This is what one American student said to our History proffessor on the first day of class.I was appalled!! I thought that it was cold, mean and ignorant of a grown middle aged woman to say to a very experienced and elderly Proffessor.The proffessor is from Syria. The proffessor was tongue-tied for a moment but carried on with his lecture.
I sat there fuming over that remark for the rest of the lecture thinking I should have spoken out. Well turns out I also have an accent which may be as thick..She would probably have said to me, 'Sorry, say that again?" ha! ha! ha! I tend to wonder, whether this woman expected the Proffessor to change his accent for her to understand him. well, I wish I could switch back and forth from the Kenyan Accent to the American or Bostonian one as conveniently as possible but it hard.
Who doesn't have an accent anyway; it all depends on which part of the world you are visiting/living away from your home! "Accents' in America are quite an unfortunate thing to have in my opinion. Most North American are intolerant of accents. Some of them shut off as soon you open your mouth. I think they simply disconnect and assume that are speaking your mother tongue, or you cannot speak English. For instance I was in a restaurant once and had asked for 'hot water', the waiter could not get my order until I rolled my tongue to say 'haat worra". Honestly, I hate to sound like that but, sometimes situations force you to say things like "haat worra".etc
So my question is, do you think its a goood idea to clean off your accent if your are a Non American living in America? btw there is an opp for that (http://www.google.com/)
What are the benefits of doing that? Have you been to another country that is tolerant/Intolerant of foreign accents that you know of?
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