I was in a teleconference this morning that had about two dozen participants from five or six different sites. The guy coordinating the telecon (from one of the other sites) was an Asian-American, and he had a definite accent; in particular, he had the stereotypical problem with 'l' sounds.
I chuckled inwardly about that until I realized something: when I was taking high school Spanish, I couldn't trill my 'r's properly. Sure, I could fake it by making this quasi-French sound in the back of my throat, but any native speaker would instantly peg that as the Spanish version of "can't pronounce 'L'," with the attendant silent (or not-so-silent) derision.
So that was this year's Moment Of Self-Awareness. Man, I hope I don't have another one of those anytime soon. It takes all the fun out of cracking on people.
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