Your Accent Does Not Determine Your Identity

Hi, I’m Cyril.

I was born and raised in Singapore. It's a city but also a country. Cool, hey?

Even though Singapore has been dubbed as a country where “East meets West”, our mindsets beg to differ. You will be frowned upon if you sound different - Yellow skinned with a Caucasian/Western accent.

And when you sound different, you will be labelled as “fake”, “show off”, “self-seeking”.

Ever since I had the desire to be a better version of me especially in the area of singing and to become a better communicator, I decided to unlearn the Singaporean accent and take on the Australian one.

So I did some research. And in most cases, it makes the most sense to practice the American or British accent. Especially for singers, we are taught and trained to sing with an American accent. But when I discovered the Australian accent which is very similar to the British one in many ways (at least it is for me), I decided to learn it because it sounds warmer, melodious and somewhat closer to home.

Almost 4 years ago, for 8 months I studied the Australian way of pronouncing words through this YouTube channel, Aussie English (link included in this article), dived deep into their local phonics and really rehearsed how a native Australian English speaker engaged in a conversation would sound like.

As I was sounding more and more like an Aussie, even the locals thought I grew up in Australia, some of my friends thought I was going through an “identity crisis” and decided to distance themselves from me.

I’m not here to share how I felt at that point of time but disappointed and disheartened as I was, I’ve learned that changing your accent to be a better communicator and singer in order for you to reach an international audience is not denying your roots.

Although many feel that an accent is very much part of your identity, while that may be true to some extent, it is not entirely true. Your accent does not define you.

The dictionaries’ definition of identity is “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is”.

So an identity of a person is really defined by your personality, your values, what you like and dislike and many others.

Changing one’s accent is simply more than how you pronounce individual words. It includes the stress and intonation patterns for whole sentences. It does really help you to write better songs as well. (A tip for songwriters!)

If you have a dream, a vision that requires you to speak English fluently like a native English speaker, change it.

Remember this. People want to see change but they detest going through the process to become the change they want to see.

You’re not going through an identity crisis nor are you forgetting your roots when you change your accent. You just wanna be a better you. So go for it. Be a better you.