An interesting read relevant to our discussion (posted on fb by Linda Steyne, a colleague based in Bratislava, a few days ago).
An excerpt to get you curious: "English is a global language with many native and nonnative varieties. Worldwide, nonnative speakers of English outnumber natives by a ratio of three to one. Even in the United States, which has the largest population of native English speakers, there are, according to one estimate, nearly 50 million speakers of English as a second language. What does it even mean to sound native when so many English speakers are second-language speakers? Unless you are an embedded spy like the Jenningses ['The Americans'], it is counterproductive to hold nativelike pronunciation as the bar you have to clear."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/14/opinion/sunday/everyone-has-an-accent.html
Really interesting! Thanks for sharing it! :)
ReplyDeleteGreat! Thanks for sharing this with the rest of us.
ReplyDelete