How to deal with an accent?

5 replies
I have a friend that grew up speaking Spanish, now lives in the UK and speaks grammatically correct English, but is worried that his accent is too heavy to do video/audio training.

I don't have a problem understanding him, but I'm used to dealing with heavy accents.

What are your thoughts? Should he publish material himself (he'll be teaching things like SEO), or should he get someone else to do the training?
#accent #deal #foreign accent
  • Profile picture of the author shane_k
    Well as a former acting student, we had a lot of foreign students with heavy accents.

    And what the teachers done to help them when they were on video was to learn the Standard American Accent.

    Not to sound like an American but to open up their throats, release tension in their cheek muscles, and to release tension in their tongue. This is the accent that alot of broadcasters, actors, singers, voice over artists practice, again not to necessarily sound american but to open up the vocal areas and release tension

    When this happens the sound that you create is more resonant, and has more clarity making it easier to hear.

    If their first language is Spanish this might not be too much of an issue, depending on if they grew up in Spain and learned Spanish or grew up in Mexico and other latin american countries and learned Spanish there, as that will affect what kind of tension they have in their mouth, their cheek muscles, their tonque, and throat, etc.

    What you or he can do is

    1) Do a search on youtube for Bob Corff and "The Standard American Accent" (or in Google) This is the guy that I learned from and reduced my "Canadian eh!" accent, lol.

    2) Do searches on youtube, or Google for

    how to do the standard american accent
    how to reduce foreign accent

    But Bob Corff is the man!

    Hope this helps
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  • Profile picture of the author Miguelito203
    Originally Posted by Richard Pickett View Post

    I have a friend that grew up speaking Spanish, now lives in the UK and speaks grammatically correct English, but is worried that his accent is too heavy to do video/audio training.

    I don't have a problem understanding him, but I'm used to dealing with heavy accents.

    What are your thoughts? Should he publish material himself (he'll be teaching things like SEO), or should he get someone else to do the training?
    As a native English speaker (Anerican), I've grown accustomed to people having accents -- especially in IM. It's commonplace. I find accents in general interesting. I was a Spanish major in college and have known people who have been in the states for decades that still have accents -- even though they speak English better than many native speakers.

    Joey
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  • Profile picture of the author ArielT
    I think If he is good explaining that, the accent doesn't matter in this case
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  • Profile picture of the author Elvis Michael
    I have a Spanish accent. Sometimes i notice im less understandable, and thats usually because im rushing to talk or get a message across. I take a breath and remember to pronounce each word independently, as there's really no need to rush....at all. So basically, tell him to relax a bit if he's ever trying to speak faster than he actually can.
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  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    Some of the best material I've picked up online has come from people with accents other than US English. If the person is delivering quality material and is speaking clearly there should be no problem.
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