Change Your Accent

 

This week’s Conversation That Matters is about English and how it grew to be the number one, number two language in the world. There are so many versions of English that learning the language is one thing, learning the local dialect is another. Desh Pillay of, Change Your Accent says, “heavy accents make it harder to get emergency help, get or give directions and they can hinder your career.”

 

Professor Molly Babel takes on a guided tour of how and why English took off as the international language. Today there are about four times as many people who speak English as their second language as there are those who speak it as their mother tongue. Chinglish, Franglish, Hinglish and so on, all of which have their own phonemes and graphemes that make understanding one another challenging. Desh Pillay says the good news is you can learn and adopt the sounds of the local dialect with the help of a speech pathologist.

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

 

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