Most Indians speak very good English, at least in the cities, AFAIK. I've
never been to India, but all the Indians I've met elsewhere spoke perfect
English, albeit sometimes heavily accented. They have many different
languages and use English as a lingua franca to talk to other Indians in
their own country, so complete fluency is more the rule than the exception.

I know that most Indians speak good English, and I have no problem
with their accent. But I had one once who apparently did not
understand English. It was as if he was reading from a script and was
expecting a certain answer back. It was VERY frustrating. Perhaps if
these call centers were a little more discriminating in who they
hired.

On Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:22:04 GMT, Aristotle wrote:

I know that most Indians speak good English, and I have no problem
with their accent. But I had one once who apparently did not
understand English. It was as if he was reading from a script and was
expecting a certain answer back. It was VERY frustrating. Perhaps if
these call centers were a little more discriminating in who they
hired.

The problem which I find most is not lack of fluency with English
(in any of its variations) but lack of fluency in the subject at
hand. How can you get assistance with a PC card driver, for
instance, when the person doesn't know (or denies) that the
particular operating system which is being used exists?

Fortunately these problems don't crop up that often for me.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

Aristotle wrote in
:


Most Indians speak very good English, at least in the cities, AFAIK.
I've never been to India, but all the Indians I've met elsewhere spoke
perfect English, albeit sometimes heavily accented. They have many
different languages and use English as a lingua franca to talk to other
Indians in their own country, so complete fluency is more the rule than
the exception.

I know that most Indians speak good English, and I have no problem
with their accent. But I had one once who apparently did not
understand English. It was as if he was reading from a script and was
expecting a certain answer back. It was VERY frustrating. Perhaps if
these call centers were a little more discriminating in who they
hired.







Reading from a script reminds me of encounters in various fast food places
that go something like this:-

Customer: I'd like a burger and fries please

Staff person: Would you like fries with that?

The moral is that you don't have to be ignorant of the language to be
reading from a script