Roy - I'll look.
I think it will be easy for you, as therapists come from the Phillipines with, in my opinion, so-so english. ( From a person who speaks only english except for spanish on a 2 or 3 year old level.) I had one filipino friend who thougth he spoke english well because their schooling is in english, but in my opinion the patients ( old southerners) had a hard time understanding him the first year or so. He also did not pass his board the first two times shich I was sure was due to language, since I consider him a knowledgable and competent therapist. He would never attribute it to that, insisting that his english is fine, they do all their school in english. I wonder how well his teachers spoke english. I am thinking english was a second or third language for these teachers who taught him in english, and that may be the reason his is not as good ad he thinks. Later he did pass his board and is living and working in the US with his wife he brought over and their baby.
So if he can make it, for you it will be a breeze. I think your accent would be much easier for old southerners to understand than his. Or perhaps you can alredy know how to imitate our accent as a joke for fun, and you could use this to help when people don't catch what you say the first time. And people love to hear an accent. Brits are popular here, people love the hear them talk. I have only really known a three Australians, and to my untrained ear they sounded a lot like Brits, who we encounter pretty regularly plus we watch BBC.
I know its a little different, we have a kids math disc in" Australian" and I have the Town Like Alice movie. On TV we have ads for outback steak house and we have The Crocodile Hunter. But Brits & Australians are very similar to my ear. And people love to hear someone who pronounces differently speak. I have an American PT friend from Mississippi, and when she was moving to Denver, she was worried that people wouldn't understand her or wouldn't like her accent. But they loved her accent. They just loved to hear her talk and it was a real asset in Denver.
And culturally, I think you'll find us a pretty good fit. My husband went to graduate school with people from many countries, and we thought the Australians closely followed by South Americans were most like us culturally - more than Koreans, Indians, most Africans, Japanese, and even Brits.
So I know I went on and on. I'll check around for you. -- Jody
- [OTlist] OT Work Jordanzrot
- SadieMoon
