277. Tips for non-native English speakers
Multilingual is a superpower.
In this episode, I’m joined by speech coach Peter Novak, who specialises in helping non-native English speakers communicate with clarity and confidence — without losing their accent or identity.
We explore:
the hidden mental load of speaking a second language at work,
practical techniques to be better understood (including pausing, word stress and intonation), and
why confidence matters more than sounding “native.”
Plus, Peter shares the incredible story of translating an entire Shakespeare play into sign language — and what it taught him about language, culture and voice.
If English isn’t your first language — or you work with those who speak it as a second — this episode is for you.
transcript
Welcome back to That Voiceprint Podcast. Welcome. If you're here for the first time, the word voiceprint is taking over the title as my book of the same name was recently published, and I highly recommend you grab a copy of Voice print. My guest today is absolutely fascinating. His name is Peter Novak. He's a speech coach who specializes in helping non-native English speakers, and that's the focus of our conversation today. Peter shares really practical tips for what non-native English speakers can do to improve their confidence and ability to be understood. You might've been drawn to this episode because English isn't your first language, your bilingual or multilingual, which is so incredible. It's definitely an asset, not a hindrance. I also chat to Peter about a fascinating project where he translated an entire Shakespearean play into sign language. This conversation filled my soul and I know it will do the same for you.
Sally:
Peter Novak, welcome to That Voice Podcast. Great to see you.
Peter:
It's great to see you too. Thank you for having me. Sally.
Sally:
Let's dive right in. How did you get into specializing assisting non-native English speakers?
Peter:
So, you know, I went to acting school and in acting school you have to learn the International Phonetic Alphabet so that you can write notes for different accents, right? You can write them authentically and how to portray an accent with authenticity. And, and so I got fascinated with the different sounds of different languages from all over the world. And my own accent when I was in acting school was sort of made fun of because I was from the middle of the country, Michigan, for those of you who know American geography, and we have a little bit more of a flat way of speaking. Okay. Like if I say, you know, the 'Piaster in the Paris staff wanna wish you a Hyappy New Year', it's a really flat sound kind of like that. And it's funny that I'm not making fun of it. That's the way I spoke growing up.
Peter:
And that, and my speech teachers would tell me I had to change it. And so I felt a little inferior because of that accent. I felt like I wasn't doing things the right way. And so I realized that I wanted to work with people to make sure that they felt confident speaking English with their accent without trying to change their accent. I think it was really important to sort of think about using a descriptive way of understanding the way people speak rather than a prescriptive way. A prescriptive way says, this is how you need to sound, this is what you need to sound like, you need to use English in this way. And any other way is substandard. And that's where bias creeps in. We all have biases towards the way people speak. So instead of English being one thing, it's so many different things.
Sally:
Oh, so great. And with the people that you work with, do you find that that's a similar reason that they come to you? They have that experience that you've had where at some point they felt like the way they speak is inferior or not good enough?
Peter:
Yes. I think what they sometimes feel is that they worry in the workplace that people don't understand them. For example they worry oftentimes that they haven't made their point as clearly as they could have until they end up repeating themselves or saying things in a different way or trying to get that validation in a different way. You have to realize that non-native English speakers in working environments are actually doing a lot more work in the moment. If they're non-native, they are sometimes translating into you know, their first language and then translating back into English when they're speaking. And so, they're doing a lot more in the moment. And so that kind of extra workload we don't even think about.
Sally:
Yeah, absolutely. And what are some of the other challenges you hear about?
Peter:
Some people feel that they're passed over, maybe, you know, in being promoted. There's really interesting data around some of that, even just, you know, the way names are pronounced. So people have to sometimes change the way that they've said their name all their lives because other people can't pronounce it the right way. And so rather than hearing your name constantly being, being mispronounced, they just change it to something that everyone else can pronounce. If you're on a team and you speak a different language, let's say you're on a team from Latin America within your own team, you might be speaking Spanish and Portuguese and English, you know, to get your meaning across. As soon as a native English speaker enters the room, everything shifts. And those people who were using multiple languages in multiple ways of communicating now are forced into English only. They have to shorten things, they have to do different rules because the native speakers enter the room. And so all that linguistic complexity gets simplified, gets taken out. Even turn taking is different. It's more competitive. You have to jump in a little bit more. It's more aggressive. So lots of things happen in the workplace around language skills that a lot of native speakers don't appreciate as much.
Sally:
It's so topsy-turvy that a lot of non-native English speakers, they say this to me, feel like they have something less than a native English speaker when they're the ones speaking multiple languages.
Peter:
That's absolutely right. In Australia, New Zealand, great Britain, the US 78% of those people who live there speak only one language. And you're right, multilingual speakers. It is a superpower. And there's lots of great new evidence around what happens with dementia that, you know, people who are multilingual speakers have have fewer episodes of dementia, that they are better at multitasking, that they can switch between something that is more analytical to something in a different style. They're really good at doing a variety of different tasks than monolingual speakers. And they also understand culture sometimes differently too, as a result. And when you're on a team that is really diverse, a global team for example, having some of those cultural underpinnings and understandings are a huge advantage. And so language doesn't just carry meaning. It carries culture and identity and so much more. And our voices are so personal. I'm really dealing with a lot of very personal identity-based issues all the time. Nobody likes the way that they sound. Your voice is gorgeous. I love listening to your voice. When we hear our own, we're like, oh my gosh, is that really how what? I sound like it's because we hear our voices differently through the air than we do through the bone conduction that happens when we're speaking ourselves.
Sally:
Absolutely. I write about this in my book Voiceprint, and this is the reason I called it voiceprint because it is part of our identity, this unique impression that we leave on the world that carries so much more than sound wave as our story. It's our history, it's who we are. Love it. So someone's listening, English isn't their first language. They're going into the workplace tomorrow. They've got a meeting and they're feeling like they're struggling to be understood. What are some quick strategies or techniques they can use to improve the way that they are understood and also feel about their accent?
Peter:
Absolutely. So a couple things. One is give yourself time. You know, there's always this expectation that you have to speak immediately. And so feel free to say, you know what, can you gimme just a minute? I'm still translating from Ukrainian. And what that does is it reminds people that you are a multilingual speaker. It reminds them that you've got different skills and it also just helps slow the meeting down a little bit, which is really advantageous for, for other non-native speakers in the room.
Sally:
Yeah, I really love that tip because I think in some settings people don't wanna be asking, Oh, we don't, what's your cultural background? I've been in rooms where people have said just that, oh, I'm just translating from Italian. And someone said, I didn't know that you were spoke Italian and were from Italy, and it's been able to open up this real moment of connection.
Peter:
Absolutely. Especially when you can also add phrases from your culture. So for example a friend of mine who's from Argentina would say a phrase that, that his grandfather would say, which is, "The chicken is ready and the henna is plucked.", in Spanish. And so the team started using that phrase whenever they were done with a project, right? They would be like, Oh, can't make any more changes. The chicken is ready. Then the hen is plucked sort of thing is, you know, when it's ready to ship a product or something else.
Sally:
Yeah, I love that! In Portuguese. So I lived in Brazil for one year. I did an exchange over there and in English we call it spooning. If you're in bed and one person's like the spoon, and you might say like, big spoon and little spoon, I don't know. In Brazilian Portuguese, if the man is behind it's Concha, which means the big shell, but if the woman is behind it, it's Mochilinha, which is the little backpack. It's just so cute because sometimes then even with my partner, if I'm behind, I'm like, I'm the little backpack languages give us this beautiful added richness.
Peter:
Absolutely they do. And there's no reason why that richness can't be included in the workplace, right? Where you're celebrating things that are not of the dominant culture that you're in, you know, it's like, oh, back home. This is what we do today, you know, on this day and this is the food we make. And bringing your cultural sort of heritage into the workplace can be really fun to do, and it's no more fun than to do it in, in language-based issues. And it just creates more comradery. It creates more of a, an understanding. And, and you mentioned something that's really interesting because people who speak with an outgroup accent, right? Non-Dominant accent get asked all the time this question, you know, the question of, Where are you from? And that happens a lot for them. And it's really a subtle reminder of, you know, You're not from here, are you? Right? And so I try to instead replace that with other questions like, tell me what's your story or where do you call home? Right? Because for that person, if they're an immigrant, they might call home where they came from, they might call Brisbane home now. And it gives them the freedom and flexibility to answer how they want to answer.
Sally:
This is the perfect time to remind you to download my free ebook. What to Say When You Don't Know What to Say. If you struggle Speaking off the Cuff or tend to ramble, then this will really help. You'll learn how to introduce yourself, tell people what you do, make a point, sell your product or service. And there's a framework for telling a story that people rave about. Link is in the show notes. Hit pause and grab it. Now let's get back to the episode.
Sally:
So Peter, I love this tip, the time and those phrases, it's okay to say I'm translating this, I'm thinking about this. It's okay to take a breath and not answer straight away. That's a good tip for people who speak any language. What else? What's another practical thing that can be done?
Peter:
If you're a fast talker in your first language, you're oftentimes a fast talker in your second language. And so what I think non-native speakers can focus on are essentially three things. One is slowing themselves down around phrases, not just slowing themselves down overall, but in a sentence. We have phrases that we use all the time, and I just broke down that sentence in a sentence. We have phrases that we use all the time. Do you see how I paused in between each one of those? And if you pause around a thought cluster or a thought group like the ones I just did, it makes it easier for native speakers to follow. And the second thing is to be aware of stress, word stress. 'Cause English is a stress timed language. If I said a sentence to you, I mean the same sentence, if we just stress a different word, it can mean something completely different. So if I say, I never said you should kill him, right? It's a little violent, but if I say, I never said you should kill him, or I never said you should kill him.
Sally:
I never said you should kill HIM!
Peter:
That's right, exactly. I never said you should KILL him. I never said YOU should kill him. Every single time you stress a different word, then it means something. You know, the subtext or the under text means something completely different. And so understanding word stress is probably one of the most important things that you can do. We, as native speakers, when the empha-sis on a is on a different sy-llable, right, it becomes more diffi-cult, you know, to understand. We start listening for words that have that same rhythm because that's how the language is stored in our brains. Those are two very simple things. The last thing I would say is we tend to stress important words in a sentence, and the rest are not as important. And if you are working from a script, you can actually underline those four or five words per sentence that carry the most meaning.
Peter:
And then you give them greater weight. You give them greater emphasis when you're speaking. That also carries the images in our minds much more easily. So there's a study in Canada, who do you trust more? Let's say you're in a foreign country or in a, in a place where you don't know and your car is broken down. Phone is out of battery and you need to get your car to a garage to fix it. And you've asked two people and they give you completely opposite directions. Who do you trust more? The person who sounds like you or someone who sounds like they're from an outgroup, a foreign accent. We tend to trust the people who sound like us, except if the person who speaks with an outgroup accent speaks confidently. Now what does confidence mean, right? And, what, how does it land for English listeners, and lands around those things that I identified earlier, those pausing techniques, those emphasizing specific words and using downward inflections.
Sally:
Intonation is an entire chapter of my book Voiceprint. And I explain exactly when to go up, when to go down, and how you can get the intonation advantage. Voiceprint is available in paperback Kindle and audiobook, just search VoicePrint by Sally Prosser.
Sally:
So Peter, something that is so fascinating I learned about you is in the year 2000, you directed a Shakespearean production Twelfth Night, bit of a tricky word to say, twelfth. And there are more languages than just those spoken like sign language. And you directed a production that was in a SL, and I believe it had the voices with it. Tell us about this incredible project. I know it was 25 years ago.
Peter:
I can't believe it was 25 years ago, but I still, I still love talking about this project. It was, it took two years to translate. What we did is we collected sort of a team of deaf and hearing artists together to really look at translating the entire play and videotaping the translation because you cannot write sign language down. There is no way to write a sign language because it is a four dimensional language. It exists in time and space. If I sign something closer to my body, it's more intimate. Like if I say you and I are friends, I'm taking my two index fingers from both hands and I'm interlocking them. And if I bring them closer to my body and I inflect it more physically, it shows we are tight. We are really close friends. And if I say we're friends and I put it farther away from my body, it means we're acquaintances.
Peter:
You know, we're not that close. And so, so it's a fascinating way to think of the poetry of Shakespeare, which is Iambic pentameter and all these different verse structures. How do you try to even think about that in sign language where rhyme doesn't have the same meaning? Rhyme is based on the sound of a word and verse structure is based on the rhythm of how it's spoken. And so how do you change that into a visual and gestural language? And so that's what we grappled with thousands of questions. That's why it took us so long to to translate. And then we did the full-scale production, which was just lovely. There's a website for it, actually. It's aslshakespeare.org. And you can see clips from the translation. You can see clips from the production. There are essays about Shakespeare that are translated into American sign language.
Peter:
You know, of course that Australian sign language is completely different from American sign language. I wouldn't be able to understand an Australian sign language speaker at all. Australian sign language, British Sign Language and New Zealand sign language are more similar. American sign language actually has more in common with French sign language. It's fascinating. You know, for example, and I think in Australian sign language, the alphabet even is two-handed, whereas in American sign language, it's one hand. And so you can do it a lot faster oftentimes as a result. And people say, Shouldn't all deaf people around the world, you know, speak the same language? Wouldn't that be so much easier? And I say, well, wouldn't it be easier if everyone spoke Chinese? 'Cause that's the majority. More people speak Chinese in the world than any other language. So, why not? And it's because language embodies culture. And, and so we all have different ways of, of speaking.
Sally:
It's absolutely fascinating. So from that project, did it shift your work with multilingual speakers or what's the biggest lesson that you took away from it?
Peter:
Oh my gosh. Most hearing people don't understand sign languages and that it's actually not a form of English on the hands, right? American sign language is actually a completely different language than English. If I said to you in English, are you going to the meeting in Brisbane next week? If I signed it, I would say next week meeting Brisbane, you go. Right? So the word order is completely different,
Sally:
Just like different languages.
Peter:
Exactly. Right? So you have to learn different structure, different word orders, different ways of saying things. It's just a completely different way of communicating. And it really enhances, I think, my own understanding of how language works and the differences in languages and to really celebrate those differences and understand them. The sad thing is in the us under the current administration, they only made English the only official language of the United States. Now that leaves out American sign language and deaf people who don't speak English, right? They speak American sign language. It's a completely different language. This administration is unfortunately didn't even think about things like that. Didn't think about. I live in Hawaii, right? And Hawaii is the state language. When you have this official, you know, determination that English is the only official language, it trickles down into policy. It trickles down into education. It trickles down into healthcare and safety and making sure that we're including all of the different languages in all of our official communication.
Sally:
Absolutely. And let's hope that this administration and this approach is not how things are going to be forever. And question about the project. How did it come about?
Peter:
I grew up next to the Michigan School for the Deaf. My father was the optometrist, the eye doctor for the Michigan School for the Deaf. And my oldest sister was deaf in her left ear. And so my parents started learning sign language. She's 17 years older than I am. She never went completely deaf, but that's why my father started to become the eye doctor for MSD. And so I started associating with friends who were deaf when I was in sixth grade, fifth grade, and started learning sign language. And that's how I learned. And so continued. And then in college for my master's degree, I decided to translate just one scene from a Shakespeare play. And then for my dissertation, for my doctorate at Yale, the Yale School of Drama, I said, I'm gonna do an entire production. And that's how it came about. And so really probably the most challenging and rewarding experience of my life was working on that play for so long and in such depth with great deaf artists and poets and who were so knowledgeable and so giving of their time. It was amazing.
Sally:
Full goosebumps. That is just such a beautiful story and speaks to how in our life we're sent on these missions. And it's not often until we look back and see all those threads that we realize that we've traveled the path we were always meant to travel.
Peter:
No, that's lovely. And I agree and, and I'm very thankful for it.
Sally:
Oh, Peter, it has been such a joy speaking with you. So fascinating. If you were to leave one message for a non-native English speaker?
Peter:
The message I would say is remember, that you're doing more work. You already have skills, more than 78 to 80% of your colleagues who only speak one language. And to take pride in that. And from that pride, I think that sense of confidence, even in English can really blossom and flourish.
Sally:
Amazing. Peter Novak, where can people find you? How can they connect with you?
Peter:
Sure. My company's called the Strictly Speaking Group. And that's the best place to find us is strictly speaking group.com. Linkedin is also good. You can, if you just send me a message on LinkedIn and say that you heard me on your podcast and I'd be happy to connect. And I can also make a free course available to you on LinkedIn if you wanna connect that way, for non-native speakers. Or if you're a native English speaker and want to have a course on how to support non-native speakers in the workplace, I can send that to you for free as well.
Sally:
What a fantastic resource. Peter Novak, thank you so much for joining me on That Voice Podcast.
Peter:
My pleasure, Sally. I look forward to getting your book and reading through it and talking about it sometime in the future.