I had some bizarre comparison to my accent, like is Kentucky or Pennsylvania.
My name is Mila I'm from Russia.
Of course.
Sometimes people pay attention to my accent, but I tell
them, sure, I'm Russian.
What do you want?
But I'm ready to face the prejudice.
today's question on my fluent podcast is "have you ever
experienced acts and prejudice?"
And we will be able to listen to different English learners from all over the world.
But first: on our last episode, 66, speak English fluently through gamification.
We might an interview with Roberto, from Italy who spoke about an amazing speaking
game "by playing off the cuff seven months ago, I took the courage to speak.
I think that my fluency had a great advantage for me
because I can speak freely.
This is the aim of off the cuff".
And on this episode, we are going to speak about acts and prejudice.
It's kind of the learner's perspective.
I liked the idea to see and learn about the life of different language learners.
And for that, I reached out to a lot of different language learners.
And wanted to know what they think about it.
"My name is Ludmila.
I was born and raised in former Czechoslovakia Slovak Republic.
Uh, now many years living in the US I had many different experiences
about the fact that I have an accent.
People usually responded positive and loved my accent.
However, I had some bizarre comparisons to accents like
East, Kentucky, or Pennsylvania.
Southern accent in us are just very hard to understand and some very Forane
to the foreigners, in my opinion.
And when I feel that somebody has a problem, the way I speak,
my response would be "just because I speak with an accent.
It doesn't mean, I think with one."
So there you have it.
And then now back to Daniel, Thank you.
Just because I speak with an accent doesn't mean, I think
with one, this one was great.
Really great.
Thank you so much Ludmila, for your contribution and many
greetings to the Slovak Republic, and now let's visit Russia.
Hello, my name is Mila.
I'm from Russian.
So my mother tongue is Russian.
And I would like to say something about accent prejudice.
I have never experienced the thing like that.
Of course, sometimes people pay attention to my accent, but I
tell them, sure, I'm Russian.
What do you want?
But I'm ready to face the prejudice to tell the truth.
And if it's a native speaker, Okay.
Let's give them a, try to say a sentence in Russian and compare whose
accent is worse, but if it's not a native speaker, why should they pay
attention to words of a silly person?
Because only a silly person cannot appreciate the whole hard
work because every person who started knows how difficult it is.
Thank you very much Mila for your contribution with
your interesting comment.
And yes, we all know how hard it is to, to improve in our target language.
And obviously, there are people who doesn't know and doesn't appreciate it.
Hi, I'm Joranin and I am from Thailand and my mother tongue is Thai.
I honestly, haven't been making fun from the native, is's people around me.
who was making fun of me.
And honestly, I feel discouraged to speak up.
My host brother didn't even make fun of me, when I can't
pronounce the word camera.
He's even taught me how to say it
right.
But the people around me, they're trained to believe that good accent equals good
English and bad accent equals stupid.
That's why most people don't have the gut to speak out.
Another occasion I found on YouTube is that there's a channel where
two natives are talking together.
I remember a guy saying like, um, I don't like when people
say good morning, how are you?
And fine, because I can know that their English is weak and
I don't want to talk with them.
I was like, dude, seriously?
What a sales center person.
I disliked that video immediately and never led you to recommend the channel.
Again, speaking English is so simple that we've got to have
somebody to help us misunderstand it, speak today, to speak out.
Thank you very much Joranim.
And please guys, don't let them get you down.
Speak up.
As Joranim said it so beautifully and it takes courage to speak up.
So I absolutely recommend you to find the right people where you feel at
home, where you free, comfortable, and, and consequently, you will speak more.
And.
You will improve your, your speaking.
And as a matter of fact, I, myself, I had a lot of self doubt if I really
should start out with my podcast and I am so glad I did back then in 2016,
because to be honest, I could really improve my speaking abilities, I think.
And a crucial part is also the communication with all the listeners and
with other learners, it is so interesting.
And I want to encourage you to participate more often here
on my podcast, to be honest.
And I talked about this several times that I should have named the podcast,
our fluent podcast, it would be maybe more encouraging to participate instead
of my fluent podcast, which implies sort of mono lingual approach, but it
should not be a monologue, not at all.
So next up is Jack from the USA who struggled a lot with his regional
accent, but listen for yourself.
My natural accent from childhood was a very strong, distinctive regional accent.
Marking me as a New Englander United States Northeast.
When I first joined the army many years ago and started traveling
through the American South, I encountered quite a lot of prejudice
and hostility because of my accent.
I worked very hard at losing my regional accent over the years.
No after I retired and moved back ho me.
Now I am very happily reacquiring it.
Thank you so much.
Jack for your, comment here.
And finally, we all should bear in mind that our accent is our identity.
I'm going to say.
Just a few things here before I've wrapped this up.
So first off, I want to thank you all for tuning in and especially I want to
thank Jack, Joranin, Ludmila and Mila.
Oh.
And before I forget ,a big shout out goes to the Canguro English Facebook group.
As well because all of the participants here were, or are
members of this excellent group.
In a nutshell, it's a safe space for you to express yourself where
you can share tips and tricks.
For learning English and find a speaking partner without you,
this could not have happened.
And we should try to speak up even though if we are afraid sometimes.
Well, there are people who don't really mind about it.
Meaning they don't bother about their accent.
They just speak.
So, but I'm speaking, especially to the more introvert person or
maybe to the insecure learners.
Just speak up.
This is Daniel Goodson.
Thank you.
If you want to listen to more episodes, you can go to.
Myfluentpodcast.com or just follow me on the common podcast services, such
as iTunes, Spotify, and Google podcast.
And by the way, I am also on Instagram and Facebook I am the creator
of the group English Podcasts.
So you may join as well and share your favorite podcast with us by
music in the background, just from Scott homes The song is called
Speak today to speak out.