• jaschen@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    My wife too. She grew up in Taiwan and moved to America in middle school.

    She can’t understand understand British or Australian accents, where I can hear the differences between the two.

    She literally can’t understand Indian accents. It’s like they are not speaking English at all.

    • Probius@sopuli.xyz
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      1 day ago

      I’m a native speaker and have absolutely no issue whatsoever with Australian and British accents, but people with a heavy Indian accent still sound like they’re not speaking English to me.

      • jaschen@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        I think we were exposed to more Brit and Aus influences. Thinking Steve Erwin, Crocodile Dundee, and a bunch of British actors.

        For Indian speaking influence, nope. Even today, the only exposure to Indian accents is at work and even then, its limited.

        • Probius@sopuli.xyz
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          1 day ago

          You can get better at understanding accents by listening to them more, so yeah, that’s probably why.

      • nandeEbisu@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        It doesn’t help that Indian English often still uses a lot of colonial terms, like Capsicum instead of bell pepper. That being said most Indians in the US will adjust to the local vocabulary pretty quickly.