I hate dealing with people who speak poor English

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She was insisting she was speaking English and she actually was! I was also insisting that she couldn't possibly be speaking English.

I have this problem with the Singaporean accent, whoever is speaking to me and whatever the country. I just can't follow it.


I think she probably thought I was Autistic...............oh, wait a minute...............I...............

oh, ok.

poor singaporeans- sounds like they have it bad. XD. no one can understand them! at least you and i cant

Now that I think of it...........Singaporeans...........


VERY focussed, formal language but unusual use of language and intonation...........I wonder if.......................nah.............

i doubt all singaporeans are aspious. although my prior singaporean maths teacher might correlate...

I have a very hard time with strong accents. I had to get a different psychiatrist because the South Asian guy I had has hard to understand.

This isn't as much of a problem for me as it used to me, because I've had more experience with accents. The lady who cuts my hair is a native Vietnamese speaker, and I had trouble understanding anything she said until I figured out that she's leaving the "s" out of words in certain cases. I don't speak a word of Vietnamese, but I assume their language doesn't put the "s" sound it the same places we do, and therefore it's unnatural and difficult for her. I can't make a French "r" sound to save my life, so I guess it evens out.

I remember working at a pizza restaurant years ago, and becoming very nervous when an English guy came into the restaurant and placed an order. He certainly wasn't speaking "poor English", but it was an accent that I hadn't been exposed to before. I couldn't tell you what part of England he was from (at that point I didn't know there were more than two English accents), just that he didn't sound like one of the Monty Python guys, which, at that point, was all the "English" I knew.

The part that makes me cringe when I remember it, is that I think a more NT person, or a person without my social anxiety, would have said, "Oh, cool. You aren't from around here are you? I'm sorry, but could you say that again, please? I'm just not accustomed to your accent," and that would have been fine. I couldn't begin to say something like that. I could only tremble and stammer, and feel like the world was crashing in on me, and be terrified that he'd say something and I would freeze up.

I skimmed the thread and did not see that someone mentioned this... but like I said, I skimmed it.
If people on the spectrum, on average, have a harder time understanding what people with thick accents or who speak English (or whatever their language may be) poorly it may be because it is harder for us, people on the spectrum, to read body language that NTs pick up on. While some body language is cultural much is the same throughout the world.

I find that I actually have a fairly easy time understanding what people with poor Englsih are saying once I get used to which sounds they use in place of the correct sounds. It usually takes talking to them once for me to figure it out.

FOr me, it depends on the accent.

Spanish and French, I can understand, because I can speak those languages. Other languages, I have trouble understanding.

I find I have that problem alot since coming to the south. Many people either need to get hooked on phonics or an English to English translation up in here. And the thing about it is that I don't like to be rude, but if I can't understand what's coming out of your mouth then I'm automatically annoyed. Not even in the "lesser educated" areas of NY did I have problems understanding what people were saying. But I guess being native(NYer) that anything within that surrounding area sounds normal to me no matter what o-o

I find it mostly to be a problem over the phone where I cannot see the person...so then I can't see any other hints as to what they are saying.

If I can see the person its certainly easier to understand them even if they don't speak good english.

Oh look, great to see one of my threads being brought back from the dead.

It always amazes me to see how people can understand people with thick accents fine. So it makes me think this must be a problem I have and this isn't normal.

I often have to ask people with strong accents or poor language skills to repeat themselves even if I can tell we're both speaking Finnish. As for English... well, it's not really a problem since I don't usually hear it anywhere else than the TV and no one's gonna complain if I don't get what's being said.

I hate accents in movies because they are so obviously fake and don't represent the speech patterns of any regular person from the country portrayed. I don't mind real accents. I don't like when people use too much verbal filler words (um, uh, like, anyway).

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