[quote="lepium
She event went further and suggested that the fact that I do speak 2 other languages fluently would more than outweigh any potential negative effect that my accent might have.
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I was about to talk about that. I know many French people who have their strong accent, Spaniards who also have their strong characteristic accent, Portuguese speakers too; however, many of these South European citizens speak at least 3 languages.
Also, with the new Toefl iBT and the IELTS testing the speaking, the results (almost always I pronounce result incorrectly) have even refraining students from applying to some schools. HBS is the strictest asking for a minimum 109 score; the UC’s do not approve test takers with less than a minimum score on the speaking part. Unfortunately as the ETS couldn’t handle properly the test dates, schools are still accepting the PBT version, which doesn’t test the speaking. Off course, that as they are standardized tests some techniques will improve the results of the taker, just like the GMAT.
From what I’ve seen with my Brazilian buddies, it wasn’t an issue to get jobs in US or London their language skills. I’m not saying that they do not make mistakes, I even make mistakes in Portuguese (believe me English grammar is Very easy compared to Latin languages)
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Perhaps, this problem has 2 main sources: the person's natural language abilities and one's own efforts.
Sorry about my mistakes guys, I'm not Shakespeare