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Comment by scotth | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious about his accent. It sounds like it would've taken a lot of work to develop. Is sounding American-ish a requirement of rising to the upper echelons of a company like Microsoft?

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Let me give you a perspective on this. I moved to the US from India when I was about 17 and I am almost 33 now. My accent has definitely evolved over the years and it sounds a little more American-ish even though I can never be a native speaker. I actually prefer that people can understand me when I talk to them. If someone thinks that I sound American-ish, good for me because they will feel comfortable striking a conversation with me. If someone thinks that I am faking it, they can choose whether they want to interact with me or not and I respect that.

So the point is that accents can evolve naturally over a period if the person makes an attempt. Yes it gets harder as you get older. Just because someone sounds American-ish doesn't mean that they are not speaking it naturally.

A lot of people do not realize that their accent can actually be a hindrance in communication. They might have near perfect grammar but accents do cause a problem. I know this is a controversial topic and even pg got some flak for saying this but a "neutralized" (notice the American spelling) accent is important for communication. If you are a leader/CEO, even more important.

shrug He's been in the US for 22 years.

He still sounds Indian - eg 'more meaning', 'unbounded' has the emphasis on the vowels which is quite Indian. He also pronounces 'perseverance' differently from an American. I don't think he's putting anything on.

He sounds more Dutch kind of German actually.^^

I was thinking northern European as well. Scandinavian, even.

He's been in the U.S since his masters, an accent change over that many years is quite natural, and hardly has anything do with the fact that he's in a high powered position in the company.

Is it racist to not understand half of what is said through a thick accent? if it is I'm a big jerk.

edit: why the down votes? Honest question, parent seems to be implying that its a bad thing that he adjusted to his environment, an environment where clear communication is paramount,.

We all have accents whether we were born in America or not. Have you ever been in the South? Just because we talk slow doesn't mean we think slow ;)

Typically, it just requires spending time around the person and interacting with them. It doesn't matter where they are from or what sort of accent they have. After a few days, you'll understand them.

And also, an accent has no bearing on intelligence.

This is not always the case, for instance I've worked with a great guy from China, after almost a year I still have a hard time understanding him and often have to ask him to repeat himself. It makes working collaborating difficult face to face.

My Argentinian TA once said "if I have an accent and you have an accent, we might have a problem." That said, all my coworkers are Chinese (many have never been to the states or outside of china) and I don't have a problem with anyone's accent (they can barely understand my Chinese though).

> they can barely understand my Chinese though

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever articulated why your Chinese is hard to understand? Is it tone or phonemes?

I do fine on the street, but my Chinese isn't technical enough to work at work, I just don't have the vocabulary (thankfully, English is supposed to be our working language anyways).

a thick accent

Do you mean Nadella's in particular? I didn't think it was that bad. Anyway it's only racist if you think less of a person just because you can't understand them. Remember there are lots of people who can't understand you, either.

No, Nadella is easy for me to understand. I was responding to the parent implying that he was somehow pressured to conform.

Being able to communicate is extremely important for even mid-level executives. If the accent makes understanding continuous speech more difficult and lacking vocabulary prevent the creation of accurate metaphors, it's a big problem.

Nadella shows no sign of this. He may not sound "perfectly american" but he's understandable enough for me. In fact, he sounds vaguely European. Keep in mind I am a Hungarian, born in Brazil who learned Hungarian, Portuguese and English in that order. If I can understand him, I suppose Americans will have little trouble ;-)

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