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GOOD ENGLISH
It may not be fair, but people do judge
your intelligence based on whether
you use it or not. © 2016
To state the obvious, the United States is an English-speaking country. In an English-speaking country, people expect you to speak the language well, especially people who make hiring decisions.
If you’ve lived in the United States all of your life and you cannot speak the language well, count on it, people who do hiring, will think you’re uneducated and not very smart. They will not want to hire you.
By comparison, immigrants often come to this country speaking little English. A few years later, many of these immigrants can speak better English than some people who were born here. Is it because they tried harder? Is it because speaking the language well meant more to them?
Speaking English well is hardly a matter of snob appeal. It can adversely affect your job search. If you show up for a job interview, and if you use phrases like, “I seen,” rather than, “I saw;” or, if you pronounce, “ask” as “axe,” odds are, those mispronunciations could cause you a job.
People won’t ever say anything to your face, but they will certainly think you are less intelligent than you may be based on how you speak.
If you’re an adult and you speak in fragments, like a four year old, rather than in sentences and paragraphs, that could be a problem if you intend to advance. But he’s the good news. Studies have shown that human being are capable of learning anything as long as they put their minds to it. We all have the potential to be great or near-great.
Too often, in the black community, the notion of speaking good English has been seen as “acting white.” This is truly sad. In reality, the people who think this way do not have a high opinion of themselves or their culture. In their minds, a black person is supposed to speak in fragments rather than complete sentences. That is a racist stereotype, and they have swallowed it. To quote Eleanor Roosevelt, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Whether you’re in France, Mexico or the United States, It is very important to speak the language well. When you think about it, nearly all of the great people in our culture who became icons, spoke the language well: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Justice Thurgood Marshall, Barack Obama, Oprah, Neil De Grasse Tyson, Michelle Obama, Louis Farrakhan, Sen. Cory Booker, and others.
Talk Show Host Mildred Gaddis has a beautiful speaking voice, and she enunciates better than most people on the planet. But Gaddis isn’t “acting white.” She’s being her authentic self.
To repeat the obvious, this is an English-speaking country. Let’s master the language of our birth.
It may not be fair, but people do judge
your intelligence based on whether
you use it or not. © 2016
To state the obvious, the United States is an English-speaking country. In an English-speaking country, people expect you to speak the language well, especially people who make hiring decisions.
If you’ve lived in the United States all of your life and you cannot speak the language well, count on it, people who do hiring, will think you’re uneducated and not very smart. They will not want to hire you.
By comparison, immigrants often come to this country speaking little English. A few years later, many of these immigrants can speak better English than some people who were born here. Is it because they tried harder? Is it because speaking the language well meant more to them?
Speaking English well is hardly a matter of snob appeal. It can adversely affect your job search. If you show up for a job interview, and if you use phrases like, “I seen,” rather than, “I saw;” or, if you pronounce, “ask” as “axe,” odds are, those mispronunciations could cause you a job.
People won’t ever say anything to your face, but they will certainly think you are less intelligent than you may be based on how you speak.
If you’re an adult and you speak in fragments, like a four year old, rather than in sentences and paragraphs, that could be a problem if you intend to advance. But he’s the good news. Studies have shown that human being are capable of learning anything as long as they put their minds to it. We all have the potential to be great or near-great.
Too often, in the black community, the notion of speaking good English has been seen as “acting white.” This is truly sad. In reality, the people who think this way do not have a high opinion of themselves or their culture. In their minds, a black person is supposed to speak in fragments rather than complete sentences. That is a racist stereotype, and they have swallowed it. To quote Eleanor Roosevelt, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Whether you’re in France, Mexico or the United States, It is very important to speak the language well. When you think about it, nearly all of the great people in our culture who became icons, spoke the language well: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Justice Thurgood Marshall, Barack Obama, Oprah, Neil De Grasse Tyson, Michelle Obama, Louis Farrakhan, Sen. Cory Booker, and others.
Talk Show Host Mildred Gaddis has a beautiful speaking voice, and she enunciates better than most people on the planet. But Gaddis isn’t “acting white.” She’s being her authentic self.
To repeat the obvious, this is an English-speaking country. Let’s master the language of our birth.