{"id":53016,"date":"2021-09-05T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-05T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=53016"},"modified":"2021-09-01T10:09:30","modified_gmt":"2021-09-01T17:09:30","slug":"would-you-like-to-get-rid-of-your-accent-in-english-episode-433","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/would-you-like-to-get-rid-of-your-accent-in-english-episode-433\/","title":{"rendered":"Would You Like to Get Rid of Your Accent in English? [Episode 433]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Podcast<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Is your accent in English holding you back professionally? [Show summary]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Esther Bruhl is a speech pathologist and founder of Speak More Clearly, an accent reduction training program for non-native English speakers. In this episode she explains how accents are formed and how new ones can be learned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increase your marketability or productivity, by reducing your accent when speaking English [Show notes]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to the 433rd episode of Admissions Straight Talk<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we dive into today\u2019s interview, I want to mention a free resource at Accepted that can benefit you if you\u2019re applying to graduate school. The challenge at the heart of admissions is showing that you both fit in at your target schools and stand out in the applicant pool. Accepted\u2019s free download, Fitting In & Standing Out: The Paradox At The Heart Of Admissions will show you how to do both. Master this paradox, and you\u2019re well on your way to acceptance. You can download your free guide at accepted.com\/fiso<\/a>, which stands for fitting in, standing out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It gives me great pleasure to have on Admissions Straight Talk <\/em>for the first time Esther Bruhl, a speech pathologist who specializes in accent reduction for non-native English speakers.<\/a> Esther is also the founder of Speak More Clearly, both the site and the YouTube channel, and I think she\u2019s the first guest we have had from down under, also known as Australia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you get into the accent reduction field? [1:58]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a speech and language pathologist. I work with children who have speech and language problems, but I also work with adults who feel they can\u2019t be clear. Another speech pathologist and I started doing groups for people face to face in our clinic a long time ago, because in Australia, like in America, there are many people who have second languages. They\u2019ve come from other places. In fact, in Australia, we have over 400 other languages that other people speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we started this for people who were professionals, working either on the phone or other sorts of professions \u2013 lawyers, whatever. And they were feeling not confident and not good about the fact that they couldn\u2019t be understood. People had to keep asking them to repeat themselves, et cetera, which is very frustrating actually. And so we started those at a very small level and then more and more people were coming along. She pulled out, she went on to do something else, and I just continued on. The more people we had, then we realized we had to make some courses. We originally just had audio courses, but now we have video and audio, the whole shebang, online. And that\u2019s how I started, and I got more and more interested in it as I went along. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I assume at this point you\u2019re mostly working with adults, no longer with children, right? [3:57]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Oh no, I still do have a children case load.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What causes accents? [4:09]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Oh, I think this is a great question. When we\u2019re very, very young, and we start to learn language, we actually hear all the sounds that there are to make. When we babble, we babble all the sounds. All different sounds, even the \u2018cha\u2019 and \u2018schm\u2019, and any other sounds that are not in our native languages. And slowly over time, as we\u2019re learning our native language or languages, we diminish our auditory acuity for all those other sounds and only focus on the sounds that are in our native language or languages. At the same time, what we\u2019re doing is learning to move our mouth in a certain way. We organize our articulators in a certain way to only use those sounds as well, because before when we\u2019re babbling, we\u2019re saying all sorts of odd sounds that are not in our language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slowly that takes over, and we no longer use all those other sounds and therefore we have an American accent in English, or an Australian accent in English, or whatever language we\u2019re speaking. That is partly to do with our neurological centers which are our language listening areas. So the language listening areas are very open at that point in time when we\u2019re one-two years old. As we get older those centers are no longer necessarily needed as much and we\u2019re developing other neurological connections and pathways. The focus goes over to walking or reading or whatever it is. For most people, those centers are still there, because we have to use our language, but they\u2019re not continuing to develop per se. So the language listening areas, they don\u2019t close, but they\u2019re not making new connections either, so we therefore have our original accents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we go to learn a new language with a new accent, we have to really work those centers. Some people\u2019s language listening abilities in those centers are poor in the first place. But also, in the new languages, let\u2019s say I\u2019m going to learn a new language, there will be sounds and I will have to move my mouth differently to what my automatic movement is and there will be sounds that I\u2019m not used to that I have to learn. If I don\u2019t do that, then I grab a sound from my original language that is close to that and that\u2019s how I get an accent in the new language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now some people from the same countries seem to have understandable accents and some have accents that are very difficult to understand even if they\u2019re fairly fluent in the language. Why is that? Does that still have to do with that neurological training? [8:35]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Yes, that has to do with the neurological adaptability and the language listening ability. There are some people who are amazing mimics. They can mimic straight away. And then there are other people who, yes, learned their original language, and they\u2019re pretty okay in it and they can learn English and be fluent in it<\/a>, but their ability to attune to the different sounds and frequencies is poorer than the next person. Even still, I\u2019ve had people for instance who have said to me, \u201cOh look, I only learned the R in my original language when I was in middle school.\u201d So they would have really big difficulty learning a different R for instance. I had a gentleman who was from China and he said, \u201cOh, even in my original dialect, I couldn\u2019t pronounce the difference between L and N. At the moment I\u2019m working with somebody from Venezuela who said that even in Spanish people find me difficult to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So is that a speech impediment, or is that an accent? [10:17]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Well, he didn\u2019t actually have an impediment. He was, what\u2019s called a clutterer. So for him, everything will get gobbled up, because his rhythm, his cerebellum, other areas that are responsible for organization, rhythm and frequency, he wasn\u2019t able to control very well and so everything would get gobbled up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are some key tips for accent reduction no matter where you\u2019re coming from? [10:52]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll start by saying that often, and you would know this because of your getting people accepted into different courses, et cetera, often people learn English but forget that the pronunciation is important as well. So they get out of college and then they go for a job interview or something. And they\u2019ve learned English, they\u2019ve worked really hard on it. They\u2019re fluent, it\u2019s fantastic. But they haven\u2019t realized that it\u2019s important to be clear as well. So they go in for the interview and I\u2019ve had lots of professionals come to me or students out of college saying, \u201cOh look, I went for this interview and they said, \u2018Wow, your skills are fantastic. You really know the area, but your communication skills are not exactly what we need. Go and get clearer and then come back.'\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So my first thing I would like to say about this is, while you\u2019re learning your English, pay attention to your pronunciation as well, at the same time. Don\u2019t just ignore it. That\u2019s one of the tips. But the next tip is be patient with yourself. You\u2019re learning to move your mouth differently, you\u2019re having to make that automatic. It\u2019s like tennis. If you want to change a tennis grip you have to actually get a new motor planning, a new action that your hand has to remember. Same with your mouth. So be patient with yourself. People go, \u201cOh, I want a new accent in two weeks.\u201d No, I don\u2019t think so. And I know, some people are in a hurry because they have that interview, which is fair enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next thing is to know that you\u2019re learning to change the way that you move your mouth. So some people will repeat after the trainer in our course, and that\u2019s why we have video training so they see exactly how and we also have a description of exactly how to put your tongue, your lips, your jaw, your everything. And some people will mimic the trainer or whatever they\u2019re using and do exactly the same thing with their mouth again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next thing is listen and repeat. I had a guy, he was actually in England and he was listening to BBC Radio. He was from India and he said, \u201cI\u2019ve been listening for years but I still haven\u2019t changed my accent.\u201d I said to him, \u201cAre you just listening or are you repeating and mimicking exactly like you mimic someone to make fun of them?\u201d Which is not nice, but that\u2019s what you have to do. And he went, \u201cNo, no, I\u2019m only listening.\u201d Well, you have to listen and repeat and you can record yourself. Go back and listen. See if you\u2019re closer to the production of whoever you\u2019re practicing with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another point is, while you\u2019re practicing, listen for the rhythm, the intonation, and the stress. I\u2019ll talk about those a bit later as well. I\u2019d just like to mention that on our website, speakmoreclearly.com<\/a>, there is a tab called English pronunciation tips, and there\u2019s a whole lot of training lessons there that people can access if they want to on different particular pronunciation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n