My Accent Is Not Cute; It’s Powerful

Can we, please, stop making fun of accents?

I used to be obsessed with getting rid of my accent. I spent two summers living in English-Speaking cities trying to immerse myself in the language and hoping that one day I’ll start a conversation with a stranger on the street that would mistake me for a native English speaker. I used to be so ashamed of it and think that people would only take me seriously if I spoke in a perfect Shakespeare-like English.

But, the hard truth is, I have now been learning and speaking English for more than a decade and my accent is not going anywhere soon. It follows me around like a bad habit I can’t seem to quit, like an old friend that never leaves my side, no matter where life takes me. The good thing is, when something is so constant in your life you often learn to accept it. Not only do I not care anymore about being a pronunciation queen, but I also learned to love my accent. Somewhere in between my listening comprehension exams and homework on irregular verbs I finally realized that there is no point in trying to change something that is simply a part of who I am and the result of many years of work.

Learning a second or third language is often the result of many years of consistent hard work.

Unless you are part of the lucky ones that were raised bilingually (or trilingually), learning a language requires a lot of effort and devotion. It takes years for most learners to come anywhere near fluency. It is easy to assume to one simply has to sit in a language classroom 1 hour a week for 6 years for them to speak that language fluently, but that would be wrong. As a language teacher, I am confident that what is taught in the classroom helps the student, but what truly determines the student’s success has a lot less to do about the teacher and a lot more to do about the effort that the student his willing to make.

Learning a language often means spending numerous hours memorizing verbs and reading unknown words, asking questions, and being confused. Many people spend countless hours in a classroom or in front of a computer trying to better their language skills. The acquisition of a language is a very beautiful thing, but it is also a very hard one.

Speaking multiple languages is hard.

If most people tend to agree on the challenge that is learning a new language, then why do people still make fun of accents?

Being a French speaker studying and working in an Anglophone community, comments on my accents such as “awn that sounded really French” and “your English is SO cute” are part of my daily routine. Even though I am fully aware that most of these comments are well-intentioned, there is still something incredibly wrong with them; they diminish the effort made to acquire a language.

You don’t tell a soccer player that the way he scored a goal was cute. No, you tell them it was precise, impressive, inspiring. Well, it should be the same as speaking foreign languages. The goal in this situation is to share a message across and, chances are, even if I speak with a strong accent, you understood perfectly what I said. The soccer player probably didn’t score perfectly, maybe his leg could have been more stretched or a bit faster. But he still scored. The same thing goes with accents, yes, my “th” sound could have been better and yes, the way I pronounced “ mischievous” is a bit funny to you, but you still understood what I said.

You don’t expect perfection from the soccer player, why are you expecting it from the person that went out of their way to learn your native language?

My accent represents where I am from

The reason we mispronounce words is actually a beautiful phenomenon if you ask me. Most pronunciation mistakes we make are a reflection of our mother tongue, isn’t that lovely? Our first language is so deep-rooted in our being that we can’t seem to be able to hide it when we speak. In a way, our accent is a constant reminder of where we come from.

I am proud to be from a francophone part of the world. French is the only language both of my parents speak and is the one that I grew up dreaming, thinking, loving, and singing in. The first words I said as a baby, the first book I read, and the first song I sang were in French. The way I speak in English is somehow for me a way to tell that story. My accent is a unique combination of two different parts of who I am.

My accent is powerful

My accent allows me to study in English, it allowed me to move to an entirely new city and have long 2-am conversations with my roommates. It allows me to order way-too-expensive lattes on Monday morning knowing I could be understood by the cashier. I can travel the world alone and know that I will be able to communicate with strangers on the plane. Because of my weird English, I can raise my hand in my psychology class and have a conversation about politics, the environment, Hockey, or basically anything with my classmates.

It is easy to focus on the little mistakes people do when they speak, but it should not be what matters. It should be about a lot more than that; it should be about communication, not perfection.

The next time you are talking with someone with an accent, I hope you focus more on what they are saying, rather than how they do.