I have a Brooklyn accent. I do much better understanding someone with an Indian accent than a Vietnamese accent.

posted 7 months ago

It's largely the way they say words, but there are other factors. For example, 'would' and 'will' are often used in different ways than found in other English flavors.

I don't know what you mean when you say 'the way they see words'.

Namaste.

posted 7 months ago

Sometimes. Indians who have attended American or British colleges and universities are not a problem for me. I have a good ear for words, an excellent command of vocabulary and grammar, and I understand different lexical choices and idioms.

What's odd is that English IS an Indo-European language, but the languages are so far apart now...

Here are the problems I have:

1. Indian native speakers whose English is only adequate (although I admire people who can even tackle this as a second or third language; I can't tackle Hindi or Bengali, and Sanskrit purely scares me).tend to have a higher pitch to their voices than I'm used to, and I'm a soprano.

2. The cadence of Indian languages seems far more liquid to me than English, which has a Germanic structure and Latinate words added, plus anything else it can steal. Accordingly, Indian cadence on English words produces what native American speakers hear as a singsong.

3. New Yorkers are fast speakers. Indians are faster. If they become emotional, they speak even more quickly yet. If they feel unsure about their ground (I.E., outsourced help desk type working off a script), they become insistent, speak so quickly you can't understand, and in general exacerbate the other problems.

Orthography? Nothing to do with it at all. Almost no one these days writes legibly.

posted 7 months ago

Let me count the ways. I remember when I was in college, I had an Indian professor. He was easy to understand, except he pronounced the word "only" as "won-ly". He also pronounced W as V, and vice versa, but that was easy to translate.

Fast forward to a few months ago. I had an Indian boss, and during the interview, I spent half that time asking him to repeat himself. He slurred all of his consonants, and his vowels were all jacked up, too. The E sounded like A, the A sounded like O, and of course, the V sounded like W.

posted 7 months ago

It's impossible to generalize since the heaviness of accents no doubt varies by region and education. Personally, I rarely encounter a problem. When comprehension problems arise, it's usually only momentary and a matter of enunciation: putting stresses on different syllables than native English speakers. I also find that speakers who hail from cultures that encourage deference often don't project as clearly and so may be perceived as mumbling. I'm Canadian, by the way.

posted 7 months ago

Interestingly, I have trouble understanding Indian females more so then males. I find that the women speak with tend to talk faster. I loose the train of thought.

Men tend to say fewer words in their sentence and it is easier for me to understand. Not everyone is like me, though.

By the way, it is very hard to put aside phrasal preferences, idioms, and grammar. A lot of what PEOPLE do is process by the grammar and not just pronunciation.

posted 7 months ago

Based on my experience, I slow down and pronounce words carefully. But having lived in the UK most of my life I switch between British English and US. For instance I said a bottle of pickle(UK) instead of a Jar of pickle(US). Just have to practice.

posted 6 months ago

Accents will always cause misunderstanding between those from different countries...

posted 6 months ago

In general I find Indian accents less difficult than most others... with exceptions, of course.

Most Indian accents I've encountered have a clipped Britishness with--oh, something else I can't quite describe. But I have little difficulty with most British accents. (Perhaps because I listen to the BBC a lot?) There is, to my ear, a sort of musical tempo to much Indian speech. You don't hear that in American English--certainly not in New Yawkese. ;-)

One fairly obvious disconnect is that Indians use some British expressions not common in the US, plus a few localisms not found in either. But that's not really accent; that's colloquialism.

In fairness I should note that they would probably have difficulty understanding me sometimes. Language, dialect and accent are like that... But how dull the world would be if we all spoke exactly alike!

posted 6 months ago

If this is a personal experience, Vekaas, I would start by buying a simple tape-recorder and trying to express your thoughts in English as best you can. Listen attentively to what you have said, and ask for opinions even if that can be painful at first, just to get a handle on what are the key hurdles for making yourself understood. Work on those hurdles and try again, just repeat the effort until the problem goes away.

By the way, it worked for me: my mother tongue is Dutch and specific words I pronounced with a Dutch accent simply distracted my audience. I think the difference is that 30 years ago you would not jump on a majority and ponder why they could not adjust to your accent: the ball was clearly in your court. Some people now expect to be accommodated despite the hurdles of brining an accent to the conversation.

Like other respondents, I am no good at Indian languages, but I am also not trying to do business with Indians. I do speak German and French as well, for reasons that I want to have business opportunities there. So it is really up to you to learn when a Mickey Mouse outfit is to be interpreted as a haloween costume or as an irrelevant business enterprise. Good luck.

posted 6 months ago

I have a form of deafness that, while not complete, makes it extremely difficult for me to understand people with a foreign (to me) accent, unless I can lip-read to fill in the gaps. I've found that the Indian/Pakistani accent is the worst, because my brain can't process the words in the midst of the "singsong-ness" of the accent.

Many times, and perhaps it's a cultural thing, but there's a lot of extraneous speech - "Mmm, yes, thank you..." and repeating what I've just said before every sentence they utter. Being one of those annoying Americans, I'm already irritated with my software/hardware/bank account. I'm probably on a deadline. I want to cut to the chase and get the problem resolved so I can get back to work! All those extra words are just more things for me to decipher and take more time, in addition to trying to get my problem resolved.

Another issue is giving my name. If I'm speaking to someone in the U.S. and say my last name is Mesa, like Mesa, Arizona, they understand immediately how it's pronounced and how to spell it. People overseas, not so much.

What really, really, really irritates me is when I pronounce my last name as may'-suh, and the person on the other end insists on saying mee'-zuh, or does other horrible things with pronouncing my name, even though I've already pronounced it, usually more than once. And we still haven't even gotten to resolving my problem that I called about in the first place! If the tech support can't even pronounce my last name, how are they going to be when we get to more technical issues?

posted 6 months ago

I spent 10 years working in a very diverse research environment. I don't think I had that much of a problem understanding my Indian colleagues - then again, I grew up in a mix of the north and the south (of the US...), and accents were always something to be dealt with. As long as you're not going to jump to conclusions, you're generally good. I do like to establish ground rules, to the extent that I will interrupt and repeat stuff back, paraphrasing, if I'm unsure of the message. Worst accent I ever had to deal with was a math teacher from Vietnam, and I'm pretty sure that his usable English was confined to "Open your textbook to page ____."

We've got to be multicultural and multinational, or we've lost. I'll work side by side with anyone, and be happy, as long as they're working toward the same goals. If there are communication problems, well, Ganesha will help us around those obstacles.

posted 6 months ago

I wouldn't say that all Indian employees have equally difficult accents. Some certainly do, others are virtually indistinguishable from native speakers of English.

Also, it depends on how much exposure the particular American has had to Indian accents in the past. Someone who has never encountered this will have great difficulty, others who have encountered this many times will barely recognize that the person has an accent.

I do think that most call center personnel in India do have very difficult accents to understand, as well as a great deal of difficulty with English. If you ask them something which requires an answer not already spelled out for them on some sort of queue card they use then they are often unable to respond.

Indians who have lived or worked in the US (or England) are a different story though, not a problem at all for me.

posted 6 months ago

I find that the Indian accent is much more musical than American. Very rhythmic and lots of ups and downs. It's not that I don't understand, it's that I get lulled into not paying attention.

posted 6 months ago

Vekaas.

It depends upon *which* Indian accent.

I'm Indian, and have never had a problem being understood by anyone whp knows english.

Keep well ~ Shankar

posted 5 months ago

The pace and cadence of the words can make Indian accents very difficult to understand, especially in teleconferences.

Whether that's purely an "American" problem is a matter of opinion. I watched several situations develop where an Indian tech lead was quietly and routinely circumvented for his persistent failure to accept coaching as simple as "slow down." That became a serious problem for the tech lead.

It's not just the accent. There's a lot more to the behaviors that challenges.

posted 5 months ago

Hi Vekass,

Being an Indian and a Punjabi as well I can understand the problems. I have faced this within India dealing with Maharashtrians as well as Tamils and other South Indians as well with some Bengalis

I am handling European region for my company and handled US retail business for my last company and hence have agood exposure to various cultures.

Problems

1. We have a HEAVY accent which means we may not be sounding clear when we are talking especially on Phone.
2. We speak extremely fast.....I haven't come across anyone speaking faster than Indians. European and rest of APAC is anyways out of question.
3. Americans use lot of slangs and jump words which we Indians don;t do. We speak long sentences which becomes difficult to comprehend as Americans are not used to that. So Speak short sentences.
4. Most of us would speak in one tone and won't halt in between. There is no tonal variation, no pitch variation, no comma, no fullstop, no inventred commas in our speech (making it total mess).

Hope you would understand.

Cheers
Amit Sharma

posted 5 months ago

Perhaps you can find some answers in aircraft accident investigation research. When you listen to US air traffic controllers talking to pilots from different nations (or reading the more easy to find texts of those conversations) you can get some interesting impressions.

By the way, US-Indian is quite easy because English is the aerospace language. When the same Indian flies over non-english speaking countries there are three languages involved because the air traffic controller has his own native language. They figure it out in the end but it is not easy and sometimes it may well be a contributing factor to an accident (which is of course is not typically Indian but may happen with all non-english speakers).

What strikes me most about the Indians that I have seen is the long sentences, the singing way of speaking (completely opposite to my native Dutch), and a kind of inward-folding of the words.

Most important for all of us I guess is that we have to understand that it is an issue and that both sender and receiver have to be aware of it.

posted 5 months ago

A few months ago I was in a car accident which caused me to lose my license (I have epilepsy). As a result I take a cab to and from work and the most wonderful guys drive me to and from work every day. They are all Indian and so I listen to 4 different men talk and they are always facing forward or sideways.

Let me tell you it is very difficult to understand them much of the time and I often ask them to repeat themselves but I have become so accustomed to the patois that I am coming to work with an accent. Nice Jewish lady talking like Peter Sellers at "The Party"!

Tolerance goes a long way. They are trying so hard and these guys even try to throw in slang and the occasional French word, even though here in Ontario we do not speak French.

Links:

• http://www.rocketfuelcoffee.com

posted 5 months ago

Having lived in that part of the world I have discovered that there is often an assumption by people from the Indian sub-continent that there English is very good. Often there are more difficulties than simply phrasing and pronunciation, there is a problem of pitch and cadence. Natural English speakers tend to leave more space between their words. Many people with English as a second language will use the cadence of their native tongue when speaking English. For example, many Spanish speakers almost sound like they are speaking Spanish when speaking English...not the words, the cadence. Many confuse cadence for accent. My wife speaks four languages, English being her forth. Once she learned to speak in a more American cadence her accent became less of an obstacle.

If everybody would slow down just a bit, they are very easily understood.

posted 5 months ago

Some of us do, and some of us do not. However, it is a big problem with a thick Indian accent is coupled with a fast cadence of words. I have a friend from India and I find that when he talks faster than usual or I'm tired, I have a hard time understanding what he says.

Some folks are just lazy about trying to understand others. I'm live in the South and I'm still getting used to all that HI Y'AAAAAAAAWWWLLLLLL! (I'm kidding. I love the Southern accent.)

Take it from the Southerners and SPEAK SLOWLY. It will help more people understand you.

posted 5 months ago

I would like to suggest an interesting book titled "Entry from backside only" by Bijoo. This book helps understand the idiosyncrasies of the spoken form of English in India. The history certainly helps in understanding the varied forms of the language from this part of the world.

posted 5 months ago

One's lack of exposure to a particular accent might be problematic. In my industry, I'm exposed to a variety of nationalities and corresponding accents so I know what to expect when I'm communicating with a person.

I will sing a similar tune to Maria's...I'm from NY and some folks from the South don't understand me.

posted 5 months ago

Huh? What did you say? :)

posted 5 months ago

I dont think so... since America itself is a linguistic paradox !! Even as it boasts a richly diverse population speaking a host of languages, it encourages immigrants to forsake their mother tongues and doesn't encourage native English speakers to acquire foreign-language skills.

In my opinion americans both embrace and reject lingual diversity.
Recent immigrants from Latin and Asian cultures seem to be hanging on to their mother tongues longer than previous generations.

At the same time, some English-speaking Americans seek to discourage the use of non-English languages in all situations.

posted 5 months ago

Yes, I had to learn to understand it. Even so, if the speaker is talking quickly or the phone connection is poor I have trouble. Then there is the use of non-American terms that complicate things. I was asked about petrol and kilometres and I use gas and measure distance in miles.

posted 5 months ago