Accents
A few weeks after I had first come to England last year, I called my friends back home and inevitably one of the first things they wanted to know is how am I handling the 'accent problem'? Am I going to modify my African accent to blend in? The answer of course is hell no! Im immensely proud of my accent and if no one understands me, Ill just speak in a louder tone until it settles in.
Of course it has not been easy. People understand me by and large, but now and again I run into the blank stare that says 'I can tell that you are speaking English but for the life of me, I dont know what you are talking about and its too late to nod and pretend'. Sometimes its worse and someone hears something totally different- once at the bar while I was talking to two people, I ended a sentence with 'thats a fact' and got a sudden shocked stare from one of my companions. "Did you just say you farted?" She asked-and seriously. Fucking hell. Cue shouting over the music to clear the air. Lots of little stories like that, but dammnit im African and I speak English. I dont want your bloody accent because I have mine and I like it. Get with the program because I aint changing!
And weirdly enough, its easier for the English to understand me than to understand the Scots whose accent is so incredibly thick that you can hardly ever make out what they are saying. Fair play to them though- let them do their thing.
Of course it has not been easy. People understand me by and large, but now and again I run into the blank stare that says 'I can tell that you are speaking English but for the life of me, I dont know what you are talking about and its too late to nod and pretend'. Sometimes its worse and someone hears something totally different- once at the bar while I was talking to two people, I ended a sentence with 'thats a fact' and got a sudden shocked stare from one of my companions. "Did you just say you farted?" She asked-and seriously. Fucking hell. Cue shouting over the music to clear the air. Lots of little stories like that, but dammnit im African and I speak English. I dont want your bloody accent because I have mine and I like it. Get with the program because I aint changing!
And weirdly enough, its easier for the English to understand me than to understand the Scots whose accent is so incredibly thick that you can hardly ever make out what they are saying. Fair play to them though- let them do their thing.
posted by Minzo at 9:12 PM
3 Comments:
Re your comment: That's part of the charm of it!
Nexttime someone gives you tude about your accent,don't hesitate to remind them that you speak more languages then their precious english!
To funny Meinega...the farting story anyway...if people dont like the way you speak..they can go take a flying leap...and I have a hard time understanding scots too. but ill tell you, Indian's (as in India) are the worst. Dells service people are all indian, and i always feel horrible asking them to reapeat themselves for like 10 times cuz i am computer illiterate as it is...i need to understand what they are telling me!!!
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