President Trump admitted to difficulty understanding reporters with accents, reflecting a wider trend among Americans. According to dialect coaches, this stems from a fast-paced processing of speech that leads to impatience in understanding unfamiliar accents. Furthermore, with 80% of native-born Americans speaking only English, exposure to diverse languages is limited, creating a mental block against unfamiliar sounds. This cognitive filtering affects comprehension, as many Americans are accustomed to familiar speech patterns and struggle with non-native accents, which is evidenced by Trump's experiences during press conferences.
It’s a common tendency for Americans to process speech quickly and expect familiar sounds, leading to difficulties understanding those with heavy accents.
According to dialect coach Joel Goldes, many Americans lack the awareness needed to decode speech patterns of those speaking with accents.
David Alan Stern suggests that because a majority of native-born Americans only speak English, they have less exposure to a variety of accents and languages.
The phenomenon of a 'mental block' is attributed to our brains filtering out unfamiliar sounds, which complicates understanding diverse accents.
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