 Hello there today. I'm talking to you about a book that I've been reading and I know I said it before that I would only talk to you about books I'm reading if they have something to do with translation and or languages and linguistics and stuff along those lines and that's exactly what this has to do and now I read it on Kindle so I need to show you the title here and this book has to do with that in fact it has to do with foreign accents as you can tell by the title for an accent the phenomenon of non-native speech by Aline Moyer anyway this this book I found it excellent it's from I think two years ago and it's quite academic but I found it very interesting just because it talks about something that's near and dear to my heart which is foreign accents and more specifically also how easy or how difficult it is to get rid of your foreign accent so it talks about the stuff like is it easier for children for younger people to learn an accent to do they pick it up more quickly and as opposed to adults who seem to take forever to learn new accents and new languages and this is something that's always kind of troubled me I guess it mostly probably in a selfish way because I'm right now learning Chinese which I didn't start until I was 35 and I'd like to learn new languages but this kind of this defeatist kind of feeling that oh you can't learn new languages or you can't learn them well unless you're really young that would kind of stop me and so I really don't want that to be true and so I'm trying to get more information and see maybe how how it can be circumvented or maybe how as an adult there are different ways to learn as opposed to children and so you can learn better anyway so I found this book very interesting because it did talk about that and actually it had quite refreshing information there for those of you who are like me but let me get into some other stuff that I talked about because I found it very interesting when it talked about stuff like accent based discrimination or something like that and there's apparently a lot of discrimination based on accent like I talked about one of the examples was an Iranian person who got sued so what he did was he there was a job that was being that was available and he saw it shortly after was available I think it just popped up on the website online that it was available so he called and he had an Iranian accent and was told oh no it's already been taken and so he's like okay well that's too bad he hangs up but he got a bit suspicious because the job had just been made available and it was already filled up so he asked one of his friends who spoke with a standard neutral American accent or this might have been Canadian I might have been in Canada to call and so the friend called and sure enough they say oh yeah we still have an opening yes we'd be happy to interview and so the friend said yeah cool actually it's not for me is for my friend who's Iranian and would like to interview with you and then they switched again they're like oh yeah well yeah it turns out yeah we'll call you back don't call us or something like that and they never called back obviously so this Iranian then sued and apparently want because that was definitely discrimination but they had other issues other instances where other people I think there was a doctor who didn't get a job and sued for the same reason said oh it's just because I have a thick accent and the hospital whoever was want to hire them said yes because it could be a hindrance like if we're in an emergency situation and the ER or something like that and you have a thick accent and someone can't understand you lives could be lost and that could be bad and so this doctor actually lost the lawsuit because they agreed with him or sorry they didn't agree with him they agreed with the hospital because the accent was an important thing there and so so the there is discrimination but it's a bit iffy because certain times you need to be able to speak well and certain times you don't but people just like with the call centers and all that it talks a lot about that a lot of people like to complain that they can't get someone with their own accent and so they have a lot of apparently all these people who get hired from call centers in different countries they get a lot of classes on on trying to learn trying to get more of a neutral accent and a better accent and stuff like that but let's face it none of that is ever going to be life or death another interesting anecdote I thought was this town in Massachusetts which I forgot the name waiver fee waiver field something like that anyway which the parents started complaining that a lot of classes were taught by teachers who had foreign accents and they didn't want their kids to have these foreign accents and so the teachers then so they were complaining they wanted the teachers fired or else you know they wanted new teachers anyway and the teachers complaining say discrimination the funny thing is a lot of the parents were foreign born and had thick accents themselves and in fact the mayor of this town in Massachusetts the name of which I wish I could remember started with the W he was Greek born and he apparently had a thick accent and he took the side of the parents as well and he was saying what he said was someone like me with an accent like mine should not be teaching the young kids because we don't want the kids to be learning with an accent like this sorry I'm I want I wanted to look up the the exact quote just because I thought it was worth it but I have no idea how to navigate Kindle and figure that out so anyway that's pretty much the story though and and I found that interesting because you find parents who have a different accent discriminating against teachers with maybe that same accent because they don't want their kids learned that and it kind of makes sense if you want your kid to learn a language you want the kid to learn the language properly and not accented and anyway it goes it talks a lot about that other stuff and obviously it talks about learning new language and how kids learn and how adults learn and stuff like that and I always felt that in a way these theories have been a bit unfair to adults because kids seem to learn very quickly on the other hand many times kids say stuff like hot is so hot today so hot today and we're like oh wow you speak the language so well it's not even your first language and you said so hot today so hot today but if I as an adult go somewhere say so hot today so hot today people like dude learn how to speak okay and so they're given a bit more leeway you know which fine and I also I think it's easier young young people kids don't care that much if they're embarrassed if they say something dumb they're they laugh at themselves a lot more we as adults we get used to you know being in control being adults and trying to look good in front of other people and so if I make a really stupid mistake when I'm speaking I'll feel bad which makes me a bit more reticent makes me not want to speak as much and but I need to speak a lot more to to be able to improve my language another thing that kids have is right away they have peers who speak the language usually because if a kid is learning you know if a kid from France is moves over to I don't know Saudi Arabia and is learning Arabic usually they're going to school with a bunch of people who speak Arabic and so right away they have a whole bunch of peers people their age who they play with who they hang out with who they interact with who only speak that language so they kind of have to learn it we as adults don't really have that if I'm from France and I go to Saudi Arabia chances are I can still communicate with a bunch of people in in French depending on if I'm going to work for a company or if I have friends I'm going to check ahead of time I can also talk to people online and in order to learn a new language you kind of need peers who speak that language and yet peers who speak that language would want to interact with someone who already speaks that language so in ways to catch 22 a lot more so when you're an adult than when you're a kid and so that's a big advantage that kids have and they're doing construction hopefully that doesn't bother you too much but anyway I mean I'm pretty much done the conclusion is actually anyone can learn a new language and what it takes a lot more when your adult is a lot of willpower and it's always studies and it quote studies of various people in different circumstances but it usually seems that if people really want to get rid of their accent and they actively try to do that then they're usually able to and they have a lot of examples of people who are kind of in the same boat adults in the same boat one never improved their accent and the other one did and the main reason was the one who didn't was like well I'm an adult I can't improve my accent I don't care I have people from my home country to talk to so whatever while people who didn't prove their accent actively tried to improve it and anyway I found it a very interesting book it is a bit heavy because it's academic but it was it was I thought it was very much worth it still it was a bit expensive at least when I look for it online it was like 40 bucks and so what I did is I rented it on Kindle you can rent it here we go there for an accent by Aline Moyer so definitely look it up if that's something you're interested in and if you want to learn more about the intricacies about learning a foreign accent and the difficulties and stuff along those lines so hopefully you found that useful and if you're interested in foreign accents or in learning perfecting a foreign language then I do think it will be very interesting for you as well and that's about it I'll talk to you in the next video okay thanks bye