This might sound blunt. But make it obvious and speak load and clearly and ask the person to repeat clear and slowly as you have difficulties understanding what is being said.
«Excuse me, I cannot understand you. Can you please talk slow, clearly and without dialect? I am not a native speaker.»
I am not sure where you got the idea that I am not a native speaker - but I am. I also think that asking someone to talk 'without an accent' would be very rude to that person, especially if they are not a native speaker (I do not know - but it is also not my place to inquiry them about their nationality).
Meet someone from Birmingham, and being a native speaker isn't going to help you one bit. The worst case of understanding was a French speaker, who was speaking and it took about five to ten minutes for people to realise he was talking English and not French.
@AidaPaul I had some problems with my accent and kind of realized that if you just gesticulate more with your mouth, (like open more your mouth) the accent is less perceived.
@Or4ng3h4t i was being extremely sarcastic, not really looking for advice on how to lose my lovely accent. Honestly if someone asked me that, we would be not getting along, as that's quite insulting thing to ask, for many accent is part of heritage.
This is a good answer actually, just remove the "without accent" bit. Most people can't speak in accents other than their native ones. When I experience the same issue, I say the same thing you did just without the "without accent" bit as it is going to sound offensive.
For the most part, asking to speak slowly works very well. The accents I have the most difficulty understanding are Southeast Asian ones and some Latino ones. But as you said, I state that the problem is with me not being able to understand as opposed to them speaking incorrectly in any way, which is also, quite obviously, correct. I haven't had an experience where someone slowed down and I wasn't able to get them, regardless of their accent. And of course, you can always ask them to repeat or follow what the other answers have stated.
@Or4ng3h4t Purposely doing an accent that you aren't used to is quite a bit weird imho, and being ASKED TO is truly offensive. It's better you stick with your natural accent and simply slow down. It isn't that much of a big deal, really.
There's no such thing as “without accent”. Even native speakers have an accent, whether Australian, Welsh, South African, Canadian, English, Jamaican, USA, or Nigerian — many of which cover a very wide range. So unless OP has a specific accent in mind, this answer asks colleagues to use OP's own accent, which seems a bad idea: it may be hard or impossible for them to get sufficiently close to it, and it's probably rude to ask (and the results are likely to verge on an offensive caricature). Instead, accept that both accents are equally valid, and take time to try to understand theirs.
Here in Switzerland we have 4 official languages and in one, that is Swiss German, there exist over thousands of dialect variations depending on the location. We often resort to english as we do not understand each other. This is not some sort of malicious intent. It is just that ones accent can sometimes not be understood. No bad intentions, just two or more people trying to speak to each other. In terms of a management situation, speak about the elephant in the room and do not walk on eggshells to cater comfort to someone. Be sensible and expect sensibility.
Changed «accent» to «dialect» in the answer provided.
I do not support the opinions stated here that someone speaking with an accent is in the right and someone who does not has to live with that. We have a clear definition of standard english grades A, B or C in terms of language levels. Those are commonly accepted standards. In a conversation it is my opinion that all participants have to seek a common level on which they can understand each other. Which can either be a person from trying to refrain from using a strong accent and to use standard english as learned in scool or another person trying to learn the accent or a translator is needed.
@Sascha - Native English speaker here, and I have no idea what “grades A, B, and C” are so it’s definitely not clearly defined. Especially if someone who lives in America (assume we’re not talking British English), has no idea what “grades A, B, and C” are exactly, and has only been speaking, reading, and writing English for 4 decades.
Discussion on answer by Sascha: How d…
Discussion on answer by Sascha: How d…