indian call centers

Emile   Wed May 17, 2006 6:13 am GMT
Hi Ravi,

I do training and recruitment for some call centres in my country. We always hear how great Bangalore is and how well-suited Indians are to this kind of work; they're patient, polite, well-spoken. I think Americans would struggle with the Indian accent more than Brits as Brits are more exposed to it and more cosmopolitan in a way.

By the way, in our training, we don't 'neutralise' the accent (a euphesism for changing the accent), but just work on the aspects such as intonation and rhythm that help a person speak clearly.






my site: www.roadtogrammar.com
ravi   Wed May 17, 2006 8:00 am GMT
hi emile,
emile,maybe you can help me.you seem like someone with a lot of experience training people to speak english clearly.i would like to speak clearly as well.i have been trying hard for years.you are probably right about the brits,i work for a british company and because of the large number of indians in UK and the long association of Uk with India people in Uk are comfortable with us and our accent.America is a different ball game.i worked for an American company for a short while.
Anyway what advise would you give a guy like me to speak clearly.what is this intonation and rhytm ?.i hear it all the time and i know the literal meaning but how do i apply it to myself and make myself sound better.
Emile...Please help
P.s-
where are you from ?.
Emile   Fri Jun 09, 2006 3:55 am GMT
Hi Ravi, I haven't checked back here for quite a while.

It's a bit hard to change your intonation and rhythm without training, but I would suggest listening to a good public speaker from America or the UK and trying to pick out where he pauses and where he applies word stress and sentence stress. Then, slow down your speech and try to use more emphasis on the important words. Record your voice and listen to if you can.

Also remember that every minor mistake is amplified over the phone, but that if you listen to two Americans speaking, they also need to ask for repetition occasionally. Unfortunately, some people have a fixed idea in their heads that "here we go... an Indian tech support... just my luck"

I work in Malaysia, where about 10% of the population is of Indian origin btw.
Kau   Fri Jun 09, 2006 4:36 am GMT
Hello there ravi, I see that you are seeking for help, which is a good thing. My personal recommendation is that if you really want to learn more about intonation and rythm you should take advantage of the largest library in the world, the internet. Also don't be too hard on your self, remember that you don't have to sound exactly like americans in order to be understood by us, as long as you stress the correct words ans pronounce things in a standard fashion you will be fine.
Deborah   Fri Jun 09, 2006 6:50 am GMT
Emile, I'm an American and I've had trouble understanding some Indians and no trouble at all understanding others. I think part of the problem is that many Indians are absolutely fluent in English and are used to speaking it quickly, but they are also used to hearing each other using their particular accent and intonation (as are the Brits). If you know that your pronunciation of the individual sounds differs significantly from American accents, probably the simplest way to make yourself understood immediately is to speak more slowly. Imagine you're speaking to someone who doesn't understand English very well. (Ha-ha!) Meanwhile you can continue to work as Emile suggested.

I know a Russian guy whose father learned English here in the US in his 40s, and has a very heavy accent and makes lots of mistakes. But I find him much easier to understand than his son, who was 15 when he arrived and is very fluent, but speaks very quickly with a Russian intonation.
Emile   Wed Jun 14, 2006 12:39 am GMT
"I think part of the problem is that many Indians are absolutely fluent in English and are used to speaking it quickly, but they are also used to hearing each other using their particular accent and intonation (as are the Brits). "



I think that's 100% correct. A big part of the training I do is just to get the trainees to slow down. Even slowing down just a little helps a lot.
Bonnie Zhang   Wed Jun 14, 2006 3:09 am GMT
About Americans not being used to Indian accents...

Don't forget the different regions in the US. From what I've heard, people in Silicon Valley and such places are very, very, very used to Indian accents because 1/3 of the engineers are Indians and so are 3/4 of the technicians and sales in computer shops.
ravi   Thu Jun 15, 2006 7:23 am GMT
hi emile,
i have'nt checked back either because i was sick and did not come to work for about two weeks.i could not keep track and i see that a lot has'nt happened.anyway i agree that my problem is psychological because i have all the english in my head,i just cant bring out in the way i want to.
will it improve with time,maybe but waiting is the hardest part.i used to practise like you said emile by listening and watching english programs.we get a lot of them in india,british as well as american.sometimes southafrican,Australian as well.input is no issue i need a miracle for a complete transformation to happen and for me to sound good like i want to and i would also like to maintain the flow.
its like football,ghana versus italy.i play well to but i lack the finsihing ability.i feel like iam second best.maybe i am doing something wrong,something crucial which is keeping me back.i have to re-evaluate ,back to the drawing board.