If you can't speak the language, at least bring someone who can

[Magpie]

I have an accent - it's called "speaking too quickly." Many customers I talk to from the south and old people frequently tell me to "slow down." Must be from being raised in new York.

Manitobans tend to speak quickly (or so I've been told, I'm from Ontario and speak too quickly as it is, so I'd never notice). My husband, as a teenager, was at a denominational youth conference, and various groups were having someone go up and speak. Everyone, of course, says about the same thing - it's great to be here, glad to meet all of you, looking forward to the event. The girl from Manitoba went up right before the girl from Texas, and there was a factor of 2 or 3 difference in how long it took them to say basically the same thing.

[Andara Bledin]

I'm the designated accent-decipherer here at work.

I've only been stumped by one that was so thick that I had to have the person spell out what they wanted. Which was "sales." Once I knew what the word was, however, I no longer had any difficulty with the accent. Turns out that's what happens if you take a heavy Texas drawl and overlay it against a really heavy Asian accent.

We even had one come in along with a family member that knew english, the guy applying didn't speak a lick of English, so he had NO way of communicating with us at all, just how do they expect that to work? when you don't even speak the same language as the boss? how is he supposed to tell you what to do?

My office is around the corner from the local social services building, and I'm in southern Cali. Every month we get a ton of people who speak almost no English, or they bring their kids in to interpret so they can ask for a job because the state makes them go out an look.

We require that all employees be at least functionally fluent in English. I can't even imagine the legal hell that would ensue should there be some sort of emergency involving the non-English person and an English-only person.

Actually, they're not. I once had a severe problem understanding this American guy; no idea what state he was from, but he sounded like that guy from King of the Hill.

Tennessee.

Actually, I had a friend who's husband works for the DoD, and he went into some "training camp" with a guy from Tennessee, a Russian, a Romanian, a Chinese, and someone from South America. None of them had language in common, except the husband and the guy from Tennessee. By the end of the camp, everyone could understand everyone else, except nobody could understand the guy from Tennessee.

There was a restaurant next door to the hotel, and the people who worked in the restaurant had a hell of time understanding our Midwest American accents, and we had a really hard time understanding their accents. (not sure what accent would be common in that part of England) but it was really difficult to order toast, eggs and bacon every morning for those two weeks.

Had a friend at a comic shop that was from England and had a fairly broad accent. He once had a hell of a time trying to find out if a local grocery store (sou Cali, remember) had any "le'us." He wanted it to make a "bacon, le'us, and tomah'o" sandwich.

I have an accent - it's called "speaking too quickly." Many customers I talk to from the south and old people frequently tell me to "slow down." Must be from being raised in new York.

Yeah, you New Yorkers live too fast.

It's particularly funny when New York script-writers write shows that are supposed to take place in the Los Angeles area. There are some things that are similar about the two areas, but there are some really notable differences.

^-.-^

[EricKei]

I believe you are referring to a cajun accent. I live in that area and can't even understand those people most of the time.

o_O Actually, I was referring to a "Yat" accent (sauce)... "Dawwwwlin'!"

A Cajun accent sounds more like olde-school French with a Southern US drawl (tho they have definite similarities). For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, "Gambit" from the (main) 90's X-Men cartoon is about as close to a Cajun accent as I've ever heard in TV/Hollywood. Meaning, "at least recognizable as something resembling the real deal"

If you're anywhere where the latter is common, you may be close enough to my turf that we could probably get together and swap old "GameStore" horror stories. If you're regularly around people who speak the former, it's quite likely that you are that close. (tho it would be best not to go into detail in a board post)

If you're somewhere where the two mix, you're in CoonAss country, my friend ^_^