American or British accent?

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TheParser

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Several dozen Indians in their twenties are taking intensive English classes

in New Delhi so that they can be able to assist foreign tourists in that

city's beautiful, new subway system.

One instructor says that those students are being taught to

speak English with a British accent, which -- he says -- is "the correct

way to speak English."

How would you advise a learner who asked:

Should I try to speak (and spell) like an American or like a

British person?

Thank you
 

philadelphia

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Hello TheParser. Sorry for the intrusion but I feel concerned.

English is a language at first, so the main purpose is to be understood. Accordingly, as long as you are understood, who cares? BrE is considered, as far as I am concerned in France, as the standard English. However, I would never say it is improper to speak AmE. I want it that way, folk.

You must certainly be stumbled upon people who do not know much of English :)
 

TheParser

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Hello TheParser. Sorry for the intrusion but I feel concerned.

English is a language at first, so the main purpose is to be understood. Accordingly, as long as you are understood, who cares? BrE is considered, as far as I am concerned in France, as the standard English. However, I would never say it is improper to speak AmE. I want it that way, folk.

You must certainly be stumbled upon people who do not know much of English :)

Thank you so much. There was no intrusion. I am interested in the

views of native speakers and people who are not native speakers.

Thanks again.
 

2010

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Thank you so much. There was no intrusion. I am interested in the

views of native speakers and people who are not native speakers.

Thanks again.

I work in a BPO and I meet people from different places. One may be from USA and the next day another person from UK. I am used to both these accents. As long as you aren't faking it, I am okay.

A person who is new to this: I would suggest stick to neutral accent. (which is neither BRe nor Ame). This is practiced in India in common, which teaches clear and crisp pronunciation. How to concentrate on your rate of speech.
 

DisabilityGuide

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It all depends. If you plan to live and work outside of North America, British English may be more suitable. If not, I would go with the American accent.
 

Ouisch

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To be very blunt and very honest with you, as long as Indians learn the typical cadence and rhythm of spoken English, the accent would not matter. Even my boss, who was born in the US but raised in India by Indian parents until the family moved back to the US when he was a teenager, still speaks English with a sort of sing-song cadence. He ends almost every sentence on a "high note" (he raises the tone of his voice to a higher level), as if it was a question. For the first year I worked for him I always thought he was questioning whatever I had done on a daily basis, due to the inflection in his voice.

Quite often it's obvious when an Indian answers the phone on a supposedly US-based "help line" because he (or she) always accents the wrong syllables in words when speaking English, making his words difficult to understand. For example, I had to call the 1-800 telephone line for assistance regarding the satellite radio in my rental car. The person answering the phone was very obviously Indian from his speech patterns, and I had difficulty in understanding him. Even such a basic word in our conversation as "Pontiac" (the car I was driving) required many repetitions on his part before I understood what he was saying, simply because he was not emphasising the proper syllables in the word.
 

birdeen's call

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I think it does matter to be taught understanding major accents. I understand spoken British English (some accents) and spoken American English (some accents), because I listened to both of them. But I know people in my country (especially young, not only because the older mostly speak Russian instead of English) who understand only AmE, and have great troubles with understanding BrE.

I also met people from different English-speaking areas at the same time, and I remember them asking me what the other native speaker had just said. So it can be vital to train understanding more than one accent.

As for speaking, I'm a victim of pluralism myself. I never tried choosing one accent, and now I have no accent. I simply pronounce same English words in various ways depending on who knows what. I don't know if it's a problem though. I recently discovered that I don't know which words rhyme in English - just because of that. But is it a problem??
 

Tdol

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I agree with 2010 that a neutral accent is probably the most useful.
 

philadelphia

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I agree with 2010 that a neutral accent is probably the most useful.

A neutral accent would be quite useful, but is IndE a neutral accent? I do not think so.

I work in a BPO and I meet people from different places. One may be from USA and the next day another person from UK. I am used to both these accents. As long as you aren't faking it, I am okay.

A person who is new to this: I would suggest stick to neutral accent. (which is neither BRe nor Ame). This is practiced in India in common, which teaches clear and crisp pronunciation. How to concentrate on your rate of speech.

I spoke to a couple of indians at work. I agree their accent is neither BrE nor AmE, though their accent is far away from a neutral one. ;-) I would tend to agree with Ouisch. French do not have neither a BrE accent nor an AmE accent and yet our accent is not neutral at all.
 

2010

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A neutral accent would be quite useful, but is IndE a neutral accent? I do not think so.



I spoke to a couple of indians at work. I agree their accent is neither BrE nor AmE, though their accent is far away from a neutral one. ;-) I would tend to agree with Ouisch. French do not have neither a BrE accent nor an AmE accent and yet our accent is not neutral at all.

May be they were not trained on accent neutralization ;-)

Indian accent? Don't know, which one that is because people have different accents in India, which varies with their native spoken language. A person who speaks Hindi as his first language might have an English spoken accent, which might differ with a person whose native language is Tamil (one of the south Indian language). So, there is really nothing called as "Indian accent."
 

Tdol

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A neutral accent would be quite useful, but is IndE a neutral accent? I do not think so.

I agree with 2010 that there's no homogenized single Indian accent, but equally British English has very marked regional variations, so we're lumping things together for convenience.

However, if Indian speakers are working on accent, then it makes more sense to me to head towards the non-regional flavourlessness of international English, to head for forms as widely comprehensible as possible to both native and non-native speakers, which is a better reflection of the state of the language today. In the OP, TheParser quotes someone with what I see as an old-fashioned and proprietorial attitude towards the language. The correct way to speak it is to do so in such a way that your audience understands you- the audience of today is incredibly international and getting more so by the day. I'd work on that. ;-)
 

Ouisch

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Again, I must emphasize the importance of Indians learning the proper cadence and emphasis of either British or American English. It's become something of a problem here in the US for medical transcriptionists trying to understand the dictation of India-born doctors. It's not a matter of accent, but of pronunciation. My Dad's primary physician was born and educated in India, and is a wonderful, knowledgable and compassionate man. But my both my Mom and Dad have difficulty understanding him when he speaks, and I usually have to accompany them to their appointments. I've found that I am able to understand him in person, with the help of reading his lips and facial expressions. However, when I speak to him on the telephone I have to ask him to repeat himself many times before I can understand what he is saying. It is not necessarily due to any accent, but mainly due to him emphasizing the wrong syllables in words. In addition he has the stereotypical sing-song speech pattern where one word at the end of a sentence blends into the word beginning the next sentence, and the vocal inflection does not indicate where one statement ends and the next begins.
 

2010

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I agree with you Quisch that this doctor has MTI (mother tounge influence), which is affecting his speech pattern. It would be great if the Indian schools and colleges looks into how to train students on speaking BrE or AmE accent or at least neutral accent with proper pronunication. Understanding and applying the right syllable stress is a problem here in India. Unfortunately, this is going to take ages to change.

I will attach my own audio file spoken in neutral accent here. Let me know if that sounds clear and understandable. May be then we can figure out the difference between neutral accent and the one spoken by Indians in common.
 
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meobeo

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I think both accents have their own beauty. I love British accent (BBC accent in particular) as it sounds so refined and noble. Unfortunately, many English leaners in my country fail to see that, that's why American accent is all the rage there. I also like American accent because of its universality. It's spoken by all kinds of people: whites, Asians, black, Latino,...I think whichever accent you speak should be fine as long as you can make yourself understood.
 

2010

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I agree with you Quisch that this doctor has MTI (mother tounge influence), which is affecting his speech pattern. It would be great if the Indian schools and colleges looks into how to train students on speaking BrE or AmE accent or at least neutral accent with proper pronunication. Understanding and applying the right syllable stress is a problem here in India. Unfortunately, this is going to take ages to change.

I will attach my own audio file spoken in neutral accent here. Let me know if that sounds clear and understandable. May be then we can figure out the difference between neutral accent and the one spoken by Indians in common.

attached audio file.
If it doesn't play, convert it to "flv" format if you have vlc media player.
Example: my audio.flv
Please post your comments and feedback. Thank you.
 

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konungursvia

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Again, I must emphasize the importance of Indians learning the proper cadence and emphasis of either British or American English. It's become something of a problem here in the US for medical transcriptionists trying to understand the dictation of India-born doctors. It's not a matter of accent, but of pronunciation. My Dad's primary physician was born and educated in India, and is a wonderful, knowledgable and compassionate man. But my both my Mom and Dad have difficulty understanding him when he speaks, and I usually have to accompany them to their appointments. I've found that I am able to understand him in person, with the help of reading his lips and facial expressions. However, when I speak to him on the telephone I have to ask him to repeat himself many times before I can understand what he is saying. It is not necessarily due to any accent, but mainly due to him emphasizing the wrong syllables in words. In addition he has the stereotypical sing-song speech pattern where one word at the end of a sentence blends into the word beginning the next sentence, and the vocal inflection does not indicate where one statement ends and the next begins.

I would agree if you mean migrants to the US. But India as a whole has no duty or obligation either to American or British people or their language, I feel sure.
 

Ouisch

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I would agree if you mean migrants to the US. But India as a whole has no duty or obligation either to American or British people or their language, I feel sure.

India as a country has no obligation to the American or British people, but the original question was asking about which accent to use when speaking English. Tone, pronunciation and cadence have as much to do with the English language as they do in Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, etc. People in France quite often openly mock non-native speakers who pronounce words incorrectly or who put emphasis on the wrong syllables when attempting to speak French. Every language has its own rhythm, vowel pronunciations, etc. It has nothing to do with allegiance to one nation or another; the main objective in speaking any language is to be understood.
 

Salieri_Bar

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In my opinion, British English sounds like a language from medieval times, spoken by witches, people living in castles, like Harry Potter era and so on. American English sounds more natural to me even though many people there go to other extremeness.
 

Ouisch

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In my opinion, British English sounds like a language from medieval times, spoken by witches, people living in castles, like Harry Potter era and so on. American English sounds more natural to me even though many people there go to other extremeness.

It's very interesting to get opinions on topics like this from people around the world. :) In the UK there are many different British accents, and people are often "classifed" by their accent ("Oh, he has a Scouse accent, he's low-class"), but most people in the US find any sort of British accent to be impressive and immediately think that the speaker is very proper and cultured.
 
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