TRAVEL SERIES
Please Don’t Patronize Me!
3 little Irritating Comments I Get as a Non-Native English Speaker in the US
My Medium friend Sharing Randomly runs a travel column✈ at Coffee Times and always has interesting prompts/stories to share. This week I was drawn to her prompt about languages — “What happens when a language becomes a barrier?” Most likely she is referring to how it is like to travel to a new country with little or no knowledge of the local languages.
I, however, am going to relate some of my experiences of being a non-native speaker in an English-speaking country.
I have been in the US for many years and also teach English to speakers of other Languages (ESOL). And yet I get patronized fairly regularly — either because I am yet to adopt an American accent or due to the fact that I’m a non-native English speaker.
No, this is not an article about race. It is more of an observation from a non-native speaker’s point of view.
I am used to it by now and try not to take it too personally. Whenever I am spoken down to (intentionally or otherwise), I chuckle inwardly — “The world’s moved so far ahead in case you haven’t noticed but unfortunately your mindset is still stuck somewhere in the colonial times.”
The first time I experienced this was on a subway ride in an era before Siri became popular. Two suit-clad young men were having a friendly argument about the meaning of the word ‘Sinicism’. I couldn’t help overhearing as I was standing next to them and being the voracious reader that I am, it was a no-brainer.
I recall one of the men looking around for someone to help break the stalemate — in a space of a second his eyes fell on and dismissed me just as quickly.
Obviously, he didn’t think I was knowledgeable enough to help him and his friend out.
3 little irritating comments I get as a non-native English speaker
1. There is no need to speak slowly to me as if to a child:
This is the one that I find the most hilarious. I am multi-lingual and trust me when I say English is not as hard as some of the languages I have. Dear patronizer, you would never be able to repeat ad verbatim no matter how slowly I spoke one of them to you.
Can you click as I do?? I bet not! Check out the fun YouTube vid to see what I’m talking about😀
So please don’t assume just because I don’t speak in your accent or don’t look like you that I need to be spoken down to.
2. Please don’t ask me if I have ever heard of the word you just used:
Dear patronizer, do give me the benefit of the doubt. I wasn’t born yesterday and am a freaking writer to boot. Yes, I do know the meaning of the words you think are too complex for me and even if I didn’t, I don’t have that big of an ego that would prevent me from asking you to clarify.
3. Please “don’t pretend” you don’t understand my accent:
If I can figure out New York speak and Boston speak (English unlike any I’ve heard in my life) then I’m sure you can at least make an effort to open that closed mindset of yours just a little bit and see that my English is just as good.
In an article published by bbc.com, Suresh Canagarajah, a linguist at Pennsylvania State University, US, says that given how transnational work has become, we all need to get better at communicating with people speaking all kinds of English — “You can’t afford to say ‘I don’t understand Chinglish or I don’t understand Indian English’, because you’re going to lose out on that market.”
I think it’s high time that we stopped this “All English is equal but some types of English are more equal than others” BS and become more accepting of linguistic diversity.
Shout out to these awesome writers Niall Leah, Scott Younkin, and BichoDoMato
