Help getting used to accents

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

Dear All

I have a friend who does business in a number of different countries and he is wondering if there is anything on the Internet (free or otherwise) which specifically focuses on getting used to different accents.

If anyone knows of a website (or anything else) and could let me know, I would be grateful.

Regards
Charlie Warth
opilec@yahoo.co.uk

2

Do you mean spoken english with other accents (ie german, chinese, american, etc…)

Or do you mean random language X with an accent of random language Y?

3

Dear Mr. Warth-

What kind of accents are you referring to?

The peoples here get quite PC’d Off unless specifics are mentioned.

4

Dear All

Sorry I was not clear with my oroginal post. What I meant was help with getting used to speaking English with a foreign accent; for example, Germans speaking English, Italians speaking English, Koreans speaking English etc.

Any help would be appreciated

Regards
Charlie Warth
opilec@yahoo.co.uk

5

Try this:
Speech accent archive: accent.gmu.edu/

specifically this subpage:
accent.gmu.edu/browse_language.p … ge=english

6

[quote=“opilec”]Dear All

I have a friend who does business in a number of different countries and he is wondering if there is anything on the Internet (free or otherwise) which specifically focuses on getting used to different accents.

If anyone knows of a website (or anything else) and could let me know, I would be grateful.

Regards
Charlie Warth
opilec@yahoo.co.uk[/quote]

I was in the clothing production business for many years. I used to travel extremely often, to countries like India, Vietnam, Mauritius, Thailand, China to name a few. The only way you start to get used to different accents is through speaking to people. When i first met people I knew that they were speaking English, but what the fuck were they saying???
It gets easier with experience. That’s the only way.

7

I taught a group of students in taipei business English at a company last year who have clients from India. They were always complaining about their English. Maybe Indians have the same problem trying to understand the Taiwanese when they speak English … As for Indian accents, I grew up in South London, so I have little difficulty understanding Indian people speak English.

8

This is the problem you get after attending years of bushiban classes with a ‘north American accents preferred’ employment policy. When you get out in the real world, it ain’t necessarily so.

9

100000000000% correct.

My wife has a co worker, who always complains when he has to do business with people from places like:

India
Australia
South Africa
New Zealand
UK
The whole of Europe

He told her that “They do not speak proper English”. This comes from a Taiwanese who studied English in the buxiban system and at local Uni. He only understands the American accent. I should add, this guy does not really understand English in any other accent. Only American.

10

So true, students study English in a learning environment where it is slowed or dumbed down. Then, when they are exposed to “real” English … “wor ting bu dong, ta men shwor tai kwai ler”.

11

The Taiwanese use the accent thing as an excuse when they don’t like the class. The students can suddenly become experts on pronunciation and say the teacher isn’t speaking properly :blush: .