Native speakers are able to calibrate the differences and interpret them as being the same. A similar issue occurs in Chinese. When a "general word," is shared across multiple mutually unintelligible dialects, it is regarded as the same word even though it is pronounced differently depending on a speaker's region. Thus a speaker from Beijing and Nanking may pronounce 遍 ('throughout') differently, ( and , respectively), though they still regard the differences as minor and due to unimportant accentual differences. Because speakers aren't normally able to hear distinctions not made in their own dialect (for example, a speaker from the Southern United States who does not distinguish between "pin" and "pen" won't hear the distinction when it's produced by speakers of other dialects), speakers who "can" hear such a contrast but don't produce it may still possess the contrast as part of their linguistic repertoire.