(As we know it)

Part 2 of 2. You can read Part 1 of 2 here.

Accent doesn’t matter. If I could sum up the previous post in a sentence, that’d be it. But that’s not quite true. Well, it is. But it’s not. Complicated, isn’t it? So, let’s break into pieces.

When we say that accent doesn’t matter, we mean that the pursuit of an accent is inadequate. (And I’m getting the feeling that this post will be a little bit formal. I’ll try not to do that. Moving on…) We will always be in a stage called interlingua. This means that we’ll will never become a native speaker. But we can narrow the distance between our language from the one we are learning. To narrow the distance is important. And to show this to my students, I have them watch another TV show — How I Met Your Mother.

The show is about a guy who’s telling his kids how he met their mother. He’s been telling them the story for six years now and he still didn’t reach the part in which the meeting actually happens. In fact is still not a character in the story. See it and you’ll get it. (Extra info here and here.)

In the show, we have a Canadian character.

Canada. English speaking nation. Native speakers only. (Except those two provinces that speak French. But neither France gives a penny about them so why should we? Just kidding. I love France and French Canada. Where was I?... Oh, native speakers of English in Canada.)

This Canadian character, Robyn, she is mocked all the time because of her accent. Do Canadians have accent? OMG, they do. And they have Thanksgiving in October. I showed them an episode just for fun and I highlighted this fact, the accent. They say “about” like /ə'boʊt/ and Americans (at least the New Yorkers, because just like in Brazil, they also have regional varieties) speak “about” like /ə'baʊt/. This happens with most of the –out sound that we have in English. Cool, isn't it?

But why? Because too much of an accent may cause troube, trouble, trouble. Aguilera. Take Gloria from Modern Family, for instance. She says custom like costume. Too much of accent may cause misundertandings. Or worse. People might pick up on you. And that's not good.

So teachers, accent is like sugar. Not too little, not too much.