Today I came across this article from BBC news about a Polish woman, who was discriminated because of her rather harsh Polish accent.
Please watch it:
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-41361662/i-want-to-get-rid-of-my-polish-accent
I felt really sorry for her, and for all the Polish people who live in Great Britain and struggle with the language and tolerance. I know that it's not about the accent. It's more about the racism, of course... it's like Germans perceive Turkish people. It's like Polish people perceive... idk, Ukrainians... There will always be some intolerance to that... But there will always be accents as well!
It's just sad that some people suffer more because other people are more outspoken.
One thing makes me wonder - how come she's lived in GB for fricking 27 years, yet she's not able to hear the difference between her speech and Standard English? I have to say, her vocabulary and fluency are on fleek. But is it really so hard to get rid of the accent?
Yeah, you will probably say now - let's hear your accent, you hypocrite. Well, I'm 28 y.o. and I think I speak quite ok - at least I hear how it should sound and try to apply it in my speech. English is kinda my life. I barely ever communicate in Polish to be honest. I actually never thought it was that hard for a Polish speaker to change the accent until I started teaching...
As a teacher, I can actually see that my students hear one thing and they repeat it with Polish manner. Reading is always the worst too. They never see the English letters - they keep reading them phonetically, even after explaining the rules to them. We simply do not pay attention to the language until we actually learn it. But old habits are too strong, I guess. I think it's also because of the "Who kares my akcent, dey anderstend me" mindset. Why don't they try more?
I teach people from other countries as well. I have a student from Saudi Arabia (fun fact, I actually learned yesterday that its capital is Riyadh, how cool is that you can learn so much from your students? ^^). Man, no matter how precisely I use English accent, he keeps speaking with the Arabic one :P That's amazing. I had Indian friends as well in the past, and I remember hanging out with one and practising American accent. But after having such a session - he simply turned back to Indian one. I've learned then that, apparently, accent is something very personal, as well as imprinted in each of us, depending on the country we were brought up in...
I'm glad I switched into English so early in my life. Wish everybody who attended primary education were taught the fact, that the earlier, the easier. Instead of teaching children some unnecessary bullshit, as they currently do, they could consider that the language is much wiser choice. It requires a lifetime.
Well, I've never emerged into the accent topic, tbh. Maybe I've just skimmed it. I've learned about some British accents, of course I can distinguish between british, american and australian one. And of course the foreign ones like indian, italian or french. But yeah, the communication comes first, in my opinion.
Many Polish people decide to go to the UK, barely knowing the language, hoping that their relatives, who lived there longer, would help. That's kinda messed up in my opinion.
But that lady has already shown, that she's not an ignorant, and for THAT she should be respected.
Sorry for all mistakes here - I'm not a native, bear that in minds and don't hate :)
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Your Ginny