| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Has anyone been rejected for a job because you have accent in a 2nd language? Thread poster: Joanna Wang
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Diana Obermeyer 
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:36
Member (2013)
German to English
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| it should happen more tbh | Sep 22, 2013 |
George Hopkins wrote:
Pretty well every translator would be rejected if the client insisted on someone who spoke the required second language without any accent.
Everybody has a foreign accent in their second language if learnt after about the age of eleven. It's only a question of more or less. Many second-language speakers believe that they do not have an accent, mainly because friends and acquaintances compliment them on their fluency.
I heard a professor in linguistics (or whatever) who could detect the background dialect or accent of people who spoke the Queen's English excellently and he could pinpoint without fail the person's origin.
Well, for a translator, his accent *in the spoken language* should be irrelevant. For an interpreter, this is a totally different matter and I would class this differentiation as perfectly acceptable - both in terms of "foreign language accents" and in terms of regional variances.
I speak very Glaswegian, for instance, even though I only moved to Scotland at the age of 19. I did grow up tri-lingual, but I was never exposed to that particular dialect until much later on. I would not expect to be chosen to interpret for an American client, nor would I even apply for that. I can tone down the "Scottishness", but face-to-face communication is not limited to words and pronunciation, even the mannerisms are different in different cultures. This aspect is often entirely overlooked. There are many circumstances, where true cultural integrity is of the essence.
Personally, I would like to see the aspect of accents/dialects being taken into consideration in a far greater variety of occupations - does anyone here remember the days, when you were able to phone a call centre and the person at the other end understood what you were saying? I know, I must be getting old...
[Edited at 2013-09-22 12:46 GMT]
| | | | | I think the scenario must have been different. | Sep 22, 2013 |
Angelique Blommaert wrote:
It would be very strange to reject because of an accent in a 2nd language. I mean, that is what the question is, isn't it? Imagine I would apply for a job here in the Netherlands, which would be in Dutch, they could not just say: hey, your English or German or French sounds weird, we're not going to hire you. If the job requires perfect skills in a certain second language it would be different. Needless to say that I would never apply for a job in French...mine sounds horrible.
I don't know for sure, of course, because there is not enough context, but it was most likely comparable to someone speaking Dutch with a French accent and applying for a job in customer service, for example, in Holland.
| | | | | Never happened | Sep 22, 2013 |
Never happened, but then very few people hear me speaking it. You'll generally tell a Pole from his flat intonation. We just don't care enough to use fall-rise.
[Edited at 2013-09-22 18:55 GMT]
| | | | | Discrimination laws are easy to ignore | Sep 23, 2013 |
neilmac wrote:
When he arrived there, he immediately noticed an uncomfortable "vibe" and after the interview they told him that they had really been looking for someone with a UK English accent and politely told them they didn't think he was suitable for the job. He thought this was strange, since he'd already had a long spoken interview with them over the phone. We eventually came to the conclusion that the decision must have had more to do with his skin colour than his accent or anything else...
A clear example, as Orrin explains, of the fact that the laws against discrimination are very easy to ignore without any consequences for the perpetrators.
Even the law helps them: in many jurisdictions it is against the law to record somebody's voice without that person's consent (if they stupidly voiced their unlawful reasons for rejecting you and you recorded their words).
[Edited at 2013-09-23 16:58 GMT]
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Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 23:36
English to German
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In memoriam
George Hopkins wrote:
Everybody has a foreign accent in their second language if learnt after about the age of eleven.
That an accent is related to the language learner's age is a myth, I am afraid. The decisive criterion is whom the child learned the language from. If a child is exposed to non-native speakers who already speak with an accent only, the child will mimic the pronunciation of its teacher, no matter what age.
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Nicole Schnell wrote:
That an accent is related to the language learner's age is a myth, I am afraid. The decisive criterion is whom the child learned the language from. If a child is exposed to non-native speakers who already speak with an accent only, the child will mimic the pronunciation of its teacher, no matter what age.
First, replying to the OP, I was almost rejected because of my US accent in English. A local lawyer requested my services as a sworn translator at a notarial office here in Sao Paulo, as required by Brazilian law, because a foreigner wanted to issue a public Power of Attorney, so someone could file a lawsuit here on his behalf.
The "grantor" in this case was a British gentleman, a well-traveled one, as he worked in the air transportation industry. As soon as I introduced myself there, he excused himself, and took his lawyer to a corner, where they had some argument, returning afterwards.
After the entire procedure was finished, the lawyer explained me (in Portuguese, of course) what the argument was about. The Brit immediately spotted my Californian accent, and was concerned with my ability to speak Portuguese properly! He had asked the lawyer why, among 200 million inhabitants in Brazil, he had to pick an American interpreter. I reassured the client that I was born and raised within an 8-mile radius from where we were.
An amateur "Professor Higgins" from Princeton described my accent as "probably born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, LA, most likely the son of an Italian couple". Well, my parents were Polish, each spoke half a dozen languages, however neither Italian nor English being among them. On the other hand, I was born and raised in an Italian neighborhood in Sao Paulo (some 100+ Italian restaurants and Delis still exist there), and studied in an Italian community-sponsored school from kindergarten through junior high. This might explain it... or IT.
However I've met many second- or third-generation Americans who never left the USA, and who had a noticeable ES, JP, CN, or other "foreign" accent, most likely from the causes Nicole explained here. So how "foreign" could that be?
I'd say that a really heavy accent (ruling out bad command of the language) may impair comprehension to the point of having an interpreter rejected, however not the kind of accent I noticed in these technically "native speakers" of English.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:36
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Some of you even have an accent when writing in English !
| | | | Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 23:36
English to German
+ ...
In memoriam | Accents in writing | Sep 23, 2013 |
Tom in London wrote:
Some of you even have an accent when writing in English !
That's because the rest of the world population wouldn't fit on your island to learn, study and speak the apparently one and only acceptable language on this planet.
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Joanna Wang
United States
Local time: 01:36
English to Chinese
TOPIC STARTER | on the spot accent correction | Sep 23, 2013 |
Miguel Carmona wrote: neilmac wrote:
When he arrived there, he immediately noticed an uncomfortable "vibe" and after the interview they told him that they had really been looking for someone with a UK English accent and politely told them they didn't think he was suitable for the job. He thought this was strange, since he'd already had a long spoken interview with them over the phone. We eventually came to the conclusion that the decision must have had more to do with his skin colour than his accent or anything else... A clear example, as Orrin explains, of the fact that the laws against discrimination are very easy to ignore without any consequences for the perpetrators. Even the law helps them: in many jurisdictions it is against the law to record somebody's voice without that person's consent (if they stupidly voiced their unlawful reasons for rejecting you and you recorded their words). [Edited at 2013-09-23 16:58 GMT]
About two years ago I had an job interview. The hiring manager ( a C-level management type) corrected my accent on the spot...
[Edited at 2013-09-23 20:45 GMT]
[Edited at 2013-09-23 21:17 GMT]
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José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:
However I've met many second- or third-generation Americans who never left the USA, and who had a noticeable ES, JP, CN, or other "foreign" accent, most likely from the causes Nicole explained here. So how "foreign" could that be?
I'd say that a really heavy accent (ruling out bad command of the language) may impair comprehension to the point of having an interpreter rejected, however not the kind of accent I noticed in these technically "native speakers" of English.
In Polish, I can usually spot an Italian or British English interpreter, often a German one, or a journalist who spends a lot of time talking American. All of them have their voice strings altered simply because of learning those languages. They generally sound like Poles learning Italian, though, not like Italians learning Polish (and retain a trace of Polish accent in Italian, too). In any case, linguists are likely to have noticeable foreign features in their voices.
Curiously, a while ago I met a Pole born and raised in the US, and her Polish sounded completely normal.
| | | | Alex Kalani
United States
Local time: 02:36
Arabic to English
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| Just don't apply for a job that you know needs a good command in the traget language. | Sep 24, 2013 |
Just don't apply for a job that you know needs a good command in the target language. I do not think anyone will be so disparate to get his work rejected and reputation ruined.
[Edited at 2013-09-24 00:44 GMT]
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