Language Barriers

It's amazing what you take for granted in your own country. Or your neck of the woods for that matter. For instance, in the Northeast United States, everyone talks with a fairly similar accent. People from the South and Southwest speak differently. So do Midwesterners and Westerners. But they sound normal, because we expect them to sound that way. The sounds are part of our culture.

Being from the Northeast, we were cosmopolitan enough to live with a multitude of accents and cultures from around the globe. And while some accents were difficult, everyone was trying to master our colloquialisms and our pronunciations, so differences were quaint and we eventually understood what people were saying.

It's quite an eye-opener (ear-opener?) to be the one with the foreign accent. OK, Andrew's done it before, but it's a first for me. Travelling on holiday doesn't prepare you for this. Suddenly, everyone everywhere speaks in a way that doesn't sound anything like you, even though you both are supposedly speaking the same language. I use funny words that people aren't familiar with ("trash"), and pronounce the ones they know in just as amusing a manner ("mo-bil" instead of "mo-bile").

And you notice this, because you're not with a tour group or heading home in a week. Like the chocolate Easter Bunny sans ears, you find yourself asking people to repeat things and hoping they don't think you a total nonner, because you ask this almost daily. Fortunately, no one's started speaking to me LOUDLY and more S...L...O...W...L...Y.

At least, not yet.