Understanding the Indian accent in English
The Indian English accent is one of the most interesting. Register for free to the ABA English course to discover the different English accents and enrich your knowledge of the English language in a practical and fun way. Don’t hesitate any longer and join our worldwide community of +30M students who are learning English with us.
English is the second official language in India, after Hindi, and there is a dialect called hinglish, which is a mix of Hindi and English. Like any dialect, it has its difficulties when learning it, for example regarding grammar and pronunciation. That is why if you have the opportunity to travel to India or for some work reason you must interact with people who speak hinglish, it will be necessary that you can understand their way of expressing themselves, to achieve fluent communication.
If you want to understand the Indian English accent, the ABA English course is the best choice. Through its innovative method based on intuitive learning, you will be able to understand this and many other accents, as you will learn through short films shot by native speakers from different places.
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Indian English Accent
In the second half of the 19th century, England consolidated its power in India, thus bringing the English language to this territory. The English spoken in India is a rich language that presents dialectical particularities which can cause difficulties if you want to learn it. For this, you must take into account its distinctive features regarding grammar (for example verb conjugation), accentuation and pronunciation, and you may also encounter purely Hindi mixes or expressions. So if you want to travel to this exotic country, you shouldn’t worry about the language, but about its accent to achieve fluent communication.
How is the Indian English accent pronounced?
To get familiar with Indian English, consider these interesting words that will help you a lot:
Good name. When in India they ask you: ‘What is your good name?’ they mean your first and last name.
Another expression typical of the Indian accent is ‘I have a doubt’ to say that they find something suspicious.
To refer to a serious mistake, they use the phrase ‘Himalayan blunder’ (which means a big mistake like the Himalayan mountains).
Learn the Indian English accent with ABA English
Learn the Indian English accent with the ABA English course in a very convenient and entertaining way. Through ABA Films or short films of own production, made by native speakers from different English-speaking countries, you can learn English for real life in context and get used to understanding people from anywhere in a spontaneous and natural way.
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More expressions and vocabulary in hinglish
As we have already mentioned, hinglish is a mix between Hindi and English, here we leave you more vocabulary of this particular English accent from India.
- Badmash means naughty.
- Glassy in Spanish would be something like the feeling of needing a drink.
- There are neither male nor female cousins, they are all brothers and sisters. In fact, if you use the term cousin people may get offended.
Curiosities about the culture of India
Before visiting any country, it is important to have some knowledge about its culture.
In fact, India is one of the most multicultural countries in the world.
Being one of the largest countries in the world, specifically the second, with more than 1.2 billion inhabitants, the cultural variety is very big, varied and rich.
Here are some interesting facts you should know before traveling to India so you don’t stand out:
- Don’t confuse Indians with Hindus. Indians are the inhabitants of India, and Hindus, on the other hand, are the practitioners of Hinduism, one of the many religions that coexist in the country.
- The cow is a sacred animal which it is forbidden to slaughter. Don’t be surprised if you see them roaming freely anywhere in the country.
- Here, we nod our head up and down to say ‘yes’, and shake it side to side to say ‘no’. In their case, it is the other way around, so remember this to avoid confusion.
- One of the majority religions in the country is Muslim. Throughout India there are more than 300,000 mosques, more than in any other country. 13% of the population is Muslim, and they represent the third country with the most Muslims in the world.
- Apart from Hindi and English, and the mix that hinglish means, there are more than 22 other recognized languages, and many others very minor languages.
- You should know who the Sadhus are. They are nomadic monks who travel in search of the light. They have privileges above the populations, such as traveling free by train or smoking marijuana without being warned by security forces.
- According to Hindu literature, there are more than 330 million deities that coexist. The most important for them are Shiva, the god of destruction, Vishnu, the god of preservation, and Brahma, the god of creation.
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