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is it rude to correct a foreign person's pronunciation?
In the past year I have been working in a new job setting and about half of the people I work with are not native English speakers. We're all on good terms with each other, joke around, go out to eat together occasionally...I'm just not sure if this would always be considered rude. There are a whole list of words that these coworkers have horrendous pronunciation of; alcohol pronounced "alcogol", or coordinates pronounced "coordinator", yeast pronounced "east"...the list goes on and on.
On one hand I feel like correcting them would be a kind gesture, because I am helping them improve at speaking the language. On the other hand, what if this is a pronunciation they have tried correcting many times in the past, but they just can't fix it?
Let me know what you think.
By the way, I hope this doesn't come off as ignorant. I normally would try to see it from their perspective in a situation like this but I feel that since I only speak one language, I wouldn't be able to understand their perspective well enough.
3 Answers
- Anonymous7 years agoFavorite Answer
What I think is not important. It is what they think that you need to know. Ask them what they would prefer. It could be seen as a favor or humiliating. Next time you have the urge to correct would be a good time to ask. "That word is pronounced. Speaking a language that is not your first must be difficult sometimes. Does it bother you when someone corrects your pronunciation, or do you find it helpful?"
You can almost never go wrong with the direct approach.
- Anonymous7 years ago
I'm not really one to correct people's pronunciations, but if I do, then I would do it in a subtle way, e.g. whenever they pronounce something incorrectly, I pretend like I don't understand what they're saying, but then a few seconds later, go, "OH, you mean EAST." That usually gets the point through that perhaps they're not pronouncing something correctly without being too direct about it. If they try and repeat what you say, that means they're open to improvement, and then you can be a bit more direct in the future. My two cents, anyway.
- Anonymous7 years ago
Not something to do often, but if the mispronunciation leads to misunderstanding or confusion then you should point out the mistake. E.g. "east" for "yeast".