That's funny. What time was it? maybe he had blown the froth off a couple.

Yeah, and then sometimes they think I am trying to mock them...

Jan

First wife and I vacationed several times in Scotland. We rented a car and made our own itinerary, so occasionally we got lost on some 'country roads.'

Stopped and asked a guy how to get to a nearby town. He patiently explained for a minute or two.

When he finished, I apologized and said that, because of his accent and my ears, I did not understand what he'd said, and could he repeat it again but a bit more slowly?

He very kindly repeated, word-for-word (or noise for noise) EXACTLY what he'd said the first time, and I still could not understand one word of it. We thanked him and politely drove away looking for maps and signs.

I'm 67 and with a full retirement that's enough to get by (I hope, jerks like Harry Reid and Obama no help). So the heck with any therapy. I never let the way I talk get in my way anyway.

Dats too far nort for me.

I have a customer who came here from Italy many years ago and yet still speaks with a thick accent. I was having trouble understanding him one day so I asked another customer who is Italian to translate. He said "are you kidding, even his Italian sucks". the 2 men knew each other and got a good laugh out of it.

Spoken like a Youper. Well, Wisconsin is pretty close.

Oh GOD yes... of course, my Italian is dialect heavy, so it's hard to understand some people... but at times you think they're speaking a diffferent language.

That's a great story Ranter. I have always been impressed by people who can communicate in multiple languages. I had 3 years of German in High School and I am sure I would be lost if I had to speak German with someone.

I thought the left was into that diversity thing???

When I first took my future wife from Philadelphia to Alabama to meet my mother, I had to translate for her. My wife was born in Italy, moved to nort Joyzey when she was sixteen. She went through high school and college in New Jersey and is superbly fluent in English (as well as Italian and French). I remember the blank look on her face when we went next door to thank the neighbor for being such good neighbors and alerting us any time Mom was in medical difficulty, and she said, "Aw, honey chile, it don' mehk no nevah myn'." My wife asked me "What did she say?"

Perhaps we'll have "hood-speak" and Spanish accent reduction classes someday, yo?

Ya shure hey Ya betcha!

Yes...and I had to surrender my prohibited items at the border. LOL!

Our area has a lot of Italians and they tell me that some dialects are so thick that some Italians have trouble understanding each other. Did you notice that?

Micromanage is right. When government gets this big at the Federal and State levels things like this are the result.

What if they offered courses to help African Americans lose their accents? The reaction would have been heard worldwide.

Damyankee... 8^)

On the other hand it helps you fit in like a local...
Sometimes too much. Italy, a few years ago, got "stuck" at the family property for about 2 1/2 months. When we finally made it back to Rome to fly out, people were amazed at my "quaint, colloquial" accent, like I was from the sticks or something. Well... the property is isolated, 10 km from the closest town (and it *is* the sticks)...

Now, picking up various American (and British) accents have always been easy - Worked as a baker for a family from Liverpool, and because they were the only people I was around, didn't realize I had picked up their accent (in Reno Nevada, of all places!) until I went back for my grandfather's funeral and got called on it. But if you told me I would do the same in a "foreign" language, I would have laughed until Italy.