It seems to be a common rule that when startups and tech companies reach a certain revenue level, they start hiring native speakers to appear more professional. They hire native narrators for YouTube videos, native copywriters, native social media people, and native technical writers. Those lowly non-native tutorials from our Maya from India will be replaced by purebred native tutorials from new colleagues like Michael and John. Let me tell you something – being a native speaker certainly helps, but it’s only a small piece of the puzzle. Are you sure that your hiring decision is rational and not based on a stereotype?

A native speaker is not always the better option

I recently saw a video with Heather Hansen, who is an expert on business English. And she debunks a lot of myths concerning the use of English in companies. One common one is that if you were born in the right place – meaning the UK or USA – then you can claim to be the expert in the language and dismiss all those non-natives. And unfortunately, this is still a mindset in many companies. But just because someone was born in one of those privileged countries, doesn’t mean that their English is better or more useful: 

When deciding between native and non-native

During my career, I hired hundreds of writers, narrators, journalists, PR specialists, voice actors and other professionals who work with the language. And one pattern I see over and over again is underperformers from those privileged countries, very often English majors. Being a native would normally give them an advantage in their profession. However, lots of them don’t develop many further skills. Their whole skillset is having proper English. Even in my current field, in IT marketing, I see so many freelancers who charge a lot of money, but they don’t bother to educate themselves on basic concepts of information technology. In the same manner, I see business communication professionals who don’t have any business background nor any business instinct.

Imagine, you’re hiring a communication expert for your up-and-coming startup. On one side, you have a candidate with a proper British name, with a nice graduate degree from a proper British university, with experience as a proper English teacher. But zero relationship to your product. And on the other hand, you have Stoyan from Bulgaria, who speaks like when potatoes are falling down the stairs in some izba. But he translated the collective works of Jane Austen from English to Bulgarian and he can code in Python.

Who would you choose? Would you let Stoyan write your tutorial? Would you let him create an important press release? Would you let him represent your company on YouTube with his thick accent?

Those are questions I can’t answer for you. But I think times are slowly changing in this regard. Watch some videos with Tim Soulu from Ukraine, who is a CMO of an important web analytics company. I don’t think he even bothered to work on his accent.

Let’s break down some prejudices:

Prejudice 1: Non-natives make grammatical errors

Partially true. I don’t want to offend anyone, but in my humble experience, non-natives are a tad more prone to leave some typos behind. Even I do sometimes.

However, this can be easily dealt with. Implement a routine – all your copy has to go through a  grammar app AND through general AI. I personally recommend Sapling premium and ChatGPT.

Even if some mistake happens (and it’s inevitable that it sometimes does), don’t take it too seriously. Your customers really don’t go through your website with a fine-tooth comb looking for errors. And if they bounce, it’s more likely because the writing is dull or technically incorrect.

Prejudice 2: Non-natives will never have such a deep understanding

Bullshit. I’m sure some freelancers have already told you that as natives, they have some kind of magical power to understand English more in-depth. In reality, there is no hidden meaning behind the words accessible only to people who were born somewhere. 

Did you know that at least four non-native authors have won the Nobel Prize for Literature with books written in English?

What matters more is general eloquence. If you’re good in one language, you can be good in other languages. 

The rest is about training. I was recently writing an article for a Czech magazine and it was such a struggle to find correct words, because I’m not using the language very often anymore. 

Prejudice 3: My customers expect native speakers

Partially true, sadly. Well, in the case of writing, they will not recognize the “language ethnicity”, if the writer is good enough.
But let’s say you want to present an important new feature in an intro video. Should you invest the money and effort for a native speaking presenter? Even if they don’t have anything to do with tech? I can’t make that choice for you.

Prejudice 4:  Native speakers have a naturally richer vocabulary

Bullshit. I’ve met so many British and American people with such poor vocabulary. Even on the corporate level. 

Do you have a feeling that your non-native candidate speaks in a clear and concise manner? Then it will likely make the same impression on your customers.