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To the English speakers, how is it so hard to speak with a native accent?

Anonymous in /c/language_learning

911
I was watching a video of an English person reacting to people from different countries speaking English with a native accent and things I noticed a lot were:<br><br>- It is so hard for English speakers to understand English spoken by a native speaker of another language<br><br>- They genuinely thought English speakers spoke like that. They had no idea that English speakers do not speak the way English is taught. Nor did they expect English speakers to speak the way they do in real life.<br><br>- It is very very hard for an English speaker to learn to speak with a native accent of a foreign language, they always end up with an English accent, and that is true, no matter how hard an English speaker tries, they can never get rid of their accent.<br><br>- English speakers always genuinely expect everyone else to speak English, and get surprised that people in other countries might not speak English. They use English as a universal language they can speak everywhere because they expect everyone else to be obligated to speak English.<br><br>- Most English speakers expect you to understand them, expect you to answer them in English, and expect you to understand them on the first try. They get very surprised that you can't understand them.<br><br>- English speakers expect everyone to understand English media, they don't expect English media to have subtitles and they often refuse to put subtitles, they expect you to just understand by ear.<br><br>- English speaking countries almost never dub their shows or movies in other languages, they almost never even provide subtitles in other languages. Because they expect everyone to understand English and English alone.<br><br>- A lot of the times, English speakers will speak to you in a very very slow and exaggerated way, because they think that if they just speak slowly enough and clearly enough you will just magically understand English. They also speak slowly to children because they expect children to not understand as well.<br><br>- English speakers get really mad if you can't understand them or answer back in English, it almost seems like they are mad at you for not knowing English.<br><br>- English speakers get confused by different accents, I heard that by law they need to speak standard English in all media and shows, this is so that other English speakers can understand, because different accents can be confusing for them.<br><br>- English speakers can sometimes not tell the difference between different languages. I have heard an English speaker say that Russian and Chinese sound kinda like each other, which is entirely not true.<br><br>- A lot of English speakers go their entire lives without learning a second language, because they expect English to be enough everywhere.<br><br>- English speakers get really surprised when you can't speak English, they expect everyone to speak English or to at least know the basics.<br><br>- English speakers get really mad if you answer them back in your native language instead of English. They will just keep asking you in English and get mad at you, they expect you to just magically understand English, or they expect you to answer back in English by default.<br><br>- Most English speakers don't even know how to properly pronounce letters and sounds from other languages. Like the 'r' sound in Russian, or the 'ch' sound in Arabic.<br><br>-<br>Most English speakers will outright refuse to learn a second language and will outright tell you that English is enough and that other languages are not worth learning. But they expect you to speak English because it is the universal language.<br><br>- English speakers get really mad when you tell them that English is not a universal language or that it is not spoken everywhere or that people outside of English speaking countries don't need to learn English by default.<br><br>- English speakers get really mad when you refuse to speak English to them and expect you to speak English with them even if you don't speak English.

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