Worried whether my accent will cause problems at grad school..

[Wonderer]

Hi everyone,

I am not entirely sure whether this section is the most appropriate for sharing my issue, please move it, if it is not and accept my apologies. I will be attending Yale next year for a MA course in the field of social sciences and I cannot stop worrying about my accent. I come from a country in Southeast Europe (the Balkans) and I did my BA in English in Western Europe. Before I did my BA, I had never practiced my English apart from the times when I had English language classes at school.

When I started my BA, I immediately noticed that people have difficulty understanding what I say exactly. It does not necessarily mean that what I say is linguistically wrong, but it is the way I say it I guess. I studied in one of the top universities in Europe and all my written papers were graded very high. The problem comes when I open my mouth and try to speak to people in English, they start struggling to understand what I am saying and I can see it very well from their (probably unconscious) facial expressions of a person, who cannot assimilate what is being said to him. As you can imagine, this is very inconvenient. It has made me ultra shy and I have been avoiding to take part in discussions in class unless it is absolutely necessary. Moreover, it creates all kinds of difficulties for a productive academic discussion. For instance, the longer and more convoluted my sentence is, the less people can follow my thought.

I have shared all this with my student counselor at the university where I did my BA and he told me that there is nothing one can do about his accent. I was hoping that maybe some of you have had similar experiences and would like to share how to deal with issues of this type. I am thrilled about the opportunity to go to Yale, in fact, I turned down an offer from Oxford for this, I also have been awarded a 50% off tuition fellowship by Yale and I just do not want to disappoint all the people that trust in my academic skills and abilities. Furthermore, when I graduate and search for a job in the US, I assume having a hard accent would be a huge disadvantage? 

Any thoughts or tips would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[maelia8]

I don't think that this will be as big of an issue as you fear it will be. In my Ph.D. program we have several graduate students from Eastern Europe and Southeast and East Asia, and although some of them needed to pass an English language exam to prove research fluency after being admitted into the program, all of them are doing well in the program and and their (sometimes heavy) accents haven't proved to be a detriment in discussions. Everyone is very respectful and patient in discussion, and after a couple of weeks everyone gets used to the accent and no one asks the speaker to repeat sentences anymore. 

In addition we have several professors from other countries who have heavy accents, but they are respected in their fields and many are quite popular among the graduate students. In other words, I don't believe that having a heavy accent will prove detrimental to your prospects if you choose to pursue a career in the USA after you finish your degree. My godfather is from a foreign country and, despite having lived in the USA for 30 years, has a heavy accent, but he's a respected member of his firm and is quite professionally successful - he even gets asked to lecture at the local university a few times per year  

As long as you don't let your accent stop you from speaking up and contributing, I don't think that it will be a problem for you at all.

[Lisa_McCoy]

The fear that your accent is incomprehensible should not stop you from speaking in English and sharing your thoughts. It will be difficult to adjust initially, but you can pick up a different (better) accent with time. But for that to happen, you need to converse in English regularly without being worried about your accent. So many immigrants pick up American accents in matter of few months.    

[Apogeee]

47 minutes ago, Wonderer said:

I cannot stop worrying about my accent.

I don't think that this will cause you as much of a problem as you fear. Try listening to American accents on youtube and try to imitate them to help you to be more easily understood. Slow your speech a little bit. Here is a college professor discussing accent training. This seems to be a university lecture that was recorded. After the first couple of minutes, her presentation gets going. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkQ7lwEWeGA Do you have a friend you can talk with on Facetime or Skype? Perhaps you can help them with their accent in your language - half and half.

A colleague of mine is learning German. She is watching television shows in German, sometimes with subtitles, sometimes without. 

 

Edited June 28, 2016 by Apogeee

[ExponentialDecay]

You should expect your accent to fade significantly in the first 3-6 months of being in an immersive environment. In the first few situations, sure, maybe people will find you difficult to understand, but one finds a way around that, you know? Having an accent shouldn't be a detriment to searching for a job in the US, as many people have accents. 

[TakeruK]

I speak with a combination of an accent and a slight speech impediment, which makes it more difficult for someone who has just met me to understand what I'm saying. I share the same concerns when I really want to be effective in my communication with a group of strangers, such as conferences and teaching a new class.

My strategy is to separate the parts I have control over and the parts that are just part of who I am. For example, sometimes it's hard to understand me because I am nervous or shy so I mumble or speak really fast. I work hard on changing that part because I don't want to be unnecessarily shy/nervous. So, I work on building my self-confidence. I practice my oral presentations a lot so I am not nervous. It's a little bit of a cycle because worrying that I am mumbling or speaking too fast makes me nervous so then I mumble and speak too fast! To ease my worries that I am not communicating clearly, I may use other methods to communicate to supplement my speech, such as writing out key words on the board when teaching or having key phrases appear on my slides when giving a presentation.

For the accent part though, I don't do anything. I think accent reduction classes are terrible. I should not have to speak with your accent for you to understand me. And in fact, everyone who takes the time to actually listen to me and get to know me can understand me. So, no thanks, I'm not going to "learn to speak like an X" (where X is American, Canadian, whatever) just to make your life more convenient!

[fuzzylogician]

2 hours ago, TakeruK said:

For the accent part though, I don't do anything. I think accent reduction classes are terrible. I should not have to speak with your accent for you to understand me. And in fact, everyone who takes the time to actually listen to me and get to know me can understand me. So, no thanks, I'm not going to "learn to speak like an X" (where X is American, Canadian, whatever) just to make your life more convenient!

No offense but that sounds at least partially like coming from a place of privilege that not everyone can afford. I already don't look (or sound) like the typical academic in my field. You assume people are going to make the effort to listen to you and if they do, they'll realize that you have valuable things to say; I can't afford to make that assumption.

I am not necessarily advocating for accent reduction classes here, but for someone who's truly an international student and didn't grow up in an English speaking country -- which I think is true for the OP but not for you, TakeruK -- there can sometimes be no instruction on how to speak in English classes in school. You learn grammar, but very little time is spent on pronunciation (or actual speaking, for that matter). I think that having some active awareness of the sounds of English (and other languages!) can be very helpful. You can read online and watch some YouTube videos about basic phonetics -- how sounds are physiologically produced -- and that can sometimes help you understand how to say sounds you might struggle with. Sometimes there can be things that are easy to fix with just a little bit of awareness. Even more important sometimes is to give some thought to the overall melody of (American) English and where stress goes in words. Humans are predictive creatures; there are studies that show that we have (usually correct) expectations about what the other person is going to say before they even say it (or even though there might be some noise that wipes out/distorts part of the utterance), but that is based on cues that the accent might mess with. That can be greatly helped by imposing an English-like stress pattern on your speech, even if the actual sounds that are coming out of your mouth aren't perfect. If people can have a reasonable guess about what you want to say, they will make up for the deficiencies and might not even notice them.

None of this is to say that having an accent is any kind of terrible disaster. It is absolutely not. You can be as successful with an accent as any local person. Plenty of people are. The accent does lessen some with time as you use your language, and your immediate environment will also learn to understand the specific quirks of your speech, which helps too. It's important not to let it silence you in class discussions, although I know it can be hard in the beginning. The goal is not (necessarily) to make it go away (that is really really hard!), but to make it manageable, which I think does mean having some awareness of where your difficulties are and seeing if there are small changes you can make to help it along. I also think that TakeruK's strategies for dealing with nervousness are great. 

[Wonderer]

Thanks everyone for your comments and tips, I appreciate it.

4 hours ago, ExponentialDecay said:

You should expect your accent to fade significantly in the first 3-6 months of being in an immersive environment. 

Well, initially I thought so as well, however, after spending 3 years in a foreign country, where I had to speak in English with everyone since I do not speak the local language, I cannot say that my accent has faded. Yes, it is definitely softer or maybe I have just learnt on which parts to emphasize more and which words/sounds to skip in order to be more understandable, however, the miscommunication at times, especially with people I have just met or do not know me very well, remains present. 

I know that being shy does not help one deal with this issue and I am really trying to get over this shyness of mine, which I should add is not part of my character, it is something entirely new to me and is caused by my accent and fear of not being understood, however, it is just not that simple. :/

[TakeruK]

7 minutes ago, fuzzylogician said:

No offense but that sounds at least partially like coming from a place of privilege that not everyone can afford. I already don't look (or sound) like the typical academic in my field. You assume people are going to make the effort to listen to you and if they do, they'll realize that you have valuable things to say; I can't afford to make that assumption.

Thanks for pointing this out. You are right that I am able to have my point of view because of some privileges and that I did not think about this when I wrote it. 

The people that have suggested accent classes to me did so because I don't sound like the typical academic in my field. They literally told me that I should change my accent because I don't sound like a scientist in their point of view. Maybe I have a different view of accent reduction classes because my experience with them has always been in the context of "You don't sound like a real Canadian/American, here, take these classes so you sound more like us". That is, they assume that because of the way I sound, combined with the way I look, that I did not grow up in an English speaking country and should learn proper English. 

I do agree with you that when I learn a new language, it does make sense to do all of the things you wrote above. When I learned / am learning French, I do actively try to modify my accent to pronounce the French sounds as best as I can.

[fuzzylogician]

@TakeruK there are interesting questions here that are probably not relevant to the OP's worries so maybe they should go in a different thread because they might derail the discussion. But it seems to me that there is a question for you which is irrelevant to the OP of what it means to be a Canadian (or American, for that matter) immigrant, and how your language is tied to your identity. I don't want to make assumptions about how you think of yourself, but I think that your reaction goes as much to pressure to conform to be a (more) "typical" Canadian/American (whatever that means) as it does to the more practical considerations of "how do I make myself maximally understood." It's sometimes very hard for me to think of Canadians as international students in the US. I know they technically are, but the language and culture are so similar, I am not sure you have all the same struggles re: fitting in. As an international student you can usually make one of two choices, either you make friends mostly among people from your country (when and where possible), or you embrace English and you have a diverse group of friends (often, I think, non-American, but that again is probably a whole other discussion).

If you choose the English route, I think it's inevitable to spend some time thinking about how to fit in, but we never have that thought of how to balance being a "(more) typical American/Canadian" with keeping our own original (national) identity, because that's never an expectation. I think that makes a big difference in how you think about things. At least, that's what I've always thought. Some of the people with the most difficult (for me) to understand accents have been British/Scottish/Australian. Obviously, they are native speakers, but I know several who have made no effort to adopt a more American way of speaking, sometimes proudly so.* I've always thought that it's their way of maintaining their identity and not assimilating, if that makes sense. I understand it, but honestly I really appreciate those who at least don't use their strong regional dialect, even though I know it takes an extra effort, because it can be hard enough for non-native speakers as it is. 

* As an anecdote, I actually know a native speaker who didn't get a job in another English-speaking country (with a mainstream dialect that is considered very similar) because they said they couldn't understand what s/he was saying. So, as far as accent reduction and jobs go, there is only so much you can do... 

[TakeruK]

@fuzzylogician: Yes, you are right, I think the questions I'm thinking about and my perspective is different from Wonderer's. And I agree with you completely that my experience as an "international" student in the US is very different than someone from another country.

But to clarify, my reaction to the accent training type things above is not mostly based on my experience as an international student in the US. Instead, the majority of the experiences I was drawing on when writing the above posts was actually from Canada. I was born in Canada to immigrant parents and English is the only language I am fully fluent in. But I speak it with an accent and combined with my physical appearance, many people assume I am not Canadian. I don't really care what people assume, but the frustration from the earlier post was when Canadians told me while I was living in Canada that I wasn't Canadian sounding enough etc. This continued when I move to the US too, but I wasn't viewing it from an international student point of view, because as you say, in this context, Canada and the US are the same and I'm sure Asian-Americans have similar experiences in the US as I did in Canada as an Asian-Canadian.

But again, you are right that practical concerns about being understood is different than what I was writing about. I have also remembered another thing I do to help myself be more understood. Sometimes, I find that strangers (who would have the most difficulty understanding me) might find it hard to ask me to repeat myself because they are afraid of seeming rude. So, sometimes, I find it helpful to just start by saying it's okay to ask me to repeat myself if you don't understand me. I often spin this in a positive way, like "I'm really excited to be speaking about this topic today, so if I am going too fast, please feel free to ask me to repeat myself" etc.

[St Andrews Lynx]

How about searching for a language exchange program at your new university/town? You meet with a person who wants to learn your language in exchange for helping you with English (often done over a coffee or lunch). That could be a nice way to build up your confidence and learn some interesting American phrases. 

My suspicion is that your accent isn't as big a problem as you think - worrying about how you speak makes the problem(s) seem bigger. If you were in an environment where everybody was speaking English as a second language, of course that makes things harder on everybody involved and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how you were speaking.

On a lighter note - I'm a native speaker of British English...and I can be incomprehensible to native speakers of American English. Not just the words I use are all wrong, but how I pronounce common words. Even within one country you get notorious regional accents that people outside the region struggle with. Nobody has the monopoly on perfect English speech & understanding!

[ExponentialDecay]

14 hours ago, Wonderer said:

Thanks everyone for your comments and tips, I appreciate it.

Well, initially I thought so as well, however, after spending 3 years in a foreign country, where I had to speak in English with everyone since I do not speak the local language, I cannot say that my accent has faded. Yes, it is definitely softer or maybe I have just learnt on which parts to emphasize more and which words/sounds to skip in order to be more understandable, however, the miscommunication at times, especially with people I have just met or do not know me very well, remains present. 

I know that being shy does not help one deal with this issue and I am really trying to get over this shyness of mine, which I should add is not part of my character, it is something entirely new to me and is caused by my accent and fear of not being understood, however, it is just not that simple. :/

I mean, speaking English in a non-English-speaking country, and only for 3 months is hardly an immersive environment. You're speaking English with other non-native speakers, so it's not like you can attribute everything to accent. I think you should try to stay optimistic - if only for the confidence boost. I have a few friends from the Baltics (hello, fellow Slavs), and whilst few of them have completely dropped the accent and tend to retain their deep voices, over time (and granted, these people have lived in the States for 4+ years), for some reason, I guess they pick up intonations or something, they don't sound native but they have no trouble being understood. 

Having an accent is really not as big of a deal in the US as you'd think. Many US citizens have strong accents because they grew up in an immigrant community, they grew up abroad, etc. US academia draws people from all over the world, and they also have all sorts of accents. Whatever you do, just don't go into this thinking people will be cruel or ignorant about it. imho being foreign in the US is much, much easier than being foreign in Europe.

Edited June 29, 2016 by ExponentialDecay

[Karoku_valentine]

Hi. As a fellow international student, I have something to say. In general, I have not had any problems while speaking in English. I also teach recitations and do tutoring on a daily basis. I am more fluent than I was when I first came to the USA. However, your accent will not fade: my accent was the same as when I arrived, the only thing I did was to take a couple of classes on pronunciation (v vs b, z vs c, th, etc.) and that's it. Most people used to say my English was good, and now, because of those small changes, people say my English is very good. Yet my accent stayed the same.

I noticed my friends from China and how they improved their English (or maybe I got used to their accent). However, their accent stayed almost the same, they just became more confident and now try harder. I would suggest you to look for cheap classes on www.italki.com , you can contact native speakers and pay around 10-20 USD per hour of class. They could help you if you tell them you want to improve your accent.

Regarding people with immigrants parents and their English, it is true that some people have different accents (look at Miami and some videos about speech and accents on youtube).

[Wonderer]

Thank you all for your comments, they are all very helpful, encouraging and supportive!

On 6/29/2016 at 4:59 PM, ExponentialDecay said:

I mean, speaking English in a non-English-speaking country, and only for 3 months is hardly an immersive environment. You're speaking English with other non-native speakers, so it's not like you can attribute everything to accent. I think you should try to stay optimistic - if only for the confidence boost. I have a few friends from the Baltics (hello, fellow Slavs), and whilst few of them have completely dropped the accent and tend to retain their deep voices, over time (and granted, these people have lived in the States for 4+ years), for some reason, I guess they pick up intonations or something, they don't sound native but they have no trouble being understood. 

Having an accent is really not as big of a deal in the US as you'd think. Many US citizens have strong accents because they grew up in an immigrant community, they grew up abroad, etc. US academia draws people from all over the world, and they also have all sorts of accents. Whatever you do, just don't go into this thinking people will be cruel or ignorant about it. imho being foreign in the US is much, much easier than being foreign in Europe.

You are raising a very interesting point, @ExponentialDecay. Although it sounds logical, I have never considered this as a factor. 

 

I hope that I am not asking for too much, especially after all the great advises you have all given me, however, would anyone be willing to listen to a one-ish minute long recording of me talking about something in English and then share his/her honest opinion about whether I was understandable or not? 

[TakeruK]

27 minutes ago, Wonderer said:

I hope that I am not asking for too much, especially after all the great advises you have all given me, however, would anyone be willing to listen to a one-ish minute long recording of me talking about something in English and then share his/her honest opinion about whether I was understandable or not? 

If it would make you feel better, you can send me a link to a youtube video (or similar) of yourself speaking via a private message or you can just post it here if you don't mind many people seeing the link. 

[Wonderer]

On 6/30/2016 at 7:15 PM, TakeruK said:

If it would make you feel better, you can send me a link to a youtube video (or similar) of yourself speaking via a private message or you can just post it here if you don't mind many people seeing the link. 

Wonderful!I just made a 54-seconds long recording on SpeakPipe. Here is the link to it:

https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder/msg/tcut73xo957nn5ex

[TakeruK]

1 minute ago, Wonderer said:

Wonderful!I just made a 54-seconds long recording on SpeakPipe. Here is the link to it:

https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder/msg/tcut73xo957nn5ex

You are 100% understandable and I can hear everything you say very clearly. You should have no problems in the United States  No need to worry!

[Karoku_valentine]

Sounds normal to me. Though the quality of the recording is not good.

[Wonderer]

 

48 minutes ago, TakeruK said:

You are 100% understandable and I can hear everything you say very clearly. You should have no problems in the United States  No need to worry!

29 minutes ago, Karoku_valentine said:

Sounds normal to me. Though the quality of the recording is not good.

Thank you very much! You cannot imagine what a confidence boost I just experienced, hehe.

[MathCat]

6 hours ago, Wonderer said:

Wonderful!I just made a 54-seconds long recording on SpeakPipe. Here is the link to it:

https://www.speakpipe.com/voice-recorder/msg/tcut73xo957nn5ex

You definitely have nothing to worry about! It is very easy to understand you.

[ExponentialDecay]

You're a dude!!!

Dude, I like your accent. Standard Russian accent. Perfectly understandable.

[St Andrews Lynx]

American chicks will like you and your accent. 

If you are so inclined towards that sort of thing, of course.

[Wonderer]

On 7/2/2016 at 1:52 AM, MathCat said:

You definitely have nothing to worry about! It is very easy to understand you.

Thank you!

8 hours ago, ExponentialDecay said:

You're a dude!!!

Dude, I like your accent. Standard Russian accent. Perfectly understandable.

Hehe, funny, I have been told the same thing about my accent sounding as if it is Russian so many times before as well. I am not Russian, cannot speak Russian language and have not even been there on vacation.

2 hours ago, St Andrews Lynx said:

American chicks will like you and your accent. 

If you are so inclined towards that sort of thing, of course.

Hehe, @St Andrews Lynx, was not aware the Russian-ish accent has such powers. Thought this is "reserved" only for Australians and English, hehe.  

[theworstblueberry]

Hello! I listened to your recording and while your accent is distinguishable, I can understand you easily. I personally do not think it will be a problem in your academic career, especially if you are already able to express yourself well through writing.

If after moving here you still feel that your accent may be hindering your professional or social interactions and you truly want to acquire an American accent, you may want to look into accent modification. I'm doing my MA in Speech-Language Pathology and every semester, we conduct accent modification therapy sessions with international graduate students. These students have been referred to the speech clinic after failing the oral portion of an English language exam and receive accent mod therapy for free. However, the clinic does also offer this service to other graduate students for a reduced fee. If your university does something like this, that could be an option for you.

And if you want to acquire an American accent without paying, there are lots of free resources and activities available online! The key is to learn the basics of English phonology and intonation patterns. It will take a bit of work, but after that, it's all about practice.