You see, you may not know this about me, but English wasn't my first language, it wasn't even my second language, English was my third language.

And the language you heard me speaking in that video just briefly, when I was young, is called Dijiu.

So it's a Chinese dialect that's fairly rare these days.

Or si Dijiu nang, ga sing ang ang.

Silly little thing that people in Dijiu often say, don't know why they say that.

But that was the first language that I learnt.

Then, after that, I learnt Vietnamese.

You see, so again, Vietnamese was the second language I learnt.

By the time I got into school, formally in school, I was about 5 or 6 years old and for the first time at 5 or 6 years old, then I had to learn English because at home we weren't taught English.

I first learnt English at the age of 6 and by that point I'd already understood and was able to speak fluently Dijiu and also Vietnamese.

And I tell you all of this because I want to address the problem that many of my students have been asking me.

Over the last year, I've been teaching all the new hires at Microsoft the area of communication skills and many of the new hires, the thousands of new hires that Microsoft bring on every people from all over the world.

And the question kept coming up, Vin, is my accent a problem?

Now, this is my firm belief.

Your accent is never a problem.

My goodness, your accent is what makes you unique.

It's what gives you flavor.

It's what gives you character.

Accent is never a problem.

The problem doesn't lie with your accent.

The problem lies with your articulation.

If you're someone who has wondered and has thought about, oh, what if my accent is a problem when I communicate, then this video, I hope it will give you some more insight into this.

Let's dive deeper into this topic.

When I was young and I was speaking English for the first time, I remember the kids at school used to tease me because I sounded different to them.

And they would often say, oh, you sound so fobby.

And the reason I sounded different was because I had learnt two completely different set of mouth movements before I had to learn a third set of mouth movements.

Let me explain.

When I learnt Dijiu, for example, I had to learn a completely different set of mouth movements for that language because Dijiu is very different to Vietnamese.

And then when I learnt Vietnamese, I had to learn another different set of mouth movements.

Now the mistake I made was when I learnt the English language, I brought along the Chinese and the Vietnamese set of mouth movements into the English language, therefore causing me to have a very thick accent.

That accent comes as a result, your accent comes as a result of us taking the set of mouth movements we learnt from our mother tongue into the English language.

And depending on how much of those mouth movements we take from the original language that we learnt, the first language that we learnt, depending on how much of those mouth movements we take and move across into the English language, that will determine how thick the accent that we actually have is.

And for me, when I was young, I had a very thick Vietnamese accent when I spoke English, which for me at the time was a problem, A, because I got teased.

But more than this, I couldn't communicate clearly with those around me.

They couldn't really understand what I was saying.

So I quickly learnt in that environment that I needed to learn a completely new set of particular language.

And without knowing at the time, when I was a kid, when I learnt these new set of mouth movements for the English language, what I did without knowing was I enhanced my articulation.

And the way I practiced my articulation wasn't actually the best way to do it, but it was the only way I knew how to do it.

I started to imitate people that I heard on TV.

So I used to watch The Price is Right in Australia, I used to watch Sesame Street and something and I would actually try to imitate them and practice speaking like they would speak.

And that's how I learnt the new set of mouth movements for this new language, English.

And since then, I've learnt from my now mentors who are speech pathologists, who have taught me more effective ways on how you can improve your articulation.

Now one of my mentors taught me that the strategy you can use is every day for five minutes, grab any book you like, open it to a random page and you've got to read it, but exaggerate the mouth movements.

So, for example, if I was reading you this quick passage, I'd do it like this.

For five minutes, you'd do this.

You go, read out loud obviously.

You may have noticed that it is easier to train forward vibrations if you stay on the same note.

And by doing this, what you're doing is you're training your mouth to learn the new set of mouth movements.

Five minutes a day is all it takes and trust me, within three months, two months, if you stick to this and you're consistent, you'll notice your articulation improve dramatically.

It doesn't matter where you're from, it doesn't matter what accent you have, we all can do with a little more articulation.

One of my gardeners, I love him, but he's a true blue Aussie and every time he comes to my house, I always slightly struggle to understand him because when he speaks to me, he generally does this.

G'day Vin, how are you going, mate?

Good to see you.

Bloody, you let your garden go too far.

There's bloody weeds everywhere, mate.

You've got to take care of it.

You've got to get me out more often.

And when he does this, sometimes I'm like, oh my goodness, I barely understood you.

And again, he's got an Australian accent and I love the Aussie accent, but to him, he doesn't articulate.

He doesn't articulate very well.

He doesn't move his mouth enough for the articulation to come through.

So it doesn't matter what accent you have.

If you don't have good articulation, it's very difficult for people to understand you.

What I want to quickly mention here as well is the way you currently speak, it's just the set of mouth movements.

Don't be so attached to those behaviors.

Often when I get my students to change their mouth movements, to explore new behaviors, I find that they're fairly attached to the way they currently sound.

They're attached to a series of behaviors.

And I say to them, don't be so attached to those set of mouth movements that you don't give the future version of you a chance.

Again, don't be so attached to who you are right now that you don't give the future version of you a chance.

You know, I create these videos every week because I hope to inspire you to go on the journey to improve your communication skills.

And let me tell you why.

I believe that the most impactful moments that you've had in your life so far involve some kind of effective communication.

Whether it's a speech that your best man or your bridesmaids gave you, that's a form of communication.

The words they said, the way they said it was a form of communication.

Whether it be a conversation you had with your parents, whether it be a YouTube video you watched online that inspired you, a speech you saw at a conference, a TEDx talk, all of these moments involve effective communication.

And you use communication in every single area of your life.

When you talk to the kids, when you talk to your partner, when you talk to your colleagues, when you talk to your boss, when you talk to people online, it all involves communication skills.

It's why I say that when you improve this skill, it's the tide that lifts all boats.

And I hope this video has inspired you to improve your articulation and to start the journey of improving and enhancing your ability to communicate.

And as always, thanks for joining me for this video.

If you've got any questions about communication, public speaking, presentation skills, please do leave them in the comment section below.

Looking forward to seeing you in the video next week.

Bye.

So sign up for my free 45-minute communication masterclass.

See you in the next video.