western tourists and expatriates abroad who don’t even bother to try learning even the basics of a foreign language while abroad for years/decades…and feel entitled enough to be angry when they find themselves in nations where few/no one speaks English well or at all. </p>
<p>That Harvard Crimson article makes me feel a little bit less crazy–it’s obvious from that article, including what a Harvard dean says, that there was a problem with this that Harvard took additional steps to fix–in 2007. Well, maybe it’s been fixed everywhere now–wouldn’t that be nice?</p>
I feel the same frustration when our voter documentation, DMV test etc are offered in languages other than English. Every insurance EOB arrives with an additional document listing the 15 (?) other languages in which this document is available. And yes, I have a well practiced eye roll that occurs by default whenever I listen to the ‘press x for pig latin’ voice tree prompts.</p>
<p>This type of social structure doesn’t help the accent, language integration issues. And you are right Cobrat…what a sense of entitlement.</p>
<p>Actually, I think most people don’t work that hard at getting rid of accents. I think they get to a point where people can understand them and figure that’s good enough. After I’d been in Germany for a few years I took a class at the local adult education center which focused only on accent reduction. The teacher worked with everyone individually on whatever they needed most. I do remember her saying though that some things are almost impossible to fix. The “r” sound is slightly different in almost every language and in her experience is one thing most people never get right. (I managed to change my “r” to something that didn’t sound American, but it didn’t sound Germany either.) </p>
<p>We’re not advocating that people get rid of their accents all together - just enough that it’s not a real strain to understand them.</p>
<p>I’ve got lots of Hispanic clients. Most of them speak decent English, but they are pretty hard to understand - especially on the phone. They don’t have time to be taking accent reduction classes. </p>
<p>I think two people with precisely the same non-English accent could be very different in terms of how hard they are to understand in the context of a lecture, because of differences in elocution. This is probably why a simple test isn’t enough, and Harvard added these extra programs.</p>