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Comment by 4gotunameagain | Hacker News Reader

Non native speakers usually "tolerate" and understand a more wide range of accents, if they learned english in a multicultural environment where everyone had a different accent.

Also in general between both native and non native speakers, commenting negatively about someone's accent is considered rude, or colloquially, an "asshole move"

If you are a non-native speaker without encountering such accents you must be Indian, right ?

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This does not match my personal experience; having lived in countries on both sides of the equation, with those in the more non-native country (South Korea) having a much less tolerant for non-American/British accents (e.g. Chinese, Indian, Filipino) than those from native or very high-fluency countries. I.e. Ive found tolerance for non-native accents to be inversely correlated with personal fluency.

I had in mind environments like Europe, where social interactions are like the beginning of a joke: A Czech, a Dutch, a Greek and a French walk into a bar..

I'm European ESL but don't come to much contact with European English speakers, because it's, like, objectively hard to understand and dissonant for me. I am fine with American, British, Irish, etc accents but I've had to interact with a French woman speaking (bad) English on an exchange thing and it was one of the more excruciating things I've experienced. Similarly many youtubers who have, presumably, interesting content but strong, unbearable accents (Anton Petrov comes to mind). This is why I'm asking. I just physically can't listen to the Inigo guy, it's like nails on a chalkboard. Am I supposed to, just, NOT feel that, to not be somehow rude? I think Inigo, as an aspiring public person should work on his accent instead.

Also flagged? I'm seriously confused.

> Also flagged? I'm seriously confused.

People usually can't change their accent. Complaining publicly about this is just rude, and on the verge of racism (speaking with someone with a French accent being "the more excruciating things I've experienced.").

>People usually can't change their accent.

Skill issue.

You certainly need to work on your social skills.

And how about cutting out the intentionally cruel and spectacularly unoriginal body shaming too, buddy:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34257327

I like all the different accents, and I like to learn them. Is it rude to ask if I do it nicely. Like "you have a beautiful accent, where is it from?"

Nowadays, you never know. I think it's fine but keep in mind some people would be offended by this. Probably it depends on the context.

Especially in a non-native, where everyone has at least a tiny accent

There is no such thing as accent-free spoken English. Americans and English have American and English accents.

The baseline for comparison tends to be the cultural hegemony. e.g. Hollywood, Standard American Accent. “No accent” is a euphemism for the ubiquitous or most expected accent.

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