Keep that fake accent at bay

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What does it take for youngsters to sound cool and different? The list is long, but the way they talk comes somewhere on the top. So, these days, accents are in. Be it British or American, it doesn’t matter. Both work just fine. For some it’s about being their cool casual self, for others it’s more about standing out in a crowd. Rishab Raj, 19, who talks in an American drawl, says, “It goes without saying that if you have an accent, you immediately establish yourself as a star among your friends. And trust me, those who deny it are lying because they don’t have it in them.”
Being hooked onto Hollywood films and music, Rishab says that it was natural for him to acquire the accent. “There is no faking it, it comes to me naturally,” he adds. Sanya Batra, a Class 12 student of Birla Vidya Niketan agrees that the need to be articulate arises when you are in “that particular group”. “In order to get attention some people flaunt expensive cellphones or gossip about the interesting places they have visited. But when one is with real friends, the mannerism is always unpretentious and bindaas,” she says.
However, there are also those who feel comfortable in their own skin and don’t adopt a foreign accent.
For them curling your ‘R’ won’t do any good when it comes to making an impression. “It’s always best to stick to the way you usually talk. Faking it doesn’t make much sense, because you always end up making a fool of yourself,” says Anusha Sharma, an English (Hons) student.
Sneha Varma, a second year student, Daulat Ram College says that anything fake doesn’t last long and it applies to languages too. Whenever she comes across people who speak in accented English, she requests them to switch over to their mother tongue. “I think we should promote everything Indian, and that includes our language too,” she adds.
It’s actually the requirement of the global job market, says communications trainer Owais Ali. “It’s not always a bad thing to do. There’s nothing like knowing the right pronunciation of a word, but my advice is don’t overdo it,” he adds.
Many youngsters, who take up summer jobs with BPOs learn and pick up an accent from there.
“You won’t make much of an impression if you’re trying too hard. I have come across people with bad grammar, but eager on learning the ‘accent’. It’s always great to know the language first, than concentrate on the style. The idea, as even the Queen once famously said, is that the receiver should understand it clearly,” he says.