"Don't Lose Your Accent / Learning Accents" - TREVOR NOAH (Pay Back The Funny)

The newspapers say that, he’s famous. So now people treat you like you’re famous, they say the weirdest things to you. Strangest thing people would say to me, “Trevor! Trevor!”. “Well-done on everything hey. Congrats! Congrats!”. “But, even though you are going to America”. “Don’t forget us alright? Don’t you forget us.”. Like, “I don’t even know who you are.”. People would say the weirdest things to me. You know the number one thing people have said to me? It’s not good luck. It’s “Hey Trevor”. “Good luck over there, but whatever you do.”. “Don’t forget your accent, alright?”.

“Yes please. Don’t pull a Charlize on us, okay?”. “You keep your accent, make us proud.”. Everyone said that. “Treva bro!” Treva Noah!”. Hey, mom’s child. You are making us proud.”. “You do us proud, but can I ask you a favor?”. “Don’t lose your accent, okay? Don’t lose your accent.”. “Yes. When you come back from the States, you mustn’t come back talking funny.”. “Please Brother. If you lose your accent, don’t come back.”. “Did you just threaten me?”.

What does that mean? If you lose your accent? How do you lose your accent? People make it sound like you’re going to be walking down the street. And then just out of the blue, you'll be like, *Searching his pockets*. “My accent!”. “I lost my accent!”. “Where the hell is my… Oh!”. “Oh, Hello. No! That’s not my accent!”. How are you going to lose your accent? I was stressed now.

Because I don’t want South Africans to think I am not South African. I don’t want them to think I have forgotten something, this is my home. Now I am stressed coming home. I am in the plane, flying back to Johannesburg. And the whole time I'm just thinking, “don’t lose you accent Trevor, don’t lose your accent”. “Ac-accent, Accent, Ac-accent”. “Is that how I say accent? Accent, accent, excent, excent”. “axe end, ecsent, accent.”. “accent, ac-accent.”. By the time I landed at O.R Tambo I was losing my mind. I like walked into arrivals, the woman was there at customs.

“Welcome back to South Africa Sir.”. I was like, “Yes, I’m back!”. “Same old Treva!”. “Nothing changed.”. People are crazy. Cause I love accents. I really love accents. I love learning languages and so obviously accents or byproduct of that. I’ve learned over time. That even you can't learn a language, an accent is a great. way to communicate with somebody in your own language. whilst trying to bridge the gap. you learned somebody's accent, you communicate more effectively.

the thing is though, you have to learn the accents on the right way. if you are going to speak to someone in the accent and you do in the wrong way. you might come across as racist. you have to be very careful about this. White people in South Africa often fall into this trap. It happens at petrol stations quite a bit. you see people driving in with their friends, talking normally in the car. “So, I mean. If we get all the numbers together... marketing should be behind this. ” it should be a breeze, HR has stepped up and it's going to be.". "It's going to be a great year and look we try and make sure. Oh, sorry. Hold on.".

*electric window winding down*. "Hello Baba!". "Hey, shap, shap man!". "Please fill up the tank, hey?". "95, Unleaded. Yea!". "Also check ama tires, Hey?". "Pressure. Pumpy, pumpy! Not to much hey?". "two point two, okay?". "Yea, good jobie. Shap , shap.". "Dankie boss.".

Don't do that. He is a grown man, he has been pumping petrol his entire life. He knows what you need. Just talk to him like a normal human being. That's the thing people don't understand. Speak to him like a normal human being. I used to get so angry whenever I see white people changing their accent. when they talk to black people. I get so angry. I was like,"are all white people racist? is that what it is? Are all of them racist?". and then I leaned. Life taught me not to be so quick to judge. I learned a valuable lesson. I was driving to Gold Reef City one day.

Into the backstage area. and the security guard came out to the boom, and he was like, "Hi, how are you. Is your name on the list?". I said, "Yes, how are you Baba? My name is Trevor.". He's like, "Okay. Trebal, Trebal, Trebal.". I said, "No, no. Trevor.". He's like, " Oh, sorry. Cheval, Cheval, Cheval, Cheval.". I said, "No, Trevor.". "Cheva.". "Trevor.". "Chelva". "Trevor". "Chelva".

"Trevor". "Chelval". "Trevor" "Chelva". "Trevor" "Cavel, Cav, Chavil, Chavel,Chalvin, Chavel". "Trevor" "Chalvil, Chalvil". "Trevor" "Calvil, Chalvil". and now my friend who is just irritated leans over and his like, "Hey, Papa. His Treva!". He was like, "Oh, Treva!". "Why you don't talk properly?". And then I understood, I finally understood. What white people have been trying to do.

I see you are trying to communicate more effectively, you are trying to engage somebody. But understand this, understand this. When speaking to someone in an accent, the number one rule to understand is. an accent is not a measurement of intelligence. An accent is just somebody speaking your language, with the rules of theirs. That is all an accent is. So don't speak. down to them, don’t patronize them. Speak to them the way you would speak to yourself. Just try and learn their accent, that's all it is. Just an accent. and I learn them. I spend all my time learning accents. I try.

I try, I love it. I learn in restaurants, that's a safe place to start. You learn, you read of the menu. You try to pronounce the words correctly. I was inspired by French restaurants. Funny enough. Whenever I go to a French restaurant I am always fascinated. By the fact that people ordered food in an French accent. I never understood why. Because they don’t do it in any other restaurants, only in French restaurants do people walk in. and then change their accent when they order. They come in talking normally. "you know it's a wonderful, you really going to enjoy this.".

"It's so beautiful, stunning. You have to have the desert. Oh, good evening, how are you Sir?". "Yes, we will have a bottle of water for the table please and a". "Let's start of with a, can we get the Savegnon Blanc please?". "and we definitely for mains gonna have the Filet minion.". "and for dessert we gonna go with the creme brule.". "Thank you very much. Oh, you gonna love it.". Like, why are you doing that? I never understood. I was like why? Because it's not like the French are going to return the favour.

There's no French people sitting in our restaurants in South Africa looking at the menu like, "Uh, so for the table we can order". "some starter portion, we share something. Okay?". "Uh, could we please have, uh". "one serving of the boerewors.". that's not gonna happen.