Learning to love your accent

[Music]

if you are british

and you have a friend who’s not british

or you’ve traveled to a different

country before

chances are you’ve heard someone tell

you that they love your accent

not being british myself i’m 100 guilty

of having done this before

our fascination towards accents is

nothing new

all over the internet there are memes

and videos of people

trying to imitate different accents

around the world

take this for example try saying rise of

lights

sounds like you’re saying razor blades

in an australian accent

what i’m trying to say is people have

always been fascinated by accents

and with good reason they’re what makes

us unique

they’re how people identify us say

you see someone with blonde hair and

blue eyes

for all you know they could be from

anywhere but

if they start talking with an irish

accent then you know that they’re

probably irish

similarly if a person starts speaking in

a heavy southern accent

chances are they grew up eating a lot of

fried chicken

your accent is not only how others

identify you

it’s also how you identify yourself

it ties us to our identity in a similar

way that our gender and our race does

because of how incredibly unique every

accent is

you can actually use it to discover more

about your family’s history

people like referring broadly to the

american accent or the british accent

but that is a huge generalization

take the us for example where people

like talking about the

oh my gosh totally valley girl accent

that’s

actually only common in places like la

but if you go to the south there ain’t a

lot of that down there y’all

this difference isn’t limited to the

english language either

take mandarin for example in beijing

they curl their r’s a lot but in taiwan

where they speak the same language it’s

much softer and gentler

to say i am a student a beijing mandarin

speaker would say

well sure he goes well a taiwanese

mandarin speaker would say

well she goes see

the difference isn’t huge but it is

there

because of these indicators between

different accents

you can actually use it to learn more

about your own ancestry

which makes it an important part of who

you are

this made me wonder why on earth are

accents a thing

are they permanent or can we change them

and

most importantly why do we associate

certain assumptions and stereotypes with

certain accents

well today we’re going to dive into what

your accent says

about you first let’s dig into what an

accent is

the term refers to the way words are

pronounced

every person has an accent that is the

unique result of

how when and where they learned the

language they speak

as a result your accent can tell a lot

about you

from the community that you grew up in

to your family’s background and history

the most common type of accent that we

refer to is the native accent

where a person develops their accent

through their mother tongue

but here’s the thing our circumstances

change people move travel and meet

people

from all around the world and as a

result

accents can and do transform

when we come across another distinct

group it is possible to pick up another

accent

either by choice or by long-term

exposure

and this is called your foreign or

additional accent

take me for example since guangdong or

cantonese

is my mother tongue the english accent

that i’m using right now

is my foreign accent

now that we’ve understood the basics of

what accents are and how they can

actually change

under certain circumstances let’s dive

into the most glaring topic when it

comes to accents

the stereotypes discriminations and the

assumptions that come with some of them

now i attend a private boarding school

in britain as an international student

and as such i faced my fair share of

challenges and hurdles

when it comes to my accent now

before you click of this video and call

me a private school snob in the comments

section below

just hear me out first us international

students get a lot of slack

and while some of that might be deserved

being one is not as easy as you might

think

as someone from hong kong i’ve grown up

and lived my entire life

in a predominantly cantonese-speaking

community

and to come here and suddenly find that

everything’s in english

from the textbooks to the groceries to

the news when you turn on tv

and to have to adjust to everyone around

you speaking english

all the time while we do expect that

before we come here

the difference is still jarring and it

can be intimidating

and scary at first not to mention

we’re also faced with the constant

pressure of having to speak

english all the time because if we don’t

do that

people around us might take offense to

it and while that is

understandable it still puts a lot of

pressure on us

i know a lot of my friends who are in

similar situations

who have found it incredibly hard to

adjust to this change

and as such they take it very hard in

themselves

because a lot of international students

aren’t confident

with their accent or their ability to

speak english

many of them choose to be quiet and not

talk to anybody

a lot of the times they might also find

it more comfortable sticking with people

from their hometown

because they’re embarrassed and afraid

to talk to the locals

not only can this experience be

incredibly lonely

it can also create a huge barrier

between local and international students

and make it hard for foreign students to

integrate

into local school life and live like a

normal student would

which is obviously unfortunate because

your accent

shouldn’t limit you from experiencing

life

now i can’t speak for them nor can i

fully understand what they’re going

through

but for me personally my adjustment

period

was ultimately a process that involved a

lot of shame

and self-doubt back at home i was

really confident in my ability to speak

english but

when i first came here all of that

changed

now everyone around me could speak

english fluently

and way better than i could and i

started to really doubt

my abilities and my intelligence i even

started to feel

inferior almost and ashamed of my accent

growing up english literature has always

been one of my favorite subjects

and that’s why when i switched to my

current school in britain from my

previous school in hong kong

i kept it as one of my electives

everyone around me kept telling me that

it was such a stupid thing to do

that i wouldn’t be able to hold a candle

to the locals here and then

i should choose maths instead even

though i’m terrible at maths

but because i’m asian it doesn’t matter

right

well i didn’t end up listening to them

and i stuck with my original decision

however when i first came here because i

was so ashamed of my accent

i started to doubt my ability to do well

in class

i felt very frustrated with myself and i

kept on asking myself

why can’t i speak english the way that

my classmates can

what is wrong with me and why am i not

good enough

week after week though i began to

realize that

this self-doubt this feeling of

inferiority

and shame it was all in my mind

my accent is not an indicator of my

abilities and it is definitely not an

indicator of my intelligence

i think the thing that a lot of foreign

students do is that

they focus way too much on their accent

and how it’s not good enough

how it doesn’t sound native enough that

they forget

that being able to speak a completely

different language on a day-to-day basis

is an amazing thing to do in it of

itself

retreating into yourself and sticking to

people from your hometown

might seem like an appealing and easy

decision

but it is ultimately not helpful because

not only does it limit the people you

talk to

it also limits the things you can

experience

so if you are foreign and you’re afraid

to talk to the locals

let me tell you something you’re not the

only one

your accent shouldn’t hold you back from

experiencing life though

and remember the more you practice

speaking in an accent and the more

you’re exposed to it

the more native it is going to sound so

if that is your goal there is no better

way to do it

so get out of your comfort zone and put

yourself

out there

this experience isn’t limited to foreign

students only

if you are new to a predominantly

english speaking country

like me chances are you’ve been through

the same thing

you’ve probably also heard someone tell

you this

is our country speak english

which can i just say i find such a

strange thing to tell somebody

because if you’ve been to virtually any

non-english speaking country before

99 of the locals there won’t expect you

to speak their language

much less do it fluently like if you

come to hong kong

and you can even speak one word in

cantonese

everyone is going to be so impressed

with you

a lot of people have very strong

feelings about

foreign accents and they believe that

immigrants should be able to speak

english perfectly and fluently

which is basically biologically

impossible

for foreign speakers to do this is

because the most

critical period of brain development

happens at six months old

this is when your brain begins to

recognize phonemes which are the

distinct

units of sounds in a specific language

that separate one word from the other

after the age of six it has been

scientifically proven

that your ability to change your accent

has been greatly diminished

and from the age of 12 the length of

residence has almost

zero effect on your accent that’s why

it’s so hard for native speakers to lose

or to change their accent

and why it’s so hard for foreign

speakers to develop a native accent

in a language that isn’t in their mother

tongue

because of how early accents are formed

and their largely permanent nature

they can become barriers because they

can represent

different life experiences studies on

babies have even found

that actions play an even bigger role in

perception than the likes of

gender and race as a result

these barriers can create stereotypes

and assumptions that can lead to

discrimination towards certain accidents

for example studies have found that

african-american speech patterns have

been statistically perceived to sound

more violent and less intelligent than

white speech

patterns another study found that the

majority of employers admitted to

discriminating against applicants

on the basis of their accent a third

study found that

working class candidates have a hard

time acquiring elite professions

despite having the relevant

qualifications and skills

purely because of the way they speak

a lot of the times how you hear someone

matters more

than what you actually hear them say

as humans we love to judge each other as

soon as the first word leaves someone’s

mouths

even as they continue to talk your brain

has already identified the type of

person they are

applying existing generalizations and

stereotypes about that type of person

and in a way categorizing them

people like to associate different

behaviors with different accents

and while sometimes that can hold some

truth a

lot of the times it is flown way out of

proportion

and this can lead to generalizations

about entire cultures

as we can see the discrimination towards

foreign accents is

very real and very problematic

individuals with non-standard accents

have to be constantly faced with

negative perceptions and prejudice

researchers have consistently found that

people with non-native actions are

judged as

less intelligent less educated

having poor language skills and

unpleasant to listen to

not only do native speakers subscribe to

these beliefs

people with actions themselves do that

as well

take my home city hong kong for example

where being able to speak english

fluently

makes you appear more educated growing

up

i was always told

which basically means it doesn’t matter

if your cantonese sucks

as long as your english is good you’ll

be fine

if a person is unable to speak english

fluently or has a strong cantonese

accent when they speak english

they’re automatically seen as having a

lower social status

a lot of the times this belief stems

from the long history of colonization

back in a time when british colonizers

held a higher stat

status in our own city as a result

being able to speak english fluently has

also been associated with prestige

an assumption that sadly still exists to

this day

i personally don’t have a very strong

foreign accent

compared to the average person from hong

kong in fact

i have kind of the opposite where i have

a very very slight english accent when i

speak cantonese

as a result i’ve received a lot of

undeserved praise and compliments

sometimes even from complete strangers

in regards to the way i speak

i still remember the time someone told

me they’re going to walk

which means that your cantonese sounds

kind of off

you must come from a great school

i didn’t know if i should have taken it

as a compliment or as an insult

on the other hand i have a lot of family

and friends

who don’t speak english as well mainly

because

they didn’t have the chance to learn it

from such a young age as i did and as a

result

they suffer from it tremendously on a

day-to-day basis

take my parents for example who grew up

in hong kong in a time when

it was not common to learn english from

a very young age when they first settled

in the uk

they faced extreme difficulties not only

because of cultural barriers

but also because of how locals perceived

their action to be

i was privileged in the sense that i

grew up with great english teachers

and i started learning english from a

very young age

but that simply is not the case for

everybody

and if studies are shown the older you

get the harder it is to develop a native

accent in a language that isn’t in your

mother tongue

because of how brain development affects

our ability to pronounce certain

phonemes

yes it’s possible for foreign speakers

to develop a more

native accent through hard work and

constant practice

but compared to a native speaker there

will

always be a difference but that’s okay

while it’s important for us foreign

speakers to continue to improve our

english

accent nobody should ever be embarrassed

about their accent instead as

multilingual people we should be proud

of our ability to speak multiple

different languages

as learning a different language is

actually one of the hardest things

you could ever do so be proud of your

progress

celebrate your differences and most

importantly

never be ashamed of your accent

as tom robbins said our similarities

bring us together

and our differences allow us to be

fascinated by each other

embrace your action and be proud of it

be it a native

or a foreign accent because at the end

of the day

it’s what makes you you

last but not least i’ve wanted to say

this for a very long time

thank you for coming to my ted talk

[Music]

you