Photo by Nathaniel Shuman on Unsplash
People with thick accents aren’t exactly well liked. Especially those who really cripple a language trying to convey their thoughts verbally to others. But according to H. Jackson Brown Jr., it’s not something to criticize.
I laughed when I read this:
Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language.
It’s seeing the glass half full explained differently. Notice how Brown refers strictly to English, suggesting (not intentionally, I’m sure) that natives in this language are the most prone to discriminating those who have trouble speaking it. In a way, it’s understandable. English is relatively easy to grasp, and there’s no shortage of cultural stimuli, from television to physical products. However, he probably didn’t mean it like that. What he meant was: he who has bothered to learn a second language deserves extra credit just for the effort; especially from those who can only speak one.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.’s best known work is ‘Life’s Little Instruction Book,’ an inspirational lecture that stayed on the New York Times’ bestseller list for several years (between 1991–1994). He wrote a sequel in the interim, ‘Life’s Little Instruction Book: Volume 2,’ which enjoyed similar success. Born in 1940, Brown still lives in the same place he was born 75 years ago: Middle Tennessee.
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I always love to see online comments or posts that begin with “English isn’t my native language” and then go on to write in a flawless manner. While that may not always be the case, I’ve often seen plenty of non-native speakers excel as opposed to native ones.
P.S. English isn’t my native language 😀
AndreiD 9 years ago
Agreed. It’s ‘what’ comes out of a person’s mouth that matters at the end of the day, not so much the pronounciation
Filip Truta 9 years ago
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