Not really, it’s quite true. If you ever meet an Indian who’se learnt english along with his native tongue you’ll find him/her very easy to understand. Easier than most people from anglo speaking countries.
Ah, I get it now. There are a number of reasons behind that, the main one being that people who go to work in call centres are perhaps the people who studied their local dialect in school with english being a direct translation of that dialect and they undergo a crash course for a month in these call centres. These call centres also sometimes insist that the person speak with an American/ Aussie accent.
You will also find that these accent’s vary greatly depending on whether the call centres are located in the north or the south though most call centres are located in Bangalore. But if generalizing it as an ‘Indian’ accent makes your life easier, go ahead.
I think we can unequivocally say that Indians have an accent, even if this accent can be further broken down into sub-accents. This does not necessarily mean than Indian accents are difficult to understand. Everyone who speaks English has an accent - British people have accents, American people have accents, Australian people have accents.
I suspect we are working from different definitions of the word “accent”. I’ve no doubt that when you hear an American speak, you can tell they are an American, at least the vast majority of the time, just as I can tell when someone is from India by hearing them speak. I would have no idea what part of India they are from, but I would know they are from India. You may or may not be able to tell which part of the US someone is from, but most Americans can. People in my neck of the woods can even tell which part of NYC or Philly someone is from.
I would also know if someone was from Canada, Australia, England, Ireland, Scotland, the Bahamas, or South Africa, all of whom are easy to understand (well, not the Scots). I could also trick you into believing I was from England or Ireland if I really wanted to. I could also make you believe I’m from Texas if I wanted to, but someone like Greenie would be able to expose me as a fraud relatively quickly.
The guy is from North India so he puts a but of emphasis on the D’s and T’s but otherwise i think it would be hard to pinpoint his origin from how he speaks
Absolutely. That’s an indian accent. It’s not just the pronunciation it’s the speech patterns and phrases used too. It’s not bad I’m just pointing out it’s there.
His speech patterns and phrases? Not being argumentative, very curious though, The chick is also Indian and speaks with a different ‘accent’ compared to him.
I can’t watch the video you posted, but it is generally very easy to tell where someone is from just by hearing them speak unless they are making an effort to pretend that they are from somewhere else. As lxwarr30 pointed out, speech patterns and phrases are different everywhere. That’s why I could trick you into thinking I’m from Texas, but someone from Texas would catch me. My Texas drawl is perfect, but my idioms would be off and someone from Texas would notice that, just as someone from Ireland or England would spot me as a fake but you wouldn’t.
I agree, what im trying to say is that the way people speak english is very different throughout India, You are exposed to only a certain subset - those that work in call centres and perhaps a few others.
So i’m curious as to how lxwarrr was able to say with absolute certainity that they were ‘Indian’ because i’m pretty sure i can post a few others which will confuse him. That’s why i asked him if he could pick the speech patterns and phrases?
I’m not a linguist so I can’t describe perfectly what I’m hearing. The female sounds British to me. I wouldn’t say she’s Indian - if she is she was probably educated at one of the British schools from a young age. The guy though is very easy to tell. I notice a lot of Indian people who speak english speed up and slow down in conversation. Indian people are very considerate so they always stop to make sure you’re keeping up. You know? Finally it’s not like the words he’s using aren’t English, but I feel like he’s not using them right. “Playing good match”
If you put one of the NYers next to Greenie next to one of the Canadians from here I think you’d see everyone speaks differently. It’s not a bad thing but it’s noticable and not worth pretending it doesn’t exist.