MONTREAL – Matthieu Lorrain was born and raised in Montreal. His first language is French. He’s also an actor, and he never really minded having an accent in English, until he decided to start working in the language.
“I feel like it cost me a few roles, maybe,” said Lorrain.
As a result, he decided to sign up for what are known as accent modification, or “accent reduction” lessons.
He found Anna Van Tiunen online, a speech therapist who recently went back to school to get certified as an accent reduction specialist, after she noticed a growing demand for such lessons.
“I was getting calls–one woman said she’d been looking for two years for someone to help her improve her accent,” said Van Tuinen.
The majority of Van Tuinen’s clients are young professionals and graduate students. Half are francophone Quebecers, and the other half come from Asia. For native French speakers like Lorrain, it’s the “TH” sound that’s usually the hardest.
How does it work?
Van Tuinen first trains her students to listen. Some English sounds may not exist in their native language, and they must first be able to hear them if they’re going to reproduce them. Next, she works on pronunciation.
“I use a mirror, I use straws and toothpicks and floss,” said Van Tuinen.
“To get them to figure out where to you put your tongue, where you put your lips.”
Chances of getting completely rid of an accent after puberty are slim, but for many, that’s not the point.
The purpose of accent reduction lessons is simply to help with clarity. Recent studies show that accents can have an impact on the way others perceive us.
“Results show people are willing to attribute all kinds of characteristics based purely on the way on the way they speak,” said Charles Boberg, an associate professor of Linguistics at McGill University who specializes in language change and variation.
A growing trend
Accent modification specialists across the country say they are witnessing a growing demand from francophone Quebecers.
Camila Smith, who works for Accent Pro Institute in Vancouver and conducts most of her training sessions over Skype, says about 80 per cent of her clients are Quebec-based companies that operate on a national or international level and have signed their employees up for lessons.
“Anytime you branch out of Quebec–in English–boom, there’s the wall,” Smith explained.
“I may not be explaining the point as well as an English person would.”
For Lorrain, accent modification lessons have also helped with something else.
It’s nice to finally have people focus on what he’s saying, and not how he’s saying it, Lorrain said.
“People try a lot of different places in the world, and have no idea where I’m from, based on the way I speak.”
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