How people react to someone speaking English with an accent is an interesting social study.  I have a Japanese accent.  When I first moved to the US, I thought I would 恥ずかしく感じる (feel ashamed of) my accent.  However, I was 免れる (spared of) any such feeling for two reasons: 1) I was too busy trying to communicate.  My accent was the last thing I had to worry.  2) I moved to a cosmopolitan city (San Francisco, to be specific) where English is spoken with many foreign accents.

I still remember when I had my very first meal upon arriving in the US at SFO.  The waitress was 動揺しない (not fazed) at all with my accent, took my order, and called me “honey.”  Actually, she was calling everyone honey, or hon.  “You want more coffee, honey?”  “Here’s your check, hon.”  Foreign accents didn’t scare her a bit.

On the other hand, some people just become scared 途端に (as soon as) they hear the slightest accent in someone’s speech.  I believe their 脳が凍りつく (brain freezes) and they decide they can’t understand anything that is spoken with an accent.  Those people usually do not have too much 触れる (exposure) to people visiting from overseas.  And I suspect they do not speak any foreign languages themselves.

I recently had a 奇妙な体験 (curious experience) at a TED-Talk like speaking event where I was a part of the audience.  The 司会者 (MC) introduced one of the speakers as “I always wanted to have an exotic accent like hers” (I’m paraphrasing here).  I didn’t think too much about that until later I heard the 相方 (spouse) of the speaker saying that he was angry because she is much more than her accent.

I thought that was very 優しい (sweet) of him to react that way.  Then, I had to think if I were 彼女の立場 (in her shoes), how I must have felt.  Would I have イラっとした (been annoyed)?  Maybe a little.  Would I have gotten angry?  Maybe not.  Then, I thought: What would be the perfect reply if someone introduced me that way?  I could simply say “Thank you.  I can speak in 完璧な日本語 (flawless Japanese) with no accent, but I decided to be generous and speak in English with my accent, for the benefit of 99% of the audience tonight.”  It’s a variation of “Someone who speaks two languages is bilingual.  Three languages is trilingual.  What do you call someone who only speaks one language?”  The answer?  Monolingual.  No, I wasn’t thinking Americans.  (Or was I?)