Hehe. This reminds me of a conversation my husband had with a local in our early days in Singapore (maybe a taxi driver?). The person asked how my husband finds living in Singapore, and he told that it is ok but sometimes he has a hard time with the English accent. The other person had responded: "No worries, your English is very good!"
Well, that is not bad. Bad is when my Korean friend--here I should say that Russian Empire, USSR and Russian Federation always bordered Korea, and there were few waves of immigration from there, and that "Russian Koreans" all accross the ex-USSR have Russian first names preserving surnames and some parts of their culture, and that they influenced ex-USSR cousine, and that there were famous people among them--so, my Korean friend, who speaks Russian natively, was asked by a Moscovian: "when did you manage to learn Russian so well?"
On the other hand, I have Finnish friends, who are native Finnish speakers, but happen to have foreign last names because one of their parents is of another nationality. They frequently get to hear that they have an accent. One of them was refused a job because "they wanted a native speaker, and she had a foreign accent."
I see this happening a lot when there comes a exchange student from Portugal or another Portuguese speaker country to my Uni.
ReplyDeleteHehe. This reminds me of a conversation my husband had with a local in our early days in Singapore (maybe a taxi driver?). The person asked how my husband finds living in Singapore, and he told that it is ok but sometimes he has a hard time with the English accent. The other person had responded: "No worries, your English is very good!"
ReplyDeleteWell, that is not bad. Bad is when my Korean friend--here I should say that Russian Empire, USSR and Russian Federation always bordered Korea, and there were few waves of immigration from there, and that "Russian Koreans" all accross the ex-USSR have Russian first names preserving surnames and some parts of their culture, and that they influenced ex-USSR cousine, and that there were famous people among them--so, my Korean friend, who speaks Russian natively, was asked by a Moscovian: "when did you manage to learn Russian so well?"
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I have Finnish friends, who are native Finnish speakers, but happen to have foreign last names because one of their parents is of another nationality. They frequently get to hear that they have an accent. One of them was refused a job because "they wanted a native speaker, and she had a foreign accent."
ReplyDelete