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Comment by crispinb | Hacker News Reader

Fluency is a matter of comprehension just as much as production. English is a global language spoken with a wide range of accents. Users of English who can only understand a narrow range of accents (Americans, I'm looking at you!) simply lack fluency in anything other than their local dialect.

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>Users of English who can only understand a narrow range of accents (Americans, I'm looking at you!)

Is this based on your anecdotal observations, or is this opinion based on something concrete? Because as an American who knows many other Americans, my anecdotal experience is that we can understand English accents from people all over the world.

This of course varies from person to person, but software engineers I've worked with are accustomed to speaking with people with accents.

I have seen an Italian interpreting between a Georgian (US) and a Scot (probably Glaswegian) with all speaking English.

I'm from Georgia, USA, living in Singapore, and I regularly translate English-to-English among colleagues who are Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Thai, Aussie, American, British, etc. I think exposure to many English accents and dialects certainly helps regional comprehension even though it's the same language.

> Is this based on your anecdotal observations, or is this opinion based on something concrete?

Not every semi-flippant comment has to be a bloody double-blind epidemiological study. Get a grip, man! Go and have a beer.

Then why make the comment? This isn't Reddit

I think there might be an ever so tiny sliver of space between every bracketed jocular aside needing a reference to a peer-reviewed double-blinded study, and falling into redditland. Intellectual rigour applied wisely is clearly a virtue. Inquisitorial nit-picking humourlessness however is just a bore.

It was a peculiar aside - you shouldn't be surprised that you were asked about it.

That depends entirely on what accents you have been exposed to.

My favorite English accent is African.

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