Thick Indian Accents

<b>Forum for ideas on how to teach pronunciation </b>

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Marie10001
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 10:05 am

Thick Indian Accents

Post by Marie10001 » Wed Oct 19, 2005 10:23 am

I am trying to find audio resources on Indian-English accents. I am teaching a workshop on how to listen and understand Indian English to Chinese students. I would like to expose the students to the Indo-English accent so that the phone conversations between the two parties isn't so difficult to understand.

This website is pretty good but I need more material and heavier accents.
http://www.ku.edu/~idea/asia/india/india.htm

Any help is appreciated!

Marie

stromfi
Posts: 58
Joined: Thu May 26, 2005 10:37 pm

Post by stromfi » Thu Oct 20, 2005 2:29 am

Hi Marie,

How about using some British movies and/or TV shows? You could use some clips from "East is East" or "Bend it Like Beckham", just to name a few.

Stromfi

Don McChesney
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Jul 16, 2005 8:46 am
Location: Zhengzhou

Post by Don McChesney » Thu Oct 20, 2005 4:46 am

The 'Kumars' from TV are great, sure it may not be true Indian, but sure is funny, and the phrases are also worth listening too. :lol: :lol:

Marie10001
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 10:05 am

Post by Marie10001 » Thu Nov 03, 2005 6:44 am

Thanks for the advice!

I found a website that has voice recordings from countries around the world which is neat: http://www.ku.edu/~idea/asia/india/india.htm

Pride and Prejudice works well too--though I think the accents are still not heavy enough because I am able to understand everything!

Thanks!
Marie

dom64
Posts: 16
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:03 pm

Indian accents

Post by dom64 » Fri Nov 18, 2005 2:41 pm

Another British Indian programme if you can get it, is the BBCs Goodness Gracious Me - comedy, stereotypes and accents - a great combination.

CEJ
Posts: 55
Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2005 8:21 pm

Post by CEJ » Sat Dec 31, 2005 2:43 pm

I wonder if Indian English speakers (bilinguals and native or native-like speakers of English) find American or British accents 'thick'?

Does anyone know if there is some sort of ease of intelligibility scale for accents and versions of English? I've heard in popular media that Irish accents are well accepted all around. I also know that in international settings, especially with a native speaker or native-like speaker depending on an EFL speaker to speak English, people learn quickly to neutralize their accents to something more like an international global English accent (and yes, Americans and British and Australians do start to sound more and more alike when they do this, or so I think anyway).

bgiddings
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 9:18 am

Indian Accents

Post by bgiddings » Thu Nov 02, 2006 9:24 am

Hi Marie

I'm trying to help a group of Spanish students to understand the Indian accent. The page link above looks excellent. All I had found until now was this page:

http://www.gazzaro.it/accents/files/accents2.html

which just has 1 Indian sound file. If I come across any more I'l post (if it's not too late that is).

Ben

strider
Posts: 160
Joined: Fri Jan 17, 2003 7:52 am
Location: France

Post by strider » Thu Nov 02, 2006 11:08 am

Another possibility is to download podcasts. (I've done this recently to get Scottish accents.)

It may be possible to get transcripts, too - try googling newspapers/magazine/TV news with Indian cities as keywords, or something like 'India news podcast' or 'bollywood podcast'.

I think that, by doing this, you are more likely to get 'real' Indian accents, rather than TV actors who imitate Indian accents.

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