7 ms·

Many of them just can't speak English correctly. Only a small percentage of the individuals who speak English at a proficient level of those who do, they predom

Many of them just can't speak English correctly. Only a small percentage of the individuals who speak English at a proficient level of those who do, they predominately come from very wealthy upper caste families and now you have a new problem. And well. When it comes to caste, many Indians simply believe it to not exist anymore in India because of how deeply engrained it is in their social classes they never notice it.

philliphaydon 4y ago
I don’t understand the English thing. I lived in Singapore for 10 years and have heard so many words pronounced wrong. To give an example one of my ex coworkers used to say the word swap as sw-app. Another one said return as ret-urn. I did ask them and they said they are taught phonics and so they just say the words how they are written. English is such a turd language. We have so many rules and then all those rules get broken all the time. (Despite the English thing which didn’t get in the way of working together, my single team are the best team I’ve ever had in my career and I’ll really miss them)
- alephnerd 4y ago
  You’re giving the original poster too much credit. He’s just straight up being racist. If he heard Singaporean English m, ai lah this ang moh would also call it incomprehensible.
  - philliphaydon 4y ago
    > He’s just straight up being racist. I don't know if he's being racist or not. But the claim they can't speak english is not uncommon. I don't know what they are like in America or UK, but having worked with many while living in Singapore, I think they can speak english, but pronunciation is difficult. > Singaporean English I wasn't referring to Singaporean Indian speaking English, but can see how that it may have come across as that. The company I worked for in SG, all the devs were on EP, so their English was learnt in India.
- notart666 4y ago
  English is the simplest Latin based language. This has nothing to do with pronunciation but not even knowing basic words. Or how to communicate. Only a small percentage of Indians speak English and most statistics on it are heavily inflated. The Indian English Education system is the same one the Japanese and Koreans use. And they don't know English. The reality is it's like if you learned Spanish in middle school to highschool. That's the average English proficency. Most Indians do not interact with people outside their groups as most things are written in the languages they use. It's not Singapore or even close to it in English proficency trying to claim it is, is a lie.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - gsich 4y ago
    Pronunciation and orthography vary in many cases, not simple at all. Unless you already come from a germanic language, then it's relatively easy.
    - alex028502 4y ago
      Coming from another Germanic language helps you deal with pronunciation and orthography varying in English? What's the relationship?
      - gsich 4y ago
        You can just speak it in your native way and you will mostly be understood. But the "relatively easy" was to the language as a whole.
    - wongarsu 4y ago
      English grammar is very simple to learn if you come from a Germanic language, but I think English pronunciation and orthography is a mystery to all of us. Even if you know the origins of the word, you still have to guess: facade is pronounced correctly, but the pronunciation of Uranus was apparently left up to a 5-year old to decide. Kindergarten and doppelganger are pronounced the German way, angst and flak aren't. The non-loanwords are somehow as inconsistent, after pronunciation changed but the spelling was preserved (and the other way around). For an unknown word you can come up with reasonable guesses, but they might be totally wrong. The only thing that makes us good English speakers is extensive exposure to English media.
- secondcoming 4y ago
  English is a language borne out of centuries of diversity. Its turdness is its strength.
- Lio 4y ago
  > English is such a turd language. I disagree, but then I would, I'm English. ;) Tolerance of mispronunciation is one of the great strengths of English. Even within the UK we have a plethora of different regional pronunciation. Even with the strongest accents only takes a couple of words to pick up what they're saying[1]. It's the same for those comping to English from another language. I've been lucky enough to work with people from all over the world, including India, with various standards of English. With a bit of practice on both ends it all works out. That doesn't seem happen so much with other languages such as French. Even practicing with tolerant French or Belgian friends, my mangling of words is very hard for them to understand. They're not being difficult either, it's a case of get it exactly right or they can't understand you even with context. 1. If you're thinking Rab C Nesbit or that 19080s Nissan Sunderland advert the Japanese translator[2] you get what I'm talking about. 2. It was an advert for a new Japanese car plant in the UK. The joke being that a Japanese guy is translating a deliberately over the top English regional accent back into "English" for the audience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiK5BWmKSqE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiK5BWmKSqE
29athrowaway 4y ago
English is an official language over there, but it is spoken differently.
- lloydatkinson 4y ago
  Different indeed. Every sentence sounds like a question with a small delay before the last word of the sentence. I have no idea why this is, but you can see it in literally any Indian engineering lecture recording on YouTube. It definitely does not inspire confidence they know the topic they are teaching.
  - secondcoming 4y ago
    I find this quirk quite endearing for some reason.
  - programmer_dude 4y ago
    Hmm, this is interesting. Never realized this was a thing. Care to submit a specimen link?
  - mavelikara 4y ago
    > It definitely does not inspire confidence they know the topic they are teaching. Only to people who judge competence based on diction.
- sk0g 4y ago
  Hindi in the cities is interesting, it can turn into a 50-50 blend of English and Hindi, with English used for most nouns, and sentences strung together with Hindi otherwise. Having said that, actual conversational skills in English were lacking even in Delhi. You can throw out words and hope there's enough of a shared vocabulary to get ideas across, but the majority of people aren't fluent, or even conversational in it. I've heard the Southern part is somewhat better though, as Hindi is less pervasive, and English is used more often as a second language if you travel out of state and the likes.
azangru 4y ago
> Many of them just can't speak English correctly. Only a small percentage of the individuals who speak English at a proficient level of those who do, they predominately come from very wealthy upper caste families and now you have a new problem. There is something very confusing to me in this paragraph. You put forth as a premise (at least if I am understanding the logic of the paragraph correctly) that fluency in English is an important skill for doing a job properly. You also say that it is the wealthy part of the population that will have access to resources to train their children in that skill. All good so far. But then you say that it is a problem, and this is where I am lost. Are you suggesting that money should not buy good education? Assuming good education is a scarce commodity, that would go against the principles of markets. Or are you suggesting that English fluency (or other consequences of good education) should not be considered when screening for a job in a tech company? But that goes against your initial premise, and also makes one wonder what purpose a good education has if not getting one prepared for a high-skilled job.
- voidwtf 4y ago
  I think he might be implying some issues related to the caste system. It’s been discussed on HN before about how some members of the upper caste may not treat other team members from a lower caste appropriately. Despite no longer being in India, and despite that behavior not being acceptable in the host country.
  - petilon 4y ago
    > It’s been discussed on HN before... Yes, it has been used on HN as a bludgeon but the reality is a little different! Yes, the ancient caste system still exists in India. But today it is only relevant when it comes to politics and marriage. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/caste-is-not-past.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/caste-is-no...
    - notart666 4y ago
      The fact you believe it to only be relevant in marriage and politics goes to show the naivety of your understanding of how prevalent this 2000+ year caste system is. I'd go as far as calling it the oldest system of systemic slavery in the world. The fact it plays such a level to this day in the modern lives of individuals shows how the Indians have normalized it in their society and often directly bring it into our own. It even goes as far as impacting children, and starts from their. Who they know. Who they can interact with. Where they're accepted. At every step impacting and controlling their lives. To claim what you have said to trivialize it is kind of shocking to me.
mikrl 4y ago
> Many of them just can't speak English correctly. I’m someone who loves seeing well written and hearing well spoken English. The standards I hold myself to are quite high. However, I have never had a problem with people- native or foreign born- with less than perfect English communication skills. Going down that route smacks of elitism, xenophobia and a hyper-normative mindset. The way you get good at standard English is by practice, which they are doing every day at work using the skills (technology) they have mastered. Some of my family are ESL and my place of birth (in the UK, for God’s sake) was and is looked down on for the dialect. Is it really that hard to just ask someone to repeat or restate themselves?
- throwaway102233 4y ago
  if only we could all be as enlightened as you are, you are obviously not of this earth :pray:
- therealdrag0 4y ago
  I agree, though there’s a point at which no repetition helps, which is really awkward. And honestly stresses me out going into meetings with them (not Indians in my case).
- Yoric 4y ago
  I'm not a native English speaker. I've been practicing English pretty much every day for decades but speaking with someone who has an unfamiliar enough accent or dialect – or sometimes culture – is really hard for me. After asking them to repeat/rephrase a few times, I feel rude and/or stupid. Me speaking with an Indian with a non-{US, British} accent means that very little information is going to get across during the conversation, because this problem shows up in both directions. Of course, the issue essentially vanishes when the conversation is written down. Unfortunately, many native English speaker that I've been in touch with fail to understand the cognitive cost of oral communication.
TMWNN 4y ago
>Only a small percentage of the individuals who speak English at a proficient level of those who do, they predominately come from very wealthy upper caste families and now you have a new problem. As a non-Indian, the caste problem seems so endemic that the only solution seems to be to not hire anyone born in India. Their American-born children will, presumably, have overcome the issue. (Not 100% serious, but not 100% joking.)
1letterunixname 4y ago
It's one of those dumb human antipatterns like racism, sexism, and most other legitimately bad -isms: pick attribute A and make that undesirable while making attribute B desirable. Perhaps in Indian and Western schools alike, they should consider the (in)famous eye color discrimination exercise to give a glimpse of how horrible it is. Comfortable, sheltered children tend to grow up to be ignorant adults bordering on clueless. It's only when someone has experienced what it feels like can they grow a modicum of empathy or sympathy.

philliphaydon 4y ago

I don’t understand the English thing. I lived in Singapore for 10 years and have heard so many words pronounced wrong. To give an example one of my ex coworkers used to say the word swap as sw-app. Another one said return as ret-urn. I did ask them and they said they are taught phonics and so they just say the words how they are written. English is such a turd language. We have so many rules and then all those rules get broken all the time. (Despite the English thing which didn’t get in the way of working together, my single team are the best team I’ve ever had in my career and I’ll really miss them)

alephnerd 4y ago
You’re giving the original poster too much credit. He’s just straight up being racist. If he heard Singaporean English m, ai lah this ang moh would also call it incomprehensible.
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  > He’s just straight up being racist. I don't know if he's being racist or not. But the claim they can't speak english is not uncommon. I don't know what they are like in America or UK, but having worked with many while living in Singapore, I think they can speak english, but pronunciation is difficult. > Singaporean English I wasn't referring to Singaporean Indian speaking English, but can see how that it may have come across as that. The company I worked for in SG, all the devs were on EP, so their English was learnt in India.
notart666 4y ago
English is the simplest Latin based language. This has nothing to do with pronunciation but not even knowing basic words. Or how to communicate. Only a small percentage of Indians speak English and most statistics on it are heavily inflated. The Indian English Education system is the same one the Japanese and Koreans use. And they don't know English. The reality is it's like if you learned Spanish in middle school to highschool. That's the average English proficency. Most Indians do not interact with people outside their groups as most things are written in the languages they use. It's not Singapore or even close to it in English proficency trying to claim it is, is a lie.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- gsich 4y ago
  Pronunciation and orthography vary in many cases, not simple at all. Unless you already come from a germanic language, then it's relatively easy.
  - alex028502 4y ago
    Coming from another Germanic language helps you deal with pronunciation and orthography varying in English? What's the relationship?
    - gsich 4y ago
      You can just speak it in your native way and you will mostly be understood. But the "relatively easy" was to the language as a whole.
  - wongarsu 4y ago
    English grammar is very simple to learn if you come from a Germanic language, but I think English pronunciation and orthography is a mystery to all of us. Even if you know the origins of the word, you still have to guess: facade is pronounced correctly, but the pronunciation of Uranus was apparently left up to a 5-year old to decide. Kindergarten and doppelganger are pronounced the German way, angst and flak aren't. The non-loanwords are somehow as inconsistent, after pronunciation changed but the spelling was preserved (and the other way around). For an unknown word you can come up with reasonable guesses, but they might be totally wrong. The only thing that makes us good English speakers is extensive exposure to English media.
secondcoming 4y ago
English is a language borne out of centuries of diversity. Its turdness is its strength.
Lio 4y ago
> English is such a turd language. I disagree, but then I would, I'm English. ;) Tolerance of mispronunciation is one of the great strengths of English. Even within the UK we have a plethora of different regional pronunciation. Even with the strongest accents only takes a couple of words to pick up what they're saying[1]. It's the same for those comping to English from another language. I've been lucky enough to work with people from all over the world, including India, with various standards of English. With a bit of practice on both ends it all works out. That doesn't seem happen so much with other languages such as French. Even practicing with tolerant French or Belgian friends, my mangling of words is very hard for them to understand. They're not being difficult either, it's a case of get it exactly right or they can't understand you even with context. 1. If you're thinking Rab C Nesbit or that 19080s Nissan Sunderland advert the Japanese translator[2] you get what I'm talking about. 2. It was an advert for a new Japanese car plant in the UK. The joke being that a Japanese guy is translating a deliberately over the top English regional accent back into "English" for the audience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiK5BWmKSqE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiK5BWmKSqE

29athrowaway 4y ago

English is an official language over there, but it is spoken differently.

lloydatkinson 4y ago
Different indeed. Every sentence sounds like a question with a small delay before the last word of the sentence. I have no idea why this is, but you can see it in literally any Indian engineering lecture recording on YouTube. It definitely does not inspire confidence they know the topic they are teaching.
- secondcoming 4y ago
  I find this quirk quite endearing for some reason.
- programmer_dude 4y ago
  Hmm, this is interesting. Never realized this was a thing. Care to submit a specimen link?
- mavelikara 4y ago
  > It definitely does not inspire confidence they know the topic they are teaching. Only to people who judge competence based on diction.
sk0g 4y ago
Hindi in the cities is interesting, it can turn into a 50-50 blend of English and Hindi, with English used for most nouns, and sentences strung together with Hindi otherwise. Having said that, actual conversational skills in English were lacking even in Delhi. You can throw out words and hope there's enough of a shared vocabulary to get ideas across, but the majority of people aren't fluent, or even conversational in it. I've heard the Southern part is somewhat better though, as Hindi is less pervasive, and English is used more often as a second language if you travel out of state and the likes.

azangru 4y ago

> Many of them just can't speak English correctly. Only a small percentage of the individuals who speak English at a proficient level of those who do, they predominately come from very wealthy upper caste families and now you have a new problem. There is something very confusing to me in this paragraph. You put forth as a premise (at least if I am understanding the logic of the paragraph correctly) that fluency in English is an important skill for doing a job properly. You also say that it is the wealthy part of the population that will have access to resources to train their children in that skill. All good so far. But then you say that it is a problem, and this is where I am lost. Are you suggesting that money should not buy good education? Assuming good education is a scarce commodity, that would go against the principles of markets. Or are you suggesting that English fluency (or other consequences of good education) should not be considered when screening for a job in a tech company? But that goes against your initial premise, and also makes one wonder what purpose a good education has if not getting one prepared for a high-skilled job.

voidwtf 4y ago
I think he might be implying some issues related to the caste system. It’s been discussed on HN before about how some members of the upper caste may not treat other team members from a lower caste appropriately. Despite no longer being in India, and despite that behavior not being acceptable in the host country.
- petilon 4y ago
  > It’s been discussed on HN before... Yes, it has been used on HN as a bludgeon but the reality is a little different! Yes, the ancient caste system still exists in India. But today it is only relevant when it comes to politics and marriage. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/caste-is-not-past.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/caste-is-no...
  - notart666 4y ago
    The fact you believe it to only be relevant in marriage and politics goes to show the naivety of your understanding of how prevalent this 2000+ year caste system is. I'd go as far as calling it the oldest system of systemic slavery in the world. The fact it plays such a level to this day in the modern lives of individuals shows how the Indians have normalized it in their society and often directly bring it into our own. It even goes as far as impacting children, and starts from their. Who they know. Who they can interact with. Where they're accepted. At every step impacting and controlling their lives. To claim what you have said to trivialize it is kind of shocking to me.

mikrl 4y ago

> Many of them just can't speak English correctly. I’m someone who loves seeing well written and hearing well spoken English. The standards I hold myself to are quite high. However, I have never had a problem with people- native or foreign born- with less than perfect English communication skills. Going down that route smacks of elitism, xenophobia and a hyper-normative mindset. The way you get good at standard English is by practice, which they are doing every day at work using the skills (technology) they have mastered. Some of my family are ESL and my place of birth (in the UK, for God’s sake) was and is looked down on for the dialect. Is it really that hard to just ask someone to repeat or restate themselves?

throwaway102233 4y ago
if only we could all be as enlightened as you are, you are obviously not of this earth :pray:
therealdrag0 4y ago
I agree, though there’s a point at which no repetition helps, which is really awkward. And honestly stresses me out going into meetings with them (not Indians in my case).
Yoric 4y ago
I'm not a native English speaker. I've been practicing English pretty much every day for decades but speaking with someone who has an unfamiliar enough accent or dialect – or sometimes culture – is really hard for me. After asking them to repeat/rephrase a few times, I feel rude and/or stupid. Me speaking with an Indian with a non-{US, British} accent means that very little information is going to get across during the conversation, because this problem shows up in both directions. Of course, the issue essentially vanishes when the conversation is written down. Unfortunately, many native English speaker that I've been in touch with fail to understand the cognitive cost of oral communication.

TMWNN 4y ago

>Only a small percentage of the individuals who speak English at a proficient level of those who do, they predominately come from very wealthy upper caste families and now you have a new problem. As a non-Indian, the caste problem seems so endemic that the only solution seems to be to not hire anyone born in India. Their American-born children will, presumably, have overcome the issue. (Not 100% serious, but not 100% joking.)

1letterunixname 4y ago

It's one of those dumb human antipatterns like racism, sexism, and most other legitimately bad -isms: pick attribute A and make that undesirable while making attribute B desirable. Perhaps in Indian and Western schools alike, they should consider the (in)famous eye color discrimination exercise to give a glimpse of how horrible it is. Comfortable, sheltered children tend to grow up to be ignorant adults bordering on clueless. It's only when someone has experienced what it feels like can they grow a modicum of empathy or sympathy.