It was a mild late August morning, a welcoming break from the heatwave earlier in the week which saw temperatures going up to 32 in Berlin. I decided to stop by the main railway station, Berlin Hbf, on my way to catch a flight from Brandenburg Airport. For those of you who aren't familiar with this station, it's essentially a shopping mall with perpendicular sets of platforms at both the lowest and the highest levels. There are plenty of eateries to choose from too, which is a stark contrast with monotonous train stations in Italy.
Now came the embarrassing part: instead of saying ich hätte gern Falafel Wrap und eine Tasse Tee (German: I'd like falafel wrap and a cup of tea), I ordered my lunch in English. The poor German-speaking lady at the till heard 'cuppa tea', which is the way people usually say it in the UK. Little did I know she actually got confused and made me a cappucino!
I double checked with her, but she responded in English: 'sorry, we don't have "cuppa tea" here.' I instantly regretted it - why didn't I just speak in German and, what's more, I should have said 'tea' or 'cup - of - tea'!
Communication is all about understanding what others say and getting yourself understood by others. Some of my students (and I suspect many more to-be learners out there) say they want to speak with a 'British' or 'American' accent. Firstly, which British accent would they really like to learn? There are some 50 different British-type accents on top of the non-geographical RP. Secondly, if students mostly use English in a lingua franca environment, and they rarely need to communicate with first-language speakers, what's the point of winding up your interlocutors with a traditional but incomprehensible accent? I'm not suggesting that teachers should deny language learners of the opportunity of adopting a traditional English accent, but the realistic goal should be intelligibility regardless of which accent students choose to be their model.