As
someone who has to deal in my second language on a daily basis, I still
occasionally get instances where my accent and non-standard pronunciation
causes misunderstandings. Occasionally, I also run into misunderstandings when
I speak correctly.
Since I
don’t look Chinese, most people try to make allowances for the fact that
Chinese is not my native languages. This means, amongst other things, that if
they believe that I’ve said the wrong word due to getting my tones mixed up
(the most common pronunciation error that foreigners make), they mentally
substitute the “correct” word for me.Usually
this is fine, but occasionally the word that people assume is “wrong” is actually the word I originally intended to say - but people mishear it because they're expecting to hear something different.
