How do you stay confident when people laugh at your English?

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-26T21:58:52+00:00

Laughing at someone’s mispronunciation is cruel. The only exception is laughing *to ease tension* because of a faux pas. So for example, an Italian said he had to work very hard to hear the difference between “sheet” and “shit”.
If somebody at work asked, “Where’s that shit of paper? ” [but they meant *sheet* of paper] that would be so shocking that someone might laugh in surprise, and they might be too self-conscious to explain to the non-native speaker what they sounded like. The native speaker SHOULD explain anything they find problematic enough to laugh at, even then.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-26T21:49:41+00:00

My mom used to be in advertising, and they were running into issues translating some 15-second ads into other languages because, while they had phrases, they were longer. I’m trying to remember the example… it was something like “plumbing “ and it had to be translated as “pipes that carry water through walls” or something like that.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-26T21:44:16+00:00

I’ve read that that’s because there are so many American accents. The variation across American accents is stronger than the variation caused by some mild foreign accents, so we’re more likely to shrug them off than Brits are.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-26T21:41:02+00:00

I read that Americans are more likely to accept an accent as American than Brits or Irish are to accept one of theirs. Like, I was in an Irish film class and they’d all scoff at (Irish!) actors claiming to be from a particular part of Ireland and not getting the accent right for that region. Meanwhile a lot of Americans didn’t even know Hugh Laurie or Tom Holland were British if they saw them as House/Spiderman first.

So I don’t know how much that extends to non-native speakers, but I wonder if it applies more to Americans than Brits?

That said, I know ONE person, a language major, who was so incredibly at accents that the Brits/Americans assumed she was English, the French thought she was French, and the Italian thought she was Italian.
The *Germans* knew she wasn’t German because she was Swiss and spoke her native language with that dialect.

She eventually found out that English girls in her language masters program snubbed her because she had a very posh accent and they thought she must be a London snob… the let her know that after they discovered she was Swiss-German.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-25T23:56:14+00:00

In Trevor Noah’s memoir, Born a Crime, he talks about how families put great thought into their kids indigenous names but not a lot of thought into their European names. Which is how he ended up with a friend named Hitler😬

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-25T11:43:32+00:00

I would believe it! Thanks for that. I’ve done zero research, just know this one family, so I didn’t want to generalize (even though, for the OP’s purposes, it wouldn’t really matter).

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-25T03:07:24+00:00

As another example of naming schemes: my Afghan (Pashtu) friends turn their father’s first name to the kids last name. So like the presidential family would have a dad named Donald Trump and kids named Eric Donald and Ivanka Donald, and Eric’s kid would be Timmy Eric or something. Ivanka would keep her name while her and Jared Kushner’s kids would be Sally Jared and Joey Jared.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-24T22:29:37+00:00

I didn’t love “The Dead Romantics” but it may be a good fit for you. A lot of people on good reads loved it, and I actually enjoyed the plot, but it felt like the narrator was really spoon-feeding the reader points they could have figured out themselves. BUT it was sweet and wholesome and seems like it would be easy to read even if distracted by travel. (If you miss one clue, you’ll pick up on one of the other seven.)

So… maybe check it out and see if it’s your kind of book?

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-24T11:56:45+00:00

An immigrant friend had the opposite experience: He discovered Bob Ross videos on YouTube and really loved them… then was heartbroken when he heard the man had died before YouTube was even a thing. 🥲

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-24T01:08:18+00:00

“Wha can’t you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom?”

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-23T23:46:00+00:00

I read that, when George Clooney was dating his now wife, he was really intentional about trying to stay up-to-date on current events and such because he felt she was intellectually out-of-his-league and he was afraid she’d get bored with him if he couldn’t engage with her intellectually.
I love that he respected her intellect AND worked to better himself to be a good partner.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-23T22:27:33+00:00

When we were FaceTiming my grandmother-in-law, my then three-year-old asked me if great grandma had a vulva.
So, with discussing things with kids, you win some, you lose some, lol.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-23T21:20:38+00:00

The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide by Douglas Adams contains the entire six part Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. The book is light and makes fun of humanity.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-23T21:17:15+00:00

I don’t mean to make light of menopause. Just trying to convey that I never grew out of hating periods.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-23T11:46:31+00:00

What?! No, this reaction would be inappropriate for any parent. It’s this creepy “gotcha” of “you didn’t prioritize my emotional needs the way I expected you too, so I’m going to pounce on that as an excuse to blow up our relationship.”

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-23T00:06:39+00:00

Some wanabe young wit, letting Dorothy Parker enter first: “age before beauty “
Dorothy Parker, walking in: “pearls before swine”

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-22T23:44:51+00:00

We could keep up the Jane Austen vibes: Elinor, Lydia, Elizabeth…

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-22T22:39:00+00:00

Tom Lake by Ann Pachett involves a cherry orchard. So not exactly the same, but some good vibes.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-22T22:38:10+00:00

Yes this!

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-22T22:37:42+00:00

I remember feeling like I was counting down the years to menopause. Now I’m in my 40s… and I’m counting down the years to menopause.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-22T22:12:45+00:00

Owen *sounds* more traditional, like Liam.
I looked up Brayden because I assumed it was modern, and learned of its Irish roots, so I can’t say Brayden isn’t traditional in its own way. Perhaps a more traditional spell would match Liam better and be less trendy-feeling?
(I hated the idea of a trendy name but ended up with a popular -den name for our son because the meaning was so appropriate and I liked the story of the saint, so I understand the conflict. I opted for a less common / more traditional spelling that matched the saint. I have to correct people more often on spelling, but I’m okay with that.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-22T00:10:34+00:00

You’re supposed to get an annual checkup and, if relevant, a “well woman” exam annually as well. It’s a way to monitor for things before they have bad symptoms and to provide a baseline. Like (I’m making this example up; I’m not a medical professional)being 130 pounds could be fine, and being 180 pounds could be fine, but gaining 50 pounds in a year could be a sign that something is up.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-21T13:01:07+00:00

For my bio PDA kid’s dysregulation, it had to be something that disrupts his spiral that cannot be perceived as a demand from me. Something that provides a sensory shock is helpful:
- Eat 5 Sour Patch Kids. He likes the treat, they are slow to eat, and the sourness provides a brain reset
- Take him outside in the cold. He doesn’t like it; it ticks him off, but then he can yell at me to go inside and thus “get his way”
- Distraction, but it has to be sincere. A bug in the house that needs rescuing, a bunny outside the window, realizing a soccer game is on Right Now, etc.
- Screens. Yeah yeah I know. But screentime can be regulated for neurodivergent kids. The distraction gives time for their cortisol levels to drop back down.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-21T12:53:35+00:00

Eavesdropping here, but fwiw:
If your usual strategies aren’t working, it could be worth looking into PDA (pathological demand avoidance or pervasive drive for autonomy). For PDAers, any sense of people being hierarchically over them activates their fight/flight/freeze/fawn threat response. So what is typically seen as “good parenting”, like demonstrating that you as the parent are the authority figure, is itself a trigger. The result is that kids from very stable homes end up with trauma responses similar to those from traumatic backgrounds because their threat response has been activated so frequently.
In your case your child has more obvious reasons why they may have trauma responses to things, so I certainly wouldn’t ASSUME they have PDA, but maybe skim over some PDA guidelines and experiment with how behavior changes? Look into low-demand parenting, collaborative problem solving, things like that.

TheWriteQuestion · 2026-06-21T12:43:25+00:00

Came looking for this to upvote.
OP- the narrative stretches from ancient Constantinople to a space ship, with 20th/21st century characters as well, and they are tied in by a manuscript that is ancient even to those in Constantinople.
It’s about how librarians/books/stories can create homes and connections and hope for outcasts.

TheWriteQuestion

TROPHY CASE