881. Reading the news with a foreign accent (with Barbara Serra)
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- čas přidán 21. 08. 2024
- Barbara Serra is an award-winning Italian journalist who has spent much of her career reading the news in the UK on various high-profile well-established English language news networks including the BBC, Channel 5, Al Jazeera English and Sky News.
Barbara has quite a specific relationship with English. It’s her dominant language but not her native language. She has a certain accent, which does place her outside the UK somehow.
So how has this affected her career as a news reader and reporter? What is the story of her English? What kind of challenges has she faced while reading the news in the UK? And what does this all tell us about learning English, what it means to improve your accent, the relationship between accent and identity, the definition of “native” and “non-native speaker”, the status of different English accents in the English speaking world?
🔗 Barbara's email newsletter "News with a foreign accent" 👉 barbaraserra.s...
🔗 Barbara's website with course info 👉 www.barbaraser...
📺 Luke talks to Alastair Budge about Paris 👉 • An Englishman In Paris... on @LeonardoEnglishCom
🎧 Luke on Elena’s mtunonon's podcast "Online Bound" 👉 www.elenamuton...
📋 Take the Acast listener survey 👉 podcastsurvey....
Thanks again to @BarbaraSerraJournalist
Should you try to sound exactly like a British person, or not?
I think it depends on the context in which you will be using English.
According to what Barbara said, if you’re reading the national news to a UK audience, then yes it does matter - you should sound like a British person.
Otherwise, in most other cases when you are speaking English in an international context or when it’s fine to sound a bit foreign, then it’s ok to have a bit of an accent.
What is vital in all situations is clarity.
It’s possible to have a foreign accent and still be very clear.
Clarity is the main thing, and the ability to make connections with the people you’re talking to.
Thank you for your advice. Recently I felt so embarrassed when year one child was picking on me. I felt embarrassed and unsure how to handle the situation.
I've deleted my previous comment as I went off topics, my bad!
Serra herself claims she doesn't sound like a native speaker, and that she could sound "as Danish as anything". Well, I think "regular" Danes have a strong accent when they speak English, just like a Dutch, a Spaniard, a Russian and, of course, an Italian. Barbara Serra doesn't sound Danish at all, though; she is not only a true professional, she's also a perfectionist and speaks an extremely polished and impeccable English with no particular accent. Sure enough, I would say she's a native Italian because I know she is, but as a native Italian myself, I believe I can spot some almost indiscernible characteristics of a highly educated Italian English speaker.
Regarding the appropriate English pronunciation of a news reader to a UK audience, I guess Serra has earned a general approval although she sounds slightly exotic; audiences normally dissect the form and style of the news more than the news itself, and I feel Serra could sell them the story of the Red Riding Hood as a breaking news tonight.
Very nice podcast, by the way.
She speaks beautifully, better than many native speakers.
you mean "She"?😂
What a down to earth, honest and intelligent woman thank you Barbara.
And gorgeous!
Ppppppppppp@@Lyuchin
Great episode and thanks to both of you. Her English is clear, fluent and confident but, yes, accent wise does put our minds thinking that of some region outside the UK. I also notice her personality more cheerful and bubbly than a general Brit. It’s cultural thing. She’s outside of that British culture frame or thick glaze. There is no good or bad. Just different. One can never fake to be one who’s not, plus no need to be one. You can tell I’m a British or English cultural outsider. Just be yourself - the most and only important thing.
cheerful and bubbly? I don't know if I would have used these terms, but in the way she is, she seems more Nordic than Italian. Italians laugh often and lightly, even at the most unlikely things. I recognize her being Italian in the fact that she sometimes inserts small jokes or brief considerations that can make you laugh/smile, but from the way she speaks both in English and in Italian, a sort of agitation of thought shines through, which is certainly not English but also not Italian. I don't know if is Danish, but most likely is Sardinian (lastly, is certainly Barbara). -IMO- in her there is a deep awareness, given by experience, that misunderstanding can never be completely avoided. A trace of her arrival at 9 years old.
As always: interesting, motivating, helpful, entertaining - simply the best podcast in English. Barbara Serra is inspirational and admirable. 🙏
She sometimes sounds British sometimes she sound American but in the end she has a beautiful accent. I am native Spanish speaker but living so many years in the US made me learn to love the beautiful English language to the extent that I have written two novels in English and currently writing the third one. Long live the English language.
Wow, what an enlightening episode! 🌟 It's so inspiring to hear Barbara Serra's journey as a non-native English-speaking journalist in the UK.
❤❤
I love the idea and perspective of Barbara giving about the accent. When she emphasise that clarity is no compromise, it’s such a good point.
she is soooooo professional - great insight into the TV broadcast world. great lesson again. thanks luke.
I was amazed by Ms. Sierra's articulate speech. I'm one of those who're working on improvement of English pronunciation. I always say I don't need to erase the trace of my heritage, but I want to sound confident and clear when speaking English. It was reassuring to hear a successful professional like her supporting this idea!🥰
All very interesting. Thank you for bringing the subject to us.
As a person that have lived in the UK for the last 20 years , using English as my second language daily at work and at home, I must admit that it all depends on your background, lifestyle even and people that you surround yourself with. It all affects the way you sound, but also what type of person you are, as well. I have been privileged to be around mostly Brits and I had an amazing English teacher, who taught me English with the knowledge of my first language's influence in pronunciation. I was learning English and living in England among English people and I believe it to be the strongest influence on my English today.
I'm greartful for that. No schools are ever going to teach you English or any other language better then you living among the natives.
Well done Barbara. We are all proud of you.😊
But Barbara didn't live among many native speakers of English until she moved to England at 19. Her "international school" did a good job, I guess.
@@dinkster1729 Her international school was full, no doubt, with British teachers so how can you say that she had no direct influence with the language until she was 19 years of age?
@@michaelmckelvey5122 She said her first teacher of English was American or Canadian. How many other teachers were
American or Canadian rather than from the U.K.? She said it fixed her accent, right? You pick up a lot more from native speakers who are not teachers than from the teachers of ESL. Somebody else said that.
She speaks at a native level. it really doesn't matter if English isn't her first language.
I’ve spotted many comments starting with wow 🤩 Yes 👏, wow, what a deep dive into the world of languages and journalism and how the two have developed over the years. And so much more. Thank you, Luke ❤and Barbara ❤️ for this amazing conversation
I am a native English speaker from England (North Yorkshire), a retired lawyer who studied at Cambridge University. I would say Barbara speaks not only native-level English but a much more educated version of English than a majority of native British speakers use, wirh a rich vocabulary.
There IS a slight hint of an Italian accent, but the accent sounds to me more British English than American English. It is a very attractive accent.
Your are biased because you know she is Italian. I am learning Italian and while I am not an expert, I can't hear any Italian hint. She said nobody has ever guessed Italian without knowing she is Italian.
@@pavel9652 That may be correct. Perhaps better to say that there is a hint of "European" (Western not Eastern) in her accent but, yes, if she said that she came from Spain (for example) instead of Italy, I would not have questioned it. Her English is SO good that it doesn't matter there is a "hint" of another language/accent there. I speak RP with a hint of a Northern English accent - for example I say "Wonn o'clock" not "Wun "o'clock" - but nobody in the UK will doubt I come from the UK or have any difficulty understanding me.
Honest and balanced opinion. Even Luke himself said she doesn't fit into second language category. She sounds near native speaker to me as you rightly said. I detected though a mix of a/o like when she pronouced Accomplish with an O instead of A as in RP English, but that has nothing to do with Italian or Latin as some of these Italian and others pretned to know, saying she has an Italian accent! which is hilarious coming from them. Looks like these Italian guys haven't heard themselves talking :) One can tell an Italian accent from miles away! Even this a/o can be British variation, like as you said pronouncing one as WON (Northern) instead of WAN being more Southern. thanks for sharing.
@@raymondporter2094 I am Canadian and I could actually hear a bit of a northern North American English accent when Barbara spoke mixed with British English. Also, she used a few British expressions--I guess they were British-- like 'like a rabbit in the headlights". We'd say "like a deer in the headlights". I can't recall ever seeing a rabbit's eyes before I mowed it down with my vehicle. Quite by accident, of course. Her body language was definitely italian though. Not just her colouring is Italian.
thank you Raymond 🙂
I definitely think she has an Italian imprint mainly in word stress ( e.g the pronunciation of accent, honest)and her 'a's.Wonderful accent.
Yes I agree with her, I can't pick out an Italian accent in her speech. It puzzled me until she explained about where she learned English and who taught her. Great interview.
''I can't pick out an Italian accent in her speech.'' Which planet do you live on?
What a wonderful interview! Thanks to Barbara for sharing the story of her journey
Thank you, teacher Luke. I am a LEP star from 🇸🇴. Let me know when the one in my country will happen, I mean LEP start meeting. I would appreciate it if could get a team who have been listening to this important show, and as a result, their English has reached the next level.
I'm Italian, and her accent sounds familiar to me.. I would definitely say that she's from Italy, even though she speaks a lot better than Italians in general :)
Thanks for this comment, mate, as I was wondering if someone who is Italian would be able to tell she’s a compatriot
@@injujuan8993 Certainly. The inflection of some sentences, but above all her "mental structure", I mean... the way in which the mind constructs thoughts and transforms them into sentences. A primary familiarity with Italian is evident. I don't know if the English know it, but they formulate much shorter sentences (which in Italian can be fully and effectively translated, but Italians tend to construct much longer and more complex sentences, normally, I don't know why).
However, she has the same accent when she speaks Italian. It's not true that she makes grammatical errors (in case, something tiny) but you can hear that she is a person accustomed and trained to speak another language, to make sounds of (and for) another language.
I'm Brazilian. At the beginning I thought she was from some part of spanish South America. When she said she is Italian I thought: yes, that's it, italian accent.
You nailed it. Native Italians listening to her carefully might be able to pick traces of Italian accent, but I doubt if non-Italians can pick it. One thing that gives an Italian away is the way they pronounce the T. Italians invariably bring the tongue into it.
what? you must be joking ! No way. she doesn't. you're biased coz you knew she was Italian born, and that influenced your judgment.
I’m an italian guy(22), living in Spain for almost 12 years, i know what Barbara says about R sound 😂. Stories like this help a lot, best wishes Barbara. Amazing Podcast, Luke good job, like always, here Luca (Luke in italian). See you.
Luke,
I have been following you since last year and you have helped me a lot to improve my English, as I have been living in England since the end of 2022. This episode, about English from a non-native speaker's perspective, was extremely important to me. It made me realise that the things I face as a non-English speaker are things many others experience. Seeing such an important person as your guest showing and talking about the various difficulties she encounters, even though she is extremely qualified, calmed my heart. It made me see that it wasn’t just me, but many others as well. Please bring people from other nationalities, so we can see what challenges each nationality faces with the language. It was an incredibly enriching episode!
Thank you for your archive!! It’s very convenient for new learners.
I like the clarity of her speech
Great, interesting. It was awesome to listen to Barbara Serra, thank you!
Thank you Barbara for you share your experience and your time wirh us . I am learning english.
Great conversation, thank you to both of you.
Great Barbara, you’re amazing and admirable!
Mr. Luke's listening to your podcast does help me, a bit better in my speech. Thanks!
Very valuable comments thank. You . I am a EAL learner . This is really inspiring and helpful to me🙏🙏🙏
It was so interesting to know more about Barbara Serra, one of my favourite news presenter! I knew her from having watched Aljazeera International News every day during a couple of years, and now I see her sometimes on the Press Review in Sky News. I am 38 and an Italian native who have lived in Spanish-speaking countries for a long time, I love the English language and I work with it, for all these reasons I do relate to what Barbara have been talking about.
Thank you for this incredible episode 👏👏👏👏👏
your podcasts r helping and educating us .
thank you so much
many best wishes
Thank you Luke, thank you Barbara.
You're so honest and I love it. You're an example ❤
I loved the episode, and Luke, you're my favorite English speaker. Also, I admire very much the Italian people. Once they were on the forefront of the mankind.
Roman empire
This is great! We can learn a lot from this, thanks
Lovely, was very inspiring episode❤️
What a fantastic and inspiring interview with Barbara .
I also enjoyed very much your chat about living in Paris . It was interesting to hear how is the life in Paris from your perspective as i spent 5 years living in capital of France .
Thank you for your channel Luca .
She is great
I truly loved this episode as a Mediterranean, I salute both of you for displaying a wonderful content 🎉🎉😊😊
Interesting episode, especially for someone who is doing a Master thesis on English Phonetics and Phonology (English as L2). Thank you!
That sounds like an interesting subject. In fact, just yesterday, I was on a bus and a lady was saying her daughter was studying linguistics in London (UCL).
Thank you for this brilliant episode!
So cool! Thank you soo much for this episode!
Thank you for this incredible episode, I think it’s time for me to stop feeling shame for my accent and multicultural heritage of an immigrant.
That was so enlightening, thanks!
Thanks a lot for this interesting and inspiring episcode. شكراً
What a wonderful interview! Thank you both very much for this hour of interesting conversation. I know retroflexive R as in a part of Brazil it's the way R sounds. It was funny to see you tlak about that.
Thanks for this conversation! It's full of validation, honesty, perspective-taking, and education for the monolingual brain . It's been really enlightening listening. In conclusion: keep your identity, work on intelligible speech (correct+clear) and be realistic/practical to reach your audience.
Luke was speechless for a while .... I think he has learned English from Barbara today ;) Ciao
I am a Russian citizen and native Russian speaker but I am an asian looking girl. You could guess me as Chinese, Japanese, Korean. When we lived in Taiwan people were so amazed I am from Russia. Once I met a Chinese he thought I was joking and couldn't believe it. I could see his cognitive dissonance was so mind-blowing.
People look at me and think I'm Francophone and address me in French. Ha! ha! ha! I then get a chance to use my English-Canadian accented French with them. Often, in Ontario, French-Canadians only want to speak French with other native speakers of French.
Nice podcast Luke 🎉
Here in Canada, media, including the government sponsored CBC radio and TV, is getting more and more populated with hosts and announcers with foreign or regional accents, sometimes so heavy that it’s difficult to understand them. I’m not talking about the occasional foreign guest, I’m talking about the actual people employed by these media organizations. Many of them often mispronounce words such as “poyg-nunt” for poignant, etc., pronounce silent letters, put the stress on the wrong syllable and so on. We even have news announcers with a variety of speech impediments. All this in the name of inclusivity, equity and equality.
It must be fun! Horribly funny
A couple of months ago a news presenter said half a word in her dialect while talking to a guest and it still resonates in my head
Thanks Luke!
I have the opportunity to hear Barbara both in English and in Italian. She masters both anazingly.
As a matter of fact it is the language you use most of the time that tends to influence the sound of the other.
She is native italian but having spent most of her life using english I think that her speech sounds surely more italian with a foreign accent than english with an italian accent.
In Italy it gives her that International tone which adds liability and competence.
( Italian sound is great for art fashion, food and few other fields, but we tend to be
exterophilies in global contents)
Well done Barbara and,as usual,great podcast Luke
Such an amazing episode !🎉
I'm italian Luk. In her speech i heard a lot italian accent. 😊
Thank you for this interesting episode.!
I think Barbara’s message was about the dominance of English in the world and how it creates many inequities. Non-English speaking countries often face disadvantages, and now ads from each corner are pushing the idea that we all need to learn English. This isn’t necessarily bad, I guess that’s we all do here, but it still highlights the pressure to achieve recognition for speaking English.
Fascinating episode with a powerful message.
It made me think of my own learning journey. As someone who barely spoke English at 18 and became a TEFL teacher in London 20 years later, I'd like to say anything is possible if you put your mind to it...and listen to LEP long-term of course :)
Like your guest, I also think English is my dominant language these days, and I tend to express myself better in it than in my first language, but I'll never be able to say I'm a native speaker. It took me a while to accept this, but in the last 5 years I've arrived at "it is what it is".
Thanks 🎉
Hold on, let's get this right, you barely speak English but work as a TEFL teacher? Little wonder the education system in the U.K. is at an all-time low. Are you Slovak? Zdenek sounds like something from that area of the world.
cool Barbara, thank you
It is such an intresting podcast ,thanks
Great episode Luke!
Excellent interview,.
Great information 👍
Luke ... you are the best !!
She is beautiful. I saw her on Sky News .
I enjoyed every second of this conversation! As an Italian, I didn't hear an Italian accent in Barbara, I'd say she sounds more 'atlantic' than 'mediterranean'. However, one thing she has inherited from Italian is her speed of speech! Btw I'm amazed by how natural her accent is when she speaks Italian, after 30+ years out of the country, only one thing sounds a little odd: she tends to overcorrect her 'r's.
Thank you....I always feel the real weakness in my Italian is with my vocabulary. Very often I can think of a word in English but not the Italian translation, especially when it's on a topic (News, for example) that I usually discuss in English
@@barbaraserrajournalist Don't you think it's just a matter of habit and practice? I mean... with English language school from age 9 onwards, it would be strange otherwise! What is most evident is that you are used to speaking another language, breathing and making sounds according to another language. In fact, I was wondering: if a person like you does the same type of exercises done in (and for) English, to improve emission in Italian, would there be confusion between head and mouth when speaking any of the two languages?
Sopra la panca la capra campa, sotto la panca la capra crepa! Trentatre trentini entrarono a Trento tutti e tretatre trotterellando... Forza Barb, try! 😄
Thank you for your job ❤❤❤❤
Might want to fact-check the header -- Sonia Ruseler (a native of Buenos Aires) presented for ITN in the 1990s.
Thanks. Very interesting 🎉
Given her background, as an Italian, I'd like listening her speaking Italian to understand whether her Italian pronunciation has been affected by it or not
Thanks a lot, very crucial video
With nine years old you are able to overcome the acent and speak as a native speaker. This you can learn till you are 12 years old but after that age it is quiet complicated to achieve the level of accent free speech.
A few people do manage it though. A friend of ours came over from Holland when he was about 17. He speaks Canadian English without a foreign accent, but he never learned much English, if any, in rural Holland. Therefore, he got his accent and word structure and vocabulary from people he met in Ontario after arriving here. He didn't know many Dutch speakers either so that helped. He married an English/ French speaker and knew her family and friends so that helped as well.
Very interesting, thanks
So interesting to listen as an English language learner,I am not into accent,I just want to speak fluently,I like this podcast,thank you teacher Luke and Barbera Sara.
Thank you 🙏
Thanks teacher
Lukes Accent is beautiful ❤
Hello Luke. Thanks for this episode. It's really amusing how she manages to overcome those difficulties although she is a native speaker.
I hope you and your family have a great day ahead. ❤❤
I am not a native speaker. I started learning English when I was 9 years old, and probably wasn't fluent until around 12/13 years old. I am a native Italian speaker. English is my second language, though it's been my dominant language for decades.
@@barbaraserrajournalist @barbaraserrajournalist hello Barbara. Yeah it was my mistake. English is your dominant language. My bad. I think it was the main point of the talk to differentiate the native and dominant 😅 and it even makes what you did more astonishing. Although the email you mentioned is unfair. If a person cares that much about a language so he can speak it as well as a native speaker, one shouldn't nag about it and you didn't write the news. there's a whole crew that does it. I am familiar with the power of accents.
There's lots of accents in every part of my country and even people in two neighbor village speaks a bit different from each other but we understand each other.
@@hm.dasjerdi-yd2us Thank you for your reply, and there's a big debate around native/dominant language, and what it should mean. But you're right about the power of accents. I do think sometimes people give it too much importance, like you say, as long as we understand one another it shouldn't matter so much. 🙂
Thanks 🎊
I enjoy Barbara's newsreading as her accent, though clearly non-native, is pleasant and her pronunciation and clarity of speech are excellent. However, she is far from being the first newsreader to have spoken English as a second language. We have many broadcasters here in Wales who spoke Welsh as their first language, including attending Welsh-language schools.
Very interesting! Thank you!!
Barbara is very intelligent! She sounds like American which is very essay to comprehend.
If you learned English in North America, it is or from North Americans, it is; however, if you learned British English, it might be more difficult to understand. As a Canadian, I found Barbara's English easier to comprehend than the host's as well, probably because of the North American influence from her first teacher who was either American or Canadian.
Great episode 👏👏👏
As someone originally from Canada, Barbara sounds to me like an average Canadian in a big metropolitan city like Toronto or Montreal, where many languages are heard, and where, like the case of Toronto, more than 50% of residents are born abroad. There are many politicians, journalists, and other people whose voices are heard often in Canadian media who have some sort of slight "accent" like Barbara but otherwise speak the language on a native-level.
Nice work 🎉
Italian here: she speaks excellent English with a "mixed" pronunciation but most importantly with a hint of italian intonation. Spoken Italian has lots of tone variations, which may sound "musical" to a foreigner. About the vocabulary, as English is 60%/70% coming from Latin (either directly or through French) and any "latin" speaker (eg. us Italians) prefers words coming from Latin, the result is that we may sound more sophisticated to an UK/US audience. Same thing happens to me.
Great interview! Communication and legibility are very important, but ability to express oneself and a rich vocabulary are equally important! Being able to express oneself allows to be natural and enjoy the experience of speaking a foreign language. I am near-native, that is proficient speaker, with 20k words, and now I am working on my accent. Currently I speak about 60% American and 40% British accent. I prefer certain way of speaking and pronouncing letter R, just like Italians. In fact, I am learning Italian as well! So I don't know where I will take my English from now in terms of accent. Perhaps, I will learn what are differences and will be able to produce accent on demand to certain degree. I would like to extinguish all the errors as well ;)
You probably prefer to speak with an American accent as you can hide your foreignness more.
Great podcast. Fascinating. 👍
In Australia, we have our SBS presenter: Lee Lin Chin.
I'm Italo-British born and raised up in italy. She speaks good English but when she says they mistake her for a native speaker she's fooling herself. I don’t know why Italians always have to brag everything about themselves, let the others determine how good you are
...
Wow. I’m Hong Kong chinese, went to a HK American school, and spent my high school years and adulthood in Australia. My accent always confuses others.
She is entitled to a native speaker.
And rightfully so!
In a way-- I can relate to your guest. I'm neither this nor that... Not 'native' enough here or there 😆. Regardless of my mood,
"Where are you from?" still is the most challenging question to answer. It also depends on who asks the question.
I mean... we live in an insatiable world. 😅
This is BIZARRE!! As a Brit of Middle Eastern (levantine) descent but an Italian family name, who lived in Denmark and Germany and who has worked with lots of Italians and studied German with lots of Spaniards and South Americans, everything she says is very familiar. I have a lot of family in the U.S. and spent a lot of time there as a child, so some Brits think I might be slightly American. But Americans think I sound very English. A LOT of what she said resonates with with my generation, so I checked her age and we are a month apart in age. And my Middle-eastern genes mean I also have an olive complexion and dark hair. It's a bit like meeting a twin sister I never knew I had!!
Great Lady ❤
You are doing a great job dude 🤘🏻👍🏻
Luke is absolutely not a template for English. Give me Barbara any day.
Interesting that I could recognize from the beginning she had a latin accent. I'm from Brazil and I thought she was from some spanish speaking country in Latin America. When she said she was from Italy it was not a surprise to me and I could notice an Italian way to speak in her voice/attitude. It was also interesting her definition of native speaker (when you don't remember when you started to speak the language...). In my opinion she could be proud to say: Vengo da un paese meraviglioso: l'Italia, e da una lingua meravigliosa: l'italiano!
Her attitude is just oh, God lush! Super atractive woman! ❤