To think rejecting someone for job on the basis of their “strong Welsh accent” is disgusting and discriminatory?

[CounsellorTroi]

I hope she gets bsomewhere with a discrimination case.

nation.cymru/news/cardiff-woman-who-posted-rejection-letter-blaming-her-strong-welsh-accent-offered-legal-help/

A strong Welsh accent is a problem..
In Cardiff?

I thought I'd gone bonkers for a minute. I had to Google it to double check!

@DecemberGal

Although retired now I often wonder if my Scottish accent made a difference in interviews. I have lived in England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 near a large city for over 45 years. I suppose there will always be some bias.Hope the lady gets something suitable.

There's actually some pro-Scottish bias in some sectors. A lot of people 'trust' Scottish accents. Rather than Scouse for example. Shame because I love a Liverpool accent.

Iwould hardly call her having a Welsh accent. Mine on the other hand...

Can somebody please try and translate what Yants is trying to say into plain English? Particularly re. accents and regionalized types of speaking being somehow different? Struggling to understand their posts generally.

She sounds English apart from when she said her full name, that sounded like a welsh accent.

Yants You have said some extremely offensive things about a group of people that is specific to the particular area where they live. How you can't see that's not on is beyond me.

@Morfil

Rumours are mostly flying about on Welsh language twitter, so not a disbelief of the xenophobic generalisations about the Welsh language, just seeking to fact check. There are a few theories... I'm actually hoping it's a fake. I've had enough of the kind of attitude that discriminates so openly about minority languages within Britain I hope it’s true, because you can guarantee this discrimination happens regularly, it’s just that most employers wouldn’t be stupid enough to put the reason in writing. It’d be good to shine a light on the issue.

No, they would usually just say thank you for your interest in x post on this occasion you have not been successful. Even if she had asked for feedback they would have been very unwise to give these reasons.

I'm Irish ( Dublin ) and found it a little difficult to understand her. It was like a "posh" accent mixed with Welsh.

I love a Welsh accent. It's so musical.
I'm not keen on a Scottish accent despite my forbears being Scottish, some centuries back.
I do know there are different variants depending on the area, as there are very different accents in Ireland depending on the area.

@Morfil

Here’s a video of her speaking.

twitter.com/elunedanderson/status/1293230620689281024?s=21

Does anybody have any difficulty, whatsoever, in understanding her? I certainly don’t.

But is that how she talks day to day anything thing like that is scripted and recorded . I've done presentations at work on had them recorded sound far more articulate and less northern than I'am .

@Morfil

Here’s a video of her speaking.

twitter.com/elunedanderson/status/1293230620689281024?s=21

Does anybody have any difficulty, whatsoever, in understanding her? I certainly don’t.

I can't even hear a Welsh twang let alone a thick accent.....

I really struggle with accents, I have recently been to Wales and only got about 1/2 of what I was being told but some of the (very lovely) people there. My friend has an Irish wife who is very softly spoken and I struggle with her as well. I have a colleague from Liverpool and I really have to concentrate on everything they say to have a chance to understand them. The only accent in don’t struggle with is Australian (I watch Home and Away every day and love it!!) I have no doubt that it is me with the issue, my hearing isn’t 100% so perhaps that is the problem

@whiteroseredrose do you think there are no call centres in scotland? Or that they speak "BBC SCottish Lite."
massiveeyeroll

@BookkeeperBobby thats the issue : non scots either listen to to over enunciated accents ( Kelly MaDonals line of duty? Ooft!) or think its billy conolly or thats it.
I remember watching Davina McCall telling a big brother contestant from Fife that she " was very scottish, arent you?" And the lassie grimacing.

She doesn’t have much of an accent and is perfectly clear to me.

But, I find it difficult to believe any company is stupid enough to have written that email. Think it definitely, put it in writing…no.

Some of the things written on this thread are outrageous.

Everyone has an accent. This woman’s is entirely unremarkable.. (That’s why there are suspicions that the job rejection is not genuine, surely.)

Any native British English speaker who can’t understand her must indeed have hearing problems.

@SnotMikeUpPuffedHe

I saw her comment on twitter where she implies she's never been told her accent was strong before, which makes me think it isn't, particularly.

People's perceptions of accent can be a bit bonkers. My DH went to a conference recently and chatting as he checked in, the staff commented they could tell he has come down from West Wales because of his 'strong Welsh accent'. I can't detect any Welsh in his accent; he's from a very english-speaking part of South Wales.

Obviously it's hard to judge your own accent but honestly if he sounds Welsh at all he's slightly less Welsh that Huw Edwards, the newsreader.

So from experience I don't even necessarily think she had a particularly strong accent for someone to say this.

Huw Edwards sounds very Welsh to me. Clear, well-spoken, obviously, and very Welsh! Pronunciation, intonation - Welsh!

@Crimesean

It depends whether the individual's speech was understandable by most people - if not, it would definitely be a problem in a lot of roles.

My brother had a lecturer at uni whom almost none of the students could understand - it was awful, most of the year failed that topic or got far lower marks than in other areas. It still took the uni 4 years to get rid of him (the lecturer I mean, not my DB!).

In school I love history, but I didn't choose it as an exam subject because the history teacher had a really strong foreign European accent and I struggled to understand him.

After many decades, I still about how mine and other's life choices can be affected by such things.

Yes, it’s terrible how some people’s lives can be affected by the prejudices they had as children.

I would say given the way discrimination/equality policy is applied this just surely fall under some form of equality legislation

I'd have hired on the basis if the accent alone. I love welsh accents!

@MasterBeth

Yes, it’s terrible how some people’s lives can be affected by the prejudices they had as children.

So a child not being able to understand the teacher because of their very strong accent makes the child prejudiced, rather than the teacher being a poor communicator?

Care to explain that one to me? No, don't bother!

A person with a “strong foreign European accent” is not “a poor communicator.”

I sincerely hope that this turns out to be a hoax.

I can’t believe that in this day and age a company would make such comments in writing and expect to get away with it.

If true then this does not bode well for my job hunting DC with his Welsh valleys accent.

@Londoncallingtothefarawaytowns agree, it's based on perception/caricature. But really everyone has an accent - RP is an accent fgs albeit not a geographic one - same as everyone is 'foreign' to someone. It's how you process the sound that is the issue ie are you listening to the words or are you hearing the accent? And that is a listening problem rather than a speaking problem.

Watching the video above, her accent isn't even remotely strong.