"The Important of NOT Being Native English" - an Earnest Issue For the purposes here, you have either grown up speaking the kind of English in demand, or you have through education acquired a high C level, now you are in another country learning the language. Guess what! Everyone insists on speaking English at you! No matter how well you pronounce, no matter how correct your grammar and succinct phrasing. No matter how much you explain, why you spend money and stay in the country, most successful language learners nod and unilaterally decide that your valid reasons and requests, do not apply to themselves just "some other peoples" as they are want to say. One may try strategies, simply walking out on them, ordering them, appealing with charming "Let's speak ..." but it is stressful and weas, this constant daily battle. Once I read an account by an Italian with C2 English working in a Baltic state, soon promoted by the Balti's in a piquant way to honorary Englishman and treated as one, much to his exasperation. Not actually being English, he struggled to appreciate the supreme irony of his situation, where past success was stymieing his not unreasonable wish, that living and working in the country to blend in better, learn more culture, he should speak the local language. But, NO! The great Language Swindle prevents that. English, deceptively simple, "Oh... English is easy" I have heard so often, whilst I am treated to a restricted palate of maximum 8 vowels, instead of the 20+ I use. Similarly, this easy language seems to addict people to creative uses of rare tenses, becoming the most frequent form they choose. Now let's not even mention the spelling! Nobody expects the English Spelling Inquisition, natives seriously cannot pass it and rely on Spell Check & Google, even teachers of English, School Heads shamelessly ask me, Rob... how do I spell and I say I have no idea how YOU spell it, why not type it into Google? That's what I recommend (hey I actually get that one right first time!). So my question is to English students who haven't moved to England but are in your own country, is: Why? If English is so good, why do you need to constantly practice it on me, when I am learning YOUR language? Secondly for the English natives, what is your strategy? I am considering: Double back up of Dutch when Bärn Dutsch is understood. But damn flaw is Dutch speak better English than most English! Germanic scary tatoos on my forehead. Or learn impenetrable dialect like Geordie or Aberdonian so hard to fake!