foreign dialects and accents

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I frequent the Washington DC area for work, and I have found there are MANY foreigners in this town working various jobs from hotel clerks, parking valets, fast-food cashiers, and all sorts of other customer service positions. While I think it's great that many of these people are coming here and working hard (versus sucking social security and welfare) placing these people in customer service positions has always annoyed me. They cannot speak clearly! I frequently must get the person to repeat what they are saying. At one of the offices I visit, the Vietnamese parking attendant will ask me "validation?" in a heavy accent. I don't know what the HECK he is saying, other than the fact that I 've been there so much, I know that he's gonna ask that. I am wondering however if it's just me that's having this problem. When standing in a line at a hotel to check in or something, other patrons don't seem to have a problem understanding the clerk...but I do. Is is just because these people have lived around all these foreign dialects more, and I'm just a country boy that is not familiar with this...or is it an Aspie thing? Anybody else have issues with foreign dialects.. in Americal or anywhere else in the world?

Don't worry it's not just you. I've had so many customers go "Thank god your Canadian! I couldn't understand the person I was talking to from such and such company!" each day that I've lost count.

I read online someplace the other day that there is a country, not India, where the people who call about credit card offers and such are practicing to sound like Northeastern Americans.

Well let me say this. I speak fluent Spanish but I cannot understand Mexican English AT ALL. Mexicans always want to practice their English with me as a way of showing respect for my speaking their language, but they can't pronounce it right. I came up with some fun sentences for them to practice their pronunciation with back when I lived in Mexico.

"He doesn't dust them by the dozen."

"Since she seized Caesar's scissors, she had a seizure."

I told them I wouldn't speak English to them until they could say those two sentences correctly.

I'm British and even I'm having trouble with that last one! Tricky.

Whats northeastern?

Roughly the US states from Delaware and Maryland to the south to Maine in the north and as far west as the western borders of New York state and Pennsylvania.

I'd read of Indian call-centre people who master both standard British (BBC, posh southern English) and general American accents for their work and can switch depending on who they're talking to. Many Indians of course learn the former and already sound a little English.

Once had to do telemarketing to pay the rent and tried something like that - to see if I could pull it off - but flopped of course.

Most people need a dialect coach (like Henry Higgins in 'My Fair Lady') to do that. That's how actors do it.

Anyway, no, you're not the only one and it's not just an AS thing that you can't understand some immigrants' speech.

The reason I flopped as a 'voice actor' and why you can't understand the Vietnamese parking attendant are the same: once you hit puberty, changing your accent, just like learning a new language (same part of the brain does both), becomes much harder. If you move, chances are you'll never sound like a local in your new home. (And for some of us that's just fine.)

Anyway there are speech classes and books and tapes for non-native speakers to buy and use to solve the problem you describe.

An accent should be something to be proud of, showing who you are. It only becomes a problem when you can't be understood!

Do people really hang up all the time?

From what I remember (15 years ago) a lot of people are more polite than that and will let you say the first sentence of your script, then say 'not interested' and hang up. Which is nearly what I do today if one gets through to me (not often). I'll add 'I know you've got a hard job', nicely say no and then say goodbye.

I have to ask people to repete things a lot sometimes they downright nasty. Part of my problem is I have a hearing processing disorder and am never sure if its me or them. For me it would be illogical to put someone with a strong accent in a customer service postion unless you did'nt like you customers.

I do that too. It's like a tic - I want to be sure I understood them correctly.

And agreed. Seems like something a passive-aggressive business owner would do. (Might make a good comedy sketch.)

Around were I live they must all be that way

I just hang up those people called me 100 times a day once.

You know, it's kind of odd. I've always been the person in my circles who CAN understand foreign accents when others cannot. As long as I don't have to look at them while they're talking, I understand them just fine.

I usually don't have much trouble understanding foreign accents unless the person talks really fast. But then I have troubles with that normally. It's even more annoying when they immidiately talk very slowly to you when you don't understand them, as though you're a total moron. One time at school a few years back, it went like this:

Person: "Doyulikb2k?"

Me: "What?"

Person: "Doyulikb2k?"

Me: "What?"

Person: "DO...YOU...LIKE...B...2...K?"

Me: "Uh...no."

Person: "Aryuhappytheybrokup?"

Me: "What?"

Person: "Aryuhappytheybrokup?"

Me: "What?"

Person: "ARE...YOU...HAP...PY...THEY...BROKE...UP?"

Me: "Uh...I don't care."

...Jeez.

I actually like some accents, though. Love European ones, in particular. ^.^

at the moment the thing we have the most problems with over here is that alot of the banks are outsourcing their telephony sections to places like india and malaysia, so when you want to ring your bank to talk about a problem you have you get someone who doesn't speak english as a first language and who is haveing a hard time understanding what you want!!
hence a few banks are coming underfire about this compromising their customer service, that and alot of scandal has been caused by some of the banks having fraud happen at the offshore call centres

baby