40. It's not your accent

Accents - we've all got one! In this episode I challenge mindsets around accents, explain how you can reduce yours if you want to and share stories about my own accent struggles.

Transcript

Have any of these thoughts run through your mind? How do I reduce my accent? My accent is hard for people to understand. I wish my accent wasn't so thick.

If yes, stay tuned. Hint: In lots of cases, I bet it's not your accent.

I'm Sally Prosser. You're listening to That Voice Podcast, no matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters. So unless you've sworn a lifetime vow of silence, this is the podcast for you.

Question. Do you have an accent?

Yes, of course you do. Everyone has an accent. People usually refer to their accent when they're living in a place where most people don't have the same accent or when speaking a second language.

Now, the first thing I want to say about accents is it's personal. Isn't it? Our accent is so much part of our identity, part of who we are. And I felt this recently with some of the comments I get on my TikTok account. I have people telling me, Oh, you're American, you're a Brit, you're a Kiwi. And when I read them, of course, they're totally untrue, but I feel my defensive spine prick up. I'm like, what are you talking about? I'm a b gan from Wollongong. I reckon I sound pretty Aussie. Come on! Then when I was doing a uni exchange in the UK, so I studied at a place called Lancaster. I'm actually wearing my Lancaster uni water polo hoodie right now. It's honestly the comfiest hoodie I have ever owned and being in Brisbane, there's only about two weeks of the year when you can wear it.

So when I was in Lancaster, I worked at a local pub called - it was a Walkabout and the Walkabouts are the Aussie pub chain in the UK. And I remember some customers would be like, Oh, so what brings you here from London? And my Aussie colleagues would say, Sal, yeah, you do speak kind of posh for an Aussie. And, but then other customers would say, wow, they've trained you up well on the Aussie accent. And I was really confused. So yeah, accent is a big part of your identity. It's a big part of who you are. So the important thing is the most important thing I believe is to love your accent. Love your accent, embrace your accent. It's part of who you are.

If it's bothering you, ask yourself, is it your accent or is it your mindset?

I have a lot of people that ask me those questions I asked at the start - how do I reduce my accent? People can't understand me because of my accent. And I often find that, no, it's not your accent it's your mindset. Do you think your accent is hard for people to understand? Or is it actually hard for people to understand. Have one or two people mentioned something negative about your accent? And then now you're convinced that it's a problem. You know, the narrative that you're telling yourself is that it's your accent, it's your accent. Are you using your accent as an excuse? There's one for you. Are you using your accent as an excuse?

When I start working with people, it's usually I notice things like their articulation, vocal, modulation, the pace of speech, the volume of speech. And look, these are areas which apply to every voice, every accent.

You know, so is it your accent or is it because you're not articulating clearly? Is it your accent or is it because you're speaking too fast. So just watch that. And don't be using the accent as an excuse. In saying that you can change your accent. If you want to, you can change your accent if you want to. I would just ask what is the reason. So it might be, I am actually struggling to have people understand me. I'm struggling to have influence at work. I'm struggling to have people understand me on the phone, you know, and of course that's a blocker. If people can't understand the words then it's going to be pretty hard for us to connect. So yes, you absolutely can reduce your accent and change it. You know, sometimes it's particular sounds. I've worked with a couple of lovely, fantastic Glaswegians and words that in an Australian accent have the sound, au, like power.

It sounds more like 'power.' That can be quite tricky because it's very different to the sound that we're used to hearing. So if you can identify a sound like that and say, okay, if I can change it into the native language, then if I'm in a situation where I'm not being understood, then I can know how to change it. And in that case, it's just opening up the jaw. That reminds me when I was in the UK, working at the Walkabout. I remember in the beginning, I struggled with the sound oo and so people would say "I'll have a bud."

And I was like, sorry, sorry, what would you like? And I felt terrible. And then I realized that they were asking for a Budweiser. So bud being short for Budweiser and then bud being the way with the accent. And so I was like right a Budweiser. Another one is in Portuguese. So I speak very basic Brazilian Portuguese. And I could spend a whole episode about the funny things that I've learned, learning another language, but in Brazilian Portuguese and in a lot of languages, there's a nasal sound. And it's usually indicated by the swirly kind of thing that goes on top of the A. And it's not something that I've been used to. So the word 'mum' is mae, but it's not mae it's through the nose. And it's more like mãe, mãe. So I'd be wanting to talk about my mom and I found over and over.

I had people say what? Sorry. And so I took the time to really learn how to get the sound through the nose. So the other one is bread. Bread is pão - which is straight out the nose. And I found that useful to work on because it just made it, you know, shopping in general conversation a lot easier. Now apart from the particular sounds in words. There's also the sounds of the phrasing. So the stress and the intonation. So stress is the words that jump out. You know, if everything stands out, nothing stands out and the intonation is kind of like the music of the language. And when you're speaking another language I know from experience, you know, you're often so focused on getting the words and the grammar right that the stress and the intonation can be a little bit off. I remember my Brazilian Portuguese teacher would say canta a lingua, which is like seeing the language and every language has a kind of song.

And I found the best way to improve that is just to spend a lot of time around native speakers or watch movies. So you get the sound of the language, not just the individual word pronunciation, but the way it sounds when it's phrased. So if you're in this camp where you're saying, yes, I think that my accent is preventing me from communicating as well as I could. Then there are definitely things you can do. And that's the reason people work with voice coaches like myself. There are also dialect coaches who specialize in accent reduction.

To wrap up. If you're beating yourself up about your accent, please don't do it. Please don't do it. Ask yourself, is it your accent or is it your mindset. Next if you would like to reduce your accent and you're clear on the reason why that is, then there are things you can do have a chat to me or reach out to a dialect coach. Now I'd like to finish this episode, sharing a great video of an English guy called Kai Lewis demonstrating lots of different accents as random people yell them out to him. He's very talented. And it's quite funny.

Kai Lewis demonstrating accents.

He's so good isn't he? Now next week. Guess what? It's the last guest podcast for season two. And I'm speaking to an internationally acclaimed speaker on the topic of human connection. She's a former radio star, a mega boss babe, and someone who I admire greatly. It's Simone Heng. I would love you to join me then.

Thanks for listening to That Voice Podcast, all episodes and full transcripts are www.thatvoicepodcast.com.