Tips & advice for second-language English journalists/public speakers
There are some things you cannot change. But for the things you can, there's this newsletter and my 8 most-asked questions
This post is obviously aimed at second-language English speakers, but native speakers, don’t look away. I bet several people you know or work with are second-language English. It helps to know what challenges they may be facing and how to make them feel more included.
To the second-language English speakers among this newsletter’s subscribers, you come from many varied backgrounds: Maybe you’re a wannabe reporter in a major international newsroom. Maybe you’re an established presenter with a non-anglophone TV network. Maybe you do something other than journalism, but you need to speak publicly as part of your job. What unites everyone who will find this post useful is that you’re second-language English: you speak English with a foreign, non-native accent, your vocabulary/grammar/confidence aren’t as strong in English as in your native tongue and you can definitely remember a time when you couldn’t speak a word of English.
If that’s you, welcome. I hope you will feel that you’ve found your community. I like to think, we’ve got you.
So, who am I to welcome you like some patron saint of people with foreign accents? If you’re new to this community, let me tell you. I’m a former TV news presenter whose career (especially the early years) was dominated by her voice, or rather, its foreign-ness.
If you’ve been through my Substack archive, you might have read about what I think the barriers are for second-language English journalists. Why I think there’s no such thing as ‘international’ news (it’s English-language news). And I opened up about my personal struggles throughout my broadcasting career due to having a foreign accent in this piece ‘I don’t pay my licence fee to have the news read by a foreigner.’
I like to think/hope I have highlighted the issue. But there’s no point highlighting a problem without providing a solution, so here are the main 8 pieces of advice I would give based on my 20+ year experience of working as a broadcast journalist in my non-native language. They are roughly divided between language/accent/culture.
From point 3 onwards this post is for paid subscribers only. I care deeply about the community we are building here and I will always ensure some content will be free to access. But it’s the paid subscribers and founding members who provide the funds to run this newsletter, and to them I am incredibly grateful.
So, here we go:
The 8 questions I’ve been asked most often about broadcasting / public speaking in English if it’s your second language.
1 My English is good, but I lack confidence when speaking publicly. Will I ever overcome the obstacle of not being a native English speaker?
Being bilingual is a great asset and can often be an advantage. But English is the global language, and we should accept that not being a native English speaker can sometimes be a disadvantage, especially when it comes to any kind of public speaking or live broadcasting.
There are two main ways in which you can improve your performance: One is to try to improve your spoken and written English, and the other is to increase your confidence, which is key in broadcasting and public speaking.
Remember that your voice is important PRECISELY BECAUSE IT’S DIFFERENT. The diversity of your voice is proof that you come from a different cultural background than native English speakers, which in turn means you will have different experiences, references and points of view.
It’s your badge of diversity, and its inclusion is necessary because it will bring diversity of thought to any environment you’re in. Always remember that around 1 billion out of the 1.5 billion English speakers in the world speak it as a second or third language.
So, yes, the fear of making linguistic mistakes is justified and you can do things to mitigate it, but you should never apologise for sounding the way you do. It’s linked to who you are, and part of the diversity we should all strive for in any truly global conversation.
2 - Should I try to change my foreign-sounding accent? If so, how?
It depends what you mean by ‘changing your accent’. I think what you should focus on is CLARITY. People need to be able to easily understand what you say, and in truth some foreign accents can make the words spoken sound less than clear.
Having a foreign accent must be seen as acceptable and a crucial part of diversity. But not speaking clearly will hugely penalise your career.
Depending on your professional role, you might want to consider some one-to-one elocution lessons. If you do, be very careful what you tell the tutor the brief is. I would NOT try to sound like a native speaker (British or American tend to be the more common/desirable accents) if that’s not what you are. You risk never sounding genuine. And that will affect the content you’re trying to deliver.
There are some people, especially actors, who mimic accents almost perfectly. It’s very hard to do and even harder to keep up when you’re speaking live and off-the-cuff as opposed to delivering lines. What you want is to sound like a clearer, more confident version of yourself, conscious of the fact that your authenticity includes your nationality and linguistic heritage.
Trying to speak more clearly will be different for everyone, depending on your native language. Listen back to recordings of yourself. You will notice it’s not just about pronunciation of various words, but also the rhythm of your sentences, intonation, speed and diction.
There’s the sing-song effect, where the intonation goes up and down as you speak. Try to break it up by using shorter sentences.
Diction is the clarity of certain sounds and letters. I used tongue twisters and a little gadget called a bone-prop which I would place between my front teeth as I’d be practice-reading a script. Try to isolate the letters that sound wrong.
As I mentioned, you should aim to sound like a clearer version of yourself, as opposed to trying to sound British, Irish, Australian, American etc…
However, seeing as British and American accents are the most commonly used ones, try to ANCHOR your accent in one or the other. Don’t switch, whereby you’ll pronounce one word with an American accent and the next with a British one. Listeners need to tune into your voice. Hearing it flip flop from one accent to another will be off-putting.
How do you anchor it? The main differences are the vowel sounds and the retroflex or rhotic ‘R’ sound: the difference between pronouncing the ‘R’ in the word CAR in American English and keeping the R silent n British English. It’s hard to be very rigid about this one, but bear it in mind. As a native Italian speaker, I can retroflex and roll my Rs with the best of them. Even after 30 years in the UK, the British ‘silent’ R feels unnatural. So I always roll my Rs, which makes my voice sound a bit American. Not ideal for British broadcasting maybe, but so be it.
Remember, CLARITY is the aim.
And at the risk of stating the obvious, speak slowly. It will help you with control.
3 - Very often I just can’t ‘find the right words’ that I can think of in my native language. How do I work on expanding my vocabulary and working on my grammar?