Impact of Fluency on Your Professional Life

Fluency and proper pronunciation have a tremendous impact on your professional life.

You may ask: How?

The answer is simple: People subconsciously assume you have an inferior comprehension, when you talk with accent or in broken English.

Note, that the emphasis here is on “subconsciously”. They may not think that way logically. They may even think you are highly qualified, skilled, and educated. And yet there’s an inescapable feeling that you may not fully understand the meaning of what’s being said to you, even though you do.

Others may not be even aware of it, or flat out deny it, but that subconscious belief is there. And it hurts you at every turn in your professional life.

Here’s an example to illustrate how subconscious assumptions are formed…

If you answer the phone and you hear a faint voice at the other end, you immediately speak louder. You immediately and subconsciously assume that if you cannot hear someone clearly, the other person cannot hear you either, so you speak louder. Even though, your assumption is not necessarily correct logically. Just because someone else’s phone has a bad microphone, that doesn’t mean his or her phone has a bad speaker too.

Talking with accent has a similar subconscious impact on others. Here’s an experiment to verify that:

Among people who don’t know you, like people in a store, or a restaurant, start talking with a very heavy accent and broken English intentionally. Then notice how others try to talk to you more slowly and clearly. They will be careful not to use complicated words or slang.

They subconsciously assume that since you don’t talk fluently, most likely you don’t understand well either. That’s not under their control. It’s subconscious. They can’t help it.

The majority, if not all of the advances in your career and professional life are strongly affected by the opinions of others, be it your boss, business partner, coworker, or others around you.

Even if your professional qualifications alone bring you great advancements, acquiring a perfect accent will multiply those advancement many times over.

That makes having a great accent so important in sending a subconscious message to others that your have a great comprehension.