Your Foreign Accent Can Play Wonderfully in Your Favor

Create your unique personal brand to stand out of the crowd

Making assumptions can be dangerous.

People make lots of them.

For example, it is wrong to assume that a person lacks confidence in speaking English because of their foreign accent.

Funny enough, that assumption tends to come from not multilingual speakers.

Modify Your Accent to Become a Confident Speaker

I woke up to an inbox full of Linkedin notifications, my new normal after Tom Kuegler’s Linkedin sprint. In a matter of days, I went from being the hidden nerd in the corner to join the cool guys’ team.

Carmen, add me to your Linkedin network. Every time I read one of those, I feel both humbled and honored and a little bit proud of myself (someone wants to connect with me??? yippee!)

But this time, this was the profile connecting with me:

I help non-native English speakers become effective communicators, using science-based accent modification techniques. It’s time to discover a world of new opportunities as a confident speaker.

Excuse me?

Why would you assume that I have an accent? Why would you believe that my accent undermines my confidence or my communication skills?

My only problem with communication is that I don’t shut up even underwater, ask my fellow sprinters.

Accent-free speech doesn’t even exist.

Yes, I have a Spanish accent, and I could put in all the effort and learn how to speak with a Cambridge accent.

Wait. Now that you ask me…

How about an Australian accent? Irish? No, better if it’s American. There are so many options to choose from! Yes, I’ll definitely go for the American.

But America is huge. Which specific location should I choose? Does someone from Texas have the same accent as someone from Boston? How about New Yorkers?

No matter what choice we make, we will have an accent. It depends on us which accent it will be and how we feel about our roots.

Accents are cool and enrich our world.

People with accents make the coolest elevator conversation. It’s just perfect for breaking the ice.

You enter a party and meet someone who smiles at you saying “Hello, my name is Carmen, nice to meet you!” but you hear “Xelou, mai neim is Carmen, nais to mit llu” (each of you will read that with a different accent ;)) and the first thing you ask apart from how to pronounce my name is, where are you from?

Sorted! you have a little chit-chat with someone you don’t know, and it helps you navigate that awkward first hour when you don’t know anyone there.

The pandemic gave us a boost in our online relationships. Zoom was never as colorful as it is today, gathering people from all the corners of the world in each call.I find it a beautiful gift.

Your Personality Is Your Personal Brand: Allow Yourself to Be You

What do Jackie Chan, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Bob Marley, Antonio Banderas, or Zinedine Zidane have in common?

What’s the unique imprint that John Malkovich, Humphrey Bogart, Jack Nicholson, or Hugh Grant add in their acting?

Our voice tone, expressions, and accent are huge assets when we make them play in our favor.

Tucson, Arizona in the mid-’70s

A bodybuilder was promoting a not-very-successful movie. Steve Chandler was a sports reporter who had the assignment of spending the day with him.

He was there to make fun of the guy. He went from bodybuilding (not considered a sport back then) to acting for a movie that didn’t work.

— Now that you have tried movies, what do you plan to do for the rest of your life? — He asked him.

— I intend to be the number one box office star in all of Hollywood

“How could that really happen? He didn't seem like that, he had a very thick accent, he was huge, really big, enormous. So I didn't really laugh when he said that, I didn’t make fun of that, I acted very serious about that.” Steve says now.

— Exactly, how are you going to do this?

— Well, I am not going to be someone like Dustin Hoffman or John Gielgud. I will be an action hero, and I’m going to be one of the top people in Hollywood in that field.

— Oh, ok. What about your accent? — His accent is pretty strong now, but back then, it was even heavier.

— Well, you probably see my accent as a weakness, but I see it as a strength. It will be part of my personality.*

In case you didn’t guess it, this poor no one was Arnold Schwarzenegger.

*Conversation extracted from Steve Chandler’s Mindshift — The Success Course

Whatever Makes You Different From the Rest Is Not a Weakness but A Strength

Ask any company in the world what their daily battle is? To differentiate from the competition.

What makes you buy one product or another? Companies know that we will choose the one triggering an emotion in us, the one that is different and stands out from the rest.

Yes, some people will see your uniqueness as a problem or even a weakness but, do you want to work with those people? One of the beauties of entrepreneurship is the ability to choose your clients.

In my experience, people judging us for our accent will judge us for every single thing. You don’t want to have them as a customer. They will probably be a nightmare. Don’t let their insecurities affect you.

Yes, some people have laughed at my accent. I always feel tempted to reply, “My pronunciation in Spanish is perfect. Maybe you’d feel more comfortable if we spoke in my language?”.

I remember this guy spending 10 minutes making fun of me in front of everybody because I didn’t pronounce sugar like shugar. I didn’t even know that it had a particular pronunciation back then.

When he asked Please, can you repeat it? I decided the joke had gone on long enough, and I simply replied, “azúcar.” He stopped laughing.

I rather feel compassion for them. They are the ones who never try to learn a second language because they are scared of being laughed at. How ironic.

Every multilingual person falls into this trap at some point.

I have a friend with a very thick Andalusian accent. When I met her in our 20’s, I thought she had never left her little town in her life before. Then someone phoned our office, and I heard her speaking German.

It was unbelievable.

Where did you learn to speak German like that?, her answer was jaw-dropping— Well, I am German.

When she was 12, she arrived in Spain and started attending school. Children made fun of her. Learning Spanish and changing her accent became her top priorities.

This was in the ’90s. She hid a small dictaphone to record the teacher every day. Back at home, she would listen to it and repeat the lessons while recording herself. She wouldn’t stop until the sound was the same.

She spent months alone in her bedroom, working 5 hours a day on her accent—the perfect afternoon for a child.

Sir Robert Chiltern: You prefer to be natural? Mrs Cheveley: Sometimes. But it is such a very difficult pose to keep up. (Oscar Wilde’s play “An Ideal Husband”)

But she was 12. Nobody wants to be different at that age; it’s a survival mechanism. What are you making today with your personal brand?

Work on your accent enough to be understood, but don’t go crazy with small details.

Pretending to be someone you are not is an exhausting game.

When he started his Hollywood career, Schwarzenegger had a body that was too big, a too heavy accent, and an impossible-to-spell surname. Everything was against him. Most of us would have failed.

He was dubbed in his first movie. They tried to change his last name.

It turns out his biggest strength wasn't in the muscles but his confidence. He didn’t allow that to happen.

My Scottish husband fell into that trap, too. He wanted to get a “pure” Spanish accent. When I asked from which specific city so we could move there, he got the joke. There are as many accents as towns in Spain.

Speaking perfect Spanish with a British accent is his asset. It makes him exotic, and I find it very cute when I hear him pronounce English words with a Spanish accent when talking to someone here.

Multiculturalism implies a myriad of accents.

And all of them are more than welcome. Accents bring a colorful note to our zoom meetings and our neighborhoods.

There are currently 743 million people who speak English as a second language. Can you imagine how boring the world would be if we all spoke with the same perfect English accent?

A different story is when you naturally incorporate the accent of the place where you live. But that only happens when you live in a place long enough, and even then, it won't change your accent 100%

Final Thoughts

Every successful personal brand has an imprint. There is a story behind it, and they take every opportunity to tell it to the world proudly.

I know how difficult it is to build a personal brand. We operate in our discomfort zone; we are exposed, some days we wonder, why the hell don’t I just look for a job and call it a day?

On top of that, We non-native speakers have this continuous battle with our impostor syndrome. How dare I write in English instead of Spanish?

But I say we have A LOT to be proud of.

Speaking more than one language says lots in your favor. It tells that you made an effort to expand your world. Building a personal brand in your second language shows both confidence and boldness.

Instead of feeling embarrassed of your uniqueness, use it to your benefit. There is nobody like you; you don’t want imitations.

Be the real you because everyone else is taken and replicas don’t sell for as much. Dan Schawbel

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