In Mainland China, there’s one standard Chinese Pronunciation –Mandarin. We learn “HanYuPinYin”  from kindergarten or primary school, also can be heard on TV or Radio, Therefore, it is really not difficult to follow.

However, Australia, which is a multi-cultural country, you can hear accents worldwide—Australian, Indian, Chinese, Malaysian, Asian, English, Scottish, American, European, African, Middle East  etc, I was shocked who I could follow with.

I asked My Aussie Friends in the Uni and company : “  Do you learn pronunciation in the School?” “ no ,we have never taught about that”, even the younger generation who entered private school , the Aussie  accents are gained from their school teacher or Parents, there’s no one proper pronunciation book or class as we do in China. High educated people speak  closer to Aussie Accent, people from countryside, or lower educated ones ,that would be pretty hard to understand the time I first arrived. There’s no uniformed one on TV or Radio either.

Even I heard from my colleague, one lady who is a  half caste( Mum English, Dad Aussie) said, “ the accents in Britain are very different, people from London might speak very standard Queen English, or high educated ones, or people from rich area- I heard a word” posh”. However,  the way up to the North, eg, Scotland, you will wonder “ Do they speak English?” I have one friend from Scotland, I could understand him from face-to-face, but I would always ask “  Sorry, I lost you, could you please say again?” when we made phone calls.

Does the Accent really matters, when a foreigner talks to  native English Speakers?

I would like say no any local people will expect your speaking English as perfect as them. Only if you were born in English Speaking country, or came to the country in very little age. Then , there’s no doubt , you will speak as good as natives. But one thing is important, speak English as clear as possible, if people couldn’t understand you, then you will have less competitive advantage to someone who speaks better than you. Also, after you get a job, clients or customers will have very little patience talking with someone they could hardly catch up.

It really depends on what your goal is ? Finding a job ,  to be a manager in a foreigner-run company?  or just making friends with someone who speak English or simply travelling overseas? Or simply for fun, do you feel joyment or pain in learning English?  Then decide if it is worth for you spending time improving your pronunciation. It is time-consuming,  I can guarantee you.

Yes, I would like say “ absolutely, you can make it no matter how bad your English pronunciation at this stage”.  I am a very good example.

I am much older than most of you guys here I guess, when I was a child, the education was very under-standard. I even didn’t have a tape record, I couldn’t make comment for how good my English teacher was. I wrote Chinese under English sentences, that’s how I pronounced English. Now you can tell how bad my English would be. It was until I turned to 18 years old, my life was miserable, that’s completely not the way I enjoyed. That time, my aunt was in  the USA, and I have read a lot of stories regarding people living overseas. I got a dream—I wanna study abroad, I wanna change my life. That was a big goal, it seemed very unrealistic, my English was nearly 0. I couldn’t pronounce any English vocabulary properly.

After making a big decision, I started learning English by myself, I went to the bookstore bought a tape record and English pronunciation book , I taught myself very carefully, where to put my tongue? how to pronoun according to the photos showed on the book and the tape record I listened. I practiced at home really hard, it took me 3 months completing the book. Now, I am pretty happy about my basic English Pronunciation. The next step, I looked up every single English word from the dictionary, and wrote down the pronunciation under each word, read it over and over by following the tape record. That’s how I started English learning.

After more than 10 years, my life has been changed dramatically, I realized my dream-studying overseas and doing accounting job in an Aussie company. I am pretty confident about my English accent at the moment. I couldn’t say how good it is, but I heard a Japanese guy and a Korea girl said: “ wow, your English is very clear”, “ you don’t have much accent as some other Chinese do.” One boy from Sri Lanka told me. So far I haven’t had communication problems with all my Aussie clients and  site managers talking on the phone.

One thing is for sure: having a clear English accent, will boost your self-confidence. You will willing to talk, and get more opportunities