Lately I have been receiving massive amounts of emails from random Indian groups in the community with invitations to local prayers and get togethers. This is not actually weird considering I am Indian, and normally I wouldn't be annoyed but every single one of them (I am not exaggerating) is filled with either spelling or grammatical errors! Now, I don't consider myself to be an expert of the english language, but I like to think that I can speak and write relatively correctly. It drives me so crazy now whenever I get these emails that I am tempted to email them back with comments/corrections, but I know that it would be considered rude because they are older than me and I am supposed to respect them.
Most of these people have been living in the US for at least five years, hold a job where they interact with other English speakers, and have studied in schools where English is the primary language so I'm not sure why they can't write a decent email. I can understand a couple of mistakes, but when there are multiple mistakes in every sentence I begin to question how they are able to live in the US. My parents aren't as bad as the people I have described above, but they still make some mistakes and they know it. To fix it, they ask me to proofread their emails so they don't sound incompetent when they get sent out.
Similarly, many Indian people have trouble pronouncing some English words. My guess is that they learned the "Indian" pronunciation while they were studying in India and now it is just stuck. My mom for instance struggles with pronouncing city names like "Indianapolis" and "Minneapolis". No matter how slow I say it or how many times I correct her, she just can't do it. Now, for the most part, she just says these names quietly or finds a way around it so I won't laugh or get angry. Another one that Indian people struggle with is "Connecticut". They think that they second "c" is supposed to be pronounced and say it the way it is spelled. Throughout the NCAA tournament my mom and other friends would talk about how successful The University of Connecticut has been, and every single time they said the name I would flinch or cringe so I finally taught them that they could just say UConn instead. But the funniest thing that I have heard is from when I was proctoring a spelling bee with one of my friends. Apparently my friend's mom got an email from an Indian parent that said that her child was having trouble differentiating between the word "flour" and "floor" because many Indians think that they are pronounced the same way. I had trouble containing my laughter after I heard about this.
Hopefully these grammatical/spelling errors that are so common among Indians can be fixed because I am tired of my inbox being flooded with horribly written emails. Most of these emails come from younger parents who have young kids, so hopefully their kids can grow up to be like me and help their parents write good emails. And if worst comes to worst maybe I will go through with my plan and email them all back.
Excellent post, though I think it would be interesting for you to copy and paste a few of the more humorous emails.
ReplyDeleteWhile the plan of pointing out their errors seems feasible, you could always start a pseudo-school, too. People pay money to appear competent or "academic"; or, this is the impression that I've received from the number of tutoring and standardized test-prep agencies available.
My parents are immigrants and I also get to proofread some of their emails. I love it when I get to read emails they write about me.
ReplyDeleteA recent email I read from an Asian parent went something along the lines of "We are inviting you to our home for porker." And I was thinking... what's "porker?" Meat? Fat people? And then I realized the sender meant the card game, "poker." And they typed "porker" twice, so I know it wasn't a typo. :P
I totally understand this, and I've been trying to teach my parents pronunciation for pretty much my whole life. My dad in particular has a problem with "bath" and "Beth" sounding the same, which drives me crazy. I also want to correct grammar for Chinese restaurants because they offer things like "beef w. rape on rice.
ReplyDeleteI always found it interesting that some people may live in a different country for many, many years and still make so many mistakes...but then there are people that don't live there for very long but pick up the language very well and use it correctly. I have been curious for a while as to why that is. It may have to do with occupations or particular groups of friends and their speaking skills, but niether of these ideas seem feasible to me.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sheela that proofreading is the simple solution here. Once their kids are old enough to proofread their emails, hopefully things will improve. Then again, I know people whose first language is English who can't seem to send a coherent email, so it's not just an immigrant thing.
ReplyDeleteVery amusing post! Something that annoys me (but of course amuses me at the same time) is how my dad, when talking on the phone, talks in whatever accent the person he is conversing with has. I have heard him talk with an Indian accent, Chinese accent, Ethiopian, Spanish, and probably many others.
ReplyDelete