Yeah, I have the opposite problem, being a native English speaker living in Portugal - to my ear, I’ll say something perfectly coherent and pronounced exactly as the locals do - and they won’t understand a bloody word. It isn’t just the phonemes, it’s the cadence - syllabic vs rhythmic stress. I’ll be like “um galão” and they’ll be like “galão?”, “sim, um galão”, “um… que? Galão?”, “sim,
galão”, “ahhh, um galão!” and I just can’t seem to be understood.
My wife is a native Russian speaker, and despite making numerous grammatical errors is far better understood than I am.
German, I have no such problem despite being far weaker at the language imo.
My wife is a native Russian speaker, and despite making numerous grammatical errors is far better understood than I am.
German, I have no such problem despite being far weaker at the language imo.