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Hey Bowlers, I launched an interactive kiosk leveraging Typeform to automate onboarding and personalize customer experiences at scale.
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Open to pessimists and optimists alike to give honest feedback on what you think about the product. In search of teaming up with a designer (with pay) if you have useful insights or better story telling abilities. (See link below)
Please and thank you.
https://www.canva.com/design/DAErzR4fnbU/94_1cMfCiV9zU_pHWhZG8w/view?website#2:take-action-now-and-receive-a-50-discount-offer-expires-10-17-21
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Join us for our first virtual panel on Wednesday May 20th at 5 PM EST, Navigating the Ad Industry When the Economy Sucks. Tom Christmann & Paul Fix, award-winning NYC ad creatives and co-deans at Adhouse, will be joining us and taking questions.
https://zoom.us/j/94553752267
More info and calendar links in comments.
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Hey, Fishies! We’re launching our first Interview/Q+A series "Portfolio Rewind: Would You Hire You?"
Like a portfolio review in reverse, creative leaders will share work they created when they first started out and critique it as if were a book that had just landed in their inbox. Then, tell us if they’d hire their younger selves knowing, and expecting, what they do now.
Drop in for get the chance to ask questions, and get your book reviewed by our guest. Hope you can make it!
zoom.us/j/92635977143
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Before paying a trainer, I tried some “tongue” training exercice on YouTube you can find for free (just type this) and you can practice in front of your bathroom mirror every morning.
In addition to this I watch only English (or the language you’re trying to learn) movies at night and if you read in English try to read a chapter out loud.
In 6 months I was able to improve by a lot (I compared myself after filming me reading a paragraph out loud).
Confidence wise just remember you were hired for your ideas and your team wants you to succeed so they’re always on your side and always trying to understand you (if you can isolate a team member that seems not well wishing, they’re garbage. Not you).
I’ve watch a lot of english movies since forever and I’ve been reading out loud a lot. I have a child and I read a lot of books for her. I’m at a point now that I feel I’m stuck
I have the opposite problem - my accent went away completely and I never get any bilingual cred or cool accent points... I’ve often wished I’d held on to it!
I like my accent. Makes me stand out.
It’s a Dutch accent and I probably am the only one who likes it 😂
I speak Spanish too, but from South America. I grew up watching movies in English and listening to a lot of American music. I have a thick accent but not a strong as the accent I hear from Spanish people. Also, we are a bit more used to the sound of English because of the cultural influence of US in the region. In Spain, foreign movies are dubbed into Spanish - I think they are more protective of their own language and somehow are less exposed to American English.
I have a thick accent too. And I’m very self-conscious of it. The only accent coach I use now is my kid who is a native speaker :). Honestly I have been trying to work with people who are not foreign to or afraid of accents.
Please, take the latter half of ACD 1's advice to heart. We want you to succeed! And personally, I love love love all of the accents and am always cheering you along. It takes nerve to communicate in another language that's not your native tongue; even more to work in it ❤️
No one is seeing the bigger picture here. Not liking your accent is a form of discrimination. It’s ok you want to optimize the way you communicate with people. But Americans (and Americans in advertising) tend to make coworkers with an accent feel less capable or handicapped. And we, people with accents, need to fight that.
Agencies in Europe don’t have that problem. There’s people from all over working in them. Agencies in Asia don’t have that problem either.
It’s here where they make it sound like it’s an issue.
I’ve been around for quite some time and I’ve heard awful comments about my accent. I used to care. Not anymore. It’s my work and my talent which should stand out.
Take the accent reduction classes if you want.
But also show your coworkers there are other countries and languages in the word. I’m sure their parents don’t even have a passport. And never taught them the importance of accepting other cultures.
But also there’s the other side of it. I was on a call with a vendor and the guy had the most thick accent, it was really hard for me to understand him. So yeah that can genuinely get in the way.
I'm a foreigner but all the work we do is in English. So I help my local friend who's a copy writer with some pronunciation stuff before his meetings.
Look up the syllabus for courses that emphasize accent reduction. Then look up YouTube videos on it. My friend from China went to one and said it was really just a series of tongue exercises she could have found online, only she wasn’t sure which sounds she struggled with until she got to the class. Sounds like “th” got her, and there are so many of those videos on YouTube!
Th is the worse. I decided to do like the cockney and use F instead because i feel really stupid trying properly. So yeah. For me is “I fink” “ahaha
What kind of accent and how thick is it?
I had the same issue when I started. I speak Portuguese definitely have an accent. My advice would be to try to slow down a bit when you speak and trying to enunciate words properly. That’s how I played it when I first started.
Whatever you do, make sure you’re getting help from someone who is actually qualified for this kind of stuff (sometimes actors or people like that do these things)! Look for an Speech Language Pathologist or something like that
For me it's been a lot of TV, but perhaps just talk a little slower. I think it also depends on where you are located, here in NYC many people are used to the wide variety of accents. But definitely don't be insecure, as that's definitely something people pick up on and will be more damaging than the accent. If you're projecting confidence, people will take you seriously by default. Hope this helps.
U.S?
@CD1, most people in America do not have a passport not because they don't care or want one, but because they cannot afford it and the travel that it provides access to therein. That was certainly the case in my family. We couldn't even afford domestic vacations, and I was the first one to get a passport and travel abroad.
Agencies in bigger cities in the US are familiar with a variety of accents. Of course, if the OP or anyone has experienced discrimination due to an accent or impression of unfamiliarity, that is a significant problem that warrants an escalation.
I’m jealous. I wish I spoke another language well enough to start focusing on my accent. Here is a link that might be useful:
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/english/english-pronunciation-app/
Kudos to you for wanting to improve your pronunciation. I came to the US, 20 years ago and still have a thick accent. I deliberately chose to avoid Hispanic advertising agencies because I wanted to learn English and have the opportunity to work in a bigger market. Sometimes though, I feel I made my life way harder than I had to. Most of my friends are in Hispanic markets and don’t speak English as well as I can, but they have moved up in the agency world faster than me.
I’ve been here 5 years, lived in europe before and I still think my accent is going nowhere. Aside from more vocabulary I fee that I’m stuck