indian call centers

i have been hearing a lot about accents.An american who will be visting london and what brits may think of his accent and also local people from various parts of uk discussing about their accents and roundabouts(which we in india call cirlce).
anyway back to what i wanted to say,after reading so much i have question for all you americans and brits,what do you think of indian accents and indian call centers ?.while im on the subjectm,what do you think of indians in uk ?.you guys have you got any opinions about indians like damian has about americans-you hear them before you see them.
also i work in a call center and i have been working hard for quite a while to master the language and neutralise my accent but i sort of get a panic attack when iam speaking to native speakers and the words come out with lots of difficulty.i find it hard to speak.
can any of you guys help,ill really appreciate it.

hi again guys,
i really have been spending a lot of time reading some of the posts on the forum.people are really concerned about learning the language.grammar,reading,listening,writing....but there is not a single person who has ideas about helping a non native speaker get really fluent.nobody has any ideas about speaking english well.so many things go into making a person a good speaker,it is also psychological.pronunciation can be learned but the flow cant be maintained.what about panic attacks and hesitation...native speakers dont have worry about all that.i make a living speaking the language and a lot is at stake for me.how do a person like me speak freely without any inhibition and also sound good.
any suggestions

does anyone have anything to say about this topic

In general, if one speakes with somebody in an Indian call centre, is one
likely to be well received if one attempts to speak a few Hindi words with the call centre employee? This assumes that the employee is a Hindi or Urdu speaker. After all, in terms of numbers (by a number of measures), Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, English and Mandarin are the world's four biggest languages.

hi geoff,
yeah,people would be happy if they hear hindi words.it will be a kind of relief.as people in indian call centers feel that we are discriminated by almost all native speakers.they dont like our accent or they may be unhappy because of the offshoring.so when we hear hindi we look at the person as someone who understands.many people in india dont know hindi because in india many languages are spoken,im a kannadiga i speak kannada and other indian languages tamil,telugu,malayalam,hindi and urdu,not to mention english.
so go ahead try your luck next time you call and indian call center

I really do not like how they pretend that their name is Bob or Laura; they are not fooling anyone. I'm not to fond of Indian accents and I normally search the web for an American CC.

pretensious habits exist everywhere among people even in your own country, hate. Just look around.

Geoff_One:
They will feel happy when they hear a foreigner speaking a few words in their native language. They are not only going to be well received but also they will be treated with a lot more respect because people are too lazy to learn a few greeting expressions in a foreign language. I don't know whether English native speakers feel guilty deep down when they tour a country where English is not a native language but they find some English-speaking people to converse with and solve their day to day problems.

To Ravi:
Do you read newspapers and magazines daily? Just out of curiosity.

<<anyway back to what i wanted to say,after reading so much i have question for all you americans and brits,what do you think of indian accents and indian call centers ?>>

If I'm not mistaken, there are an assortment of Indian accents, depending on one's socio-economic class and the region they came from. So when you ask what we think of Indian accents, well, that all depends. I went to school with a girl from India whose accent sounded almost British; others I've met had fluid, melodic accents; while still others spoke with more *stereotypical* Indian accents (i.e. staccato, rapid & abrupt cadence, phoneme substitutions, etc.). I personally don't like how the latter sounds, but that's just my humble opinion, so please don't take it personally if that's how you sound.

I normally don't have a problem with foreign accents but there have been times where I've reached a customer service rep with an accent so thick that I couldn't make heads or tails what they were saying. Usually it's when you ask them a question that they were unprepared for or isn't in the script when there accent becomes more pronounced. But mind you, I've had similar problems with customer service reps who speak a southern branch of AAVE.

to guest,
yes i do read newspapers and magazines(input..ha ha when i started i did not read them for the sake of input i was genuinely interested.i still love the langauge english,it is a challenge each day to exceed and get better than the previous day).i know sometimes i get impatient and want to get what i want,the flow as soon as i can but i guess it wont happen overnight or in three years maybe i need to spend more time working on it or maybe i should give up and be like iam not minus the tension and stress.
and guest about different indian accents,that part is true.indians who grew up abroad are the blessed ones they pick up the accent because they grow up learning the language but we on the other hand have to learn three indian languages at school and two or three at home to deal with people around us and english to get a job or get into a good college.besides that when we dont speak fluent english we are not accepted by the upper society and when we do speak it fluently the boys in the hood hate.they think we are wannabes and we upset the everyday people.
maybe because of all this we drive ourselves crazy to speak it well.call centers let me not get started on that topic its a whole new world.anyway guest your advise about self consciousness while speaking really helped.maybe you have some more for me.i would really appreciate it.thank you

to guest
about my previous post,i know i have made may mistakes but that is because i was typing fast.i can access the net at work and i have to type between calls.so in a hurry i have made many typo errors ,please overlook them.when i get the time i dont make any mistakes at all.

I applaud you for speaking so many languages, Ravi, but find it surprising that someone from a former British colony uses such spelling and idiom.

Is that the type of English now taught in India? Rather sad if that's the case, but also a dead giveaway when a rhotic Bob with an underlying sub-continental accent tries to sell me something in Australia.

Someone remarked on Indian call-centre employees' habit of using English-sounding names, and I do think that is a poor idea. If the idea were done more honestly there would be less antagonism to the idea of jobs going off-shore.

to laurie,
<<find it surprising that someone from a former British colony uses such spelling and idiom. >>

im just curious ,i just want to know about my language.is it bad or good.you only said you find it surprising that i use such spelling and idiom but you did not say if it is good or bad.
i would like to know if iam any good or not,thats all.
about using english sounding names,i know i dont like it either but some do it just to put the customers at ease.the english customers will have a hard time getting our names right.they are all long and strange sounding to you guys.if it means anything i dont do it because my name is pretty easy to pronounce.
thank you

ravi:

For what it's worth, Indian English accents don't bother me at all. Although I'm not a great fan of "call centres," it's not because of the employees. In my dealings with call centres in India, I've always found that the employees are polite and speak very good English.

Besides, it's difficult to knock the country that gave us Aishwarya Rai!