When speaking a foreign language, especially a “famous” one like French, German or even English, it may feel patronizing to really lay on a thick local accent. But if you don’t, you might not be understood at all…

My brother lives in Bangkok, Thailand, where he works as an English teacher. He often finds himself telling his students to repeat what they’re saying, but with a really strong American accent, or it’s simply difficult for native speakers to understand what they’re saying.

You might not think this would be the case – after all, native speakers should be able to fill in the gaps when language learners are missing words or make grammatical mistakes, and ought to have a wide tolerance for accents. And in my personal experience, this is sometimes true when you’re speaking with a native who is also a language learner themselves. Once you start to learn how a language can be pulled apart, you start to appreciate how your own language can be used in myriad ways.

But not always. There’s something about your native tongue. It lays a different kind of foundation in your brain, below all the rules and concepts and superficialities of things learned later in life. It’s almost part of your animal instinct. And because of that, you’re simply used to hearing it spoken a particular way, and it’s tough for your brain to do the mental gymnastics required to understand when someone speaks it in a unique (or wrong) way.

You’ve probably had this happen to you. Someone says something simple in your language, like “did you hear the noose?” And you’re like, “noose? Huh?” and they say “the noose! The noose! Isn’t that how you say it?” and you stare at each other for a moment, blinking, your brain churning away at all the possible ways that one might read a noose, until you slap your forehead: “oh, the news!” The language learner will grow red in the face, and stubbornly insist, “that’s what I said! The noose! Can’t you understand your own language?!” As I’ve said before, pronunciation is king.

It’s worth keeping all this in mind when learning to speak a foreign language. You will undoubtedly struggle at the beginning to get the accent just right. You will no doubt run into the same situation as our friend in the comic above, or the person attempting your native language – you think you’re saying something clear and simple, but your conversation partner looks at you like you’ve just said seven random words out of the dictionary.

Often times, the trick to being understood may simply be to stereotype it up!

Americans at home like to make fun of different cultures. We put on a “funny” French accent when talking about pastries, or what we think is a hilarious German accent when ridiculing their strict, no-nonsense ways. So when it comes time to actually learn those languages, speaking in a strong accent might make you feel like you’re making fun of them. “There’s no way that the French actually dig that far back into their throat to make that sound,” you’ll say to yourself. “If I do that, they’ll think I’m insulting them.”

Not true. In my experience, you often have to put on a far more ridiculous accent than you think. If you don’t, you risk not being understood at all. And when you do, you’ll be congratulated for having such great pronunciation!

Now, I’ve heard it said that this doesn’t apply to Asian languages, but I don’t speak any myself. What’s been your experience?