Everybody Has An Accent. And That's Okay

22 Nov 2024 #misc

In professional settings, native speakers aren’t the ones who reject non-native speakers by their speaking skills. Other non-native speakers are.

The other day I referred a friend (with good English skills. B2, probably) to the same software agency I was working with. He got rejected. The recruiter (another non-native speaker) rejected him because he had “a strong accent like someone from India.”

Arrrggg! You know what…

Everybody has an accent.

I have an accent, even when speaking my native language. There’s no such thing as a neutral accent, maybe only on TV and in films.

The purpose of learning a second language is communication, not perfection.

Fluency is about connecting with others, not about making 0 mistakes. And, at the end of the day, nobody speaks perfectly in any language.