TheAccentGuy.com | English… with an American accent!

As the economy tightens, the Wall Street Journal has republished an article from 2004 about efforts to increase diversity in the American workforce — and the increasing demands that investments in job skills training pay off. One important skill mentioned near the end of the article is (you guessed it! ) accent reduction; it’s a good example of how investment in this skill really does pay off, both for the individuals receiving training, and for the companies that sponsor such training.

[National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP) President Vincent] Yee points to Bank of America as an employer that has gone the extra mile to build and retain a diverse staff. For example, some members of its large Asian-American work force wouldn’t voice their opinions and concerns because of their accent. After managers learned about this problem, the bank began offering an accent-reduction course to help employees feel more confident about speaking up. The move impressed Asian-Americans within the bank and externally, he says.

While corporate training budgets have been tightening these days, accent training can provide positive returns to the bottom lines of many businesses. If you’re concerned that your accent may be hindering your opportunities for achievement and advancement on-the-job, you might consider checking with your manager, HR, or corporate training department about full or partial reimbursement for accent training program costs.

Do you have a story about how accent training has improved your career prospects? Please post a comment and share your experiences!

If you think English spelling is bad now… it could be much worse, if it were not for the efforts of Noah Webster! It was 180 years ago today that he published the first edition of his dictionary (from The Writer’s Almanac)…

It was on this day in 1828 that Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language. He was a man who’d grown up in America at a time when Americans from different states could barely understand each other because they spoke with such different accents and even different languages. Americans in Vermont spoke French, New Yorkers spoke Dutch, and the settlers in Pennsylvania spoke German. All these different languages were influencing American English and there were few standards of spelling or meaning.

Noah Webster spent 20 years working on his dictionary, which contained 70,000 words, and he did all the research and the handwriting of the book by himself. He is believed to be the last lexicographer to complete a dictionary without an assistant.

Webster’s dictionary had the result he intended. His standardized spelling and pronunciation guides helped ensure that Americans who speak English speak more or less the same English. The United States has the fewest dialects of any major country in history.

That last paragraph is really amazing… that English is derived from so many different languages, and yet we have the fewest dialects of any major country!

Regarding spelling vs. pronunciation in English, what is the most difficult challenge for you? Please post a comment with your thoughts!

If you’re concerned about the impression that your accent may give to your audience in a public speaking situation, here’s a great line to use from an Indian immigrant (quoted in an article entitled “7 Things Never to Say to Asian-American Executives” on DiversityInc.com)…

[S.K.] Gupta [VP-Operations for Lockheed-Martin] says, “I use my accent as an ice breaker. I make speeches and presentations all the time and I often start by saying, ‘If some of you detect an accent, please remember that I didn’t have one until I came to this country.’”

What a great way to break the ice! Americans appreciate self-deprecating humor. By using this strategy, you can simultaneously address the issue and put your audience at ease, and then move right on into the main content of your talk.

If you have any strategies of your own that you use to diffuse the issue of accent in your speech, please post a comment and share it!

Here’s a nice article highlighting the benefits that students of Missouri University’s Accent Modification Program are experiencing. The story quotes Robyn Kim, a participant in the program…

“I learned these things, and I found that it’s more than language. It’s more about my confidence. It’s more about my empowerment,” said Kim, who was a translator in South Korea but quit partly out of frustration. “I got more power, and I began to speak up” after taking the accent classes twice last year. “And I just felt all the people understood me. … “This is a new Robyn,” she said. “You’re seeing a very happy woman now.”

This kind of quote is really inspiring to me as an accent trainer… it makes my day when my clients tell me things like this! And, as the clinicians mentioned in the article, I also am kind of geeky about sounds and accent!

I’m also inspired by Robyn’s dedication to her quest for linguistic freedom… she gets up at 3 or 4am to work on her accent exercises! What step would you like to take to improve your speech and your life???

Here’s a great article about a program at Arizona State University’s business school that helps foreign-born students to adapt to American culture — specifically, business culture — by providing specific training in American mannerisms and speech patterns. They call it “a crash course in Americana”. The article includes interviews with MBA students from Venezuela and India.

I really appreciate the comments made near the end of the piece by Pragya Pandit from India…

Though the program teaches students how to properly annunciate English words, Pandit said that she does not like the term “accent reduction.” “Americans would say I’m reducing my accent, but I say I’m learning an American accent,” she said. But [ASU’s Assistant Director for Graduate Career Development Kathleen] Taylor said the aim of the program is not to strip the international students of the values and customs of their homeland. “I think their cultures are very strong,” she said. “They will never lose their culture. They’re just opening up to the American experience.

I don’t like the term “accent reduction” either. As Pandid says, rather than reducing an accent (which is negative, and implies that something is broken), I also prefer the positive approach of “adopting a new accent”, and opening one’s self up to a new experience!

Can you relate to any of the experiences mentioned by internationals in this article?

An article from the UK’s Guardian newspaper discusses accent in the context of public speaking, and makes the point that even when speaking with an accent, it will sound much more pleasant to the listener if it not nasal.

“The nicest sounding voices are spoken through the mouth rather than through the nose and you can achieve this through simple vocal exercises to strengthen your soft palate. … You can have a strong accent but spoken through the mouth it will sound rich and warm, and people like accents because they sound friendly.”

This is true here in the States as well. While your ultimate goal may be to reduce your “strong accent”, you can get a lot of mileage out of this tip between now and then by speaking more from your chest and mouth, and less through your nose. If you’re not sure whether your speech sounds nasal or not, try resting your fingertips on your nose while you speak… if you feel a strong vibration, your speech is probably too nasal-sounding for your American listeners.

Please post a comment if you’d like some tips on reducing the nasality of your speech!