Any unfamiliar accent is difficult. The only question is the amount of effort we’re willing to put in to familiarise ourselves.
For example, I thought I had a decent handle on Scottish accents. Turns out I don’t, just that all the Scottish people I worked with were anglicising their accents. I only heard their natural accents after we had a few pints. Now I’m working with several Scottish people who don’t change their accent and it is hard. I’m thinking I probably have to watch a few seasons of Outlander to get used to it.
There’s nothing “natural” about any accent. How difficult was the Boston accent the first time you heard it? I needed subtitles for sure. Then I watched several movies set in Boston (Good Will Hunting, The Departed, The Town) and it’s understandable now.
All this to say - you need familiarity to understand and you need to put in effort to gain familiarity. That’s fairly uncontroversial.
Here’s the controversial part - people will put in the effort to understand the accents and dialects of people from Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, America. But if it’s an accent/dialect from India, they say some racist shit about the brown people being unable to speak English.
So yes “Strong Indian accents are very difficult” for you. And now you know why.
I'm a) not a linguist and b) ESL - but I notice a stark different between Irish/Scottish/Texan (as a standin for a thick southern example) on the one hand and most Indian/African (both native) and French (as ESL) dialects on the other end. The former are doing a lot of different words, contractions and mostly different pronunciations, but the latter are often using the same words, no contractions but just speaking with a different stress on syllables and melody of the sentence and that's what makes it harder for me. But I am in no way disputing your "getting used to it" argument.
Also, and again I might be wrong, but I cannot for the life of me understand people from Glasgow but the rest of Scotland was pretty much fine when I was there. I know it's kinda different but lumping "Scottish" together is already weird. I'm from Bavaria, I know how it is - people who understand German can't understand us :P
A data point from me: people in Chicago had real trouble understanding my English accent. Then I realised that when they had trouble understanding I reflexively said it again closer to Received Pronunciation i.e. even more English. Then i started imitating the Chicago accent and people understood me. They still thought I had an English accent, just not so thick they couldn’t understand me. English people who knew me found the way i talked to Chicagoans absolutely hilarious.
The fact that you're willing to put in the effort for accents with different words, contractions and pronunciations but not willing to put in the effort for slightly different stress/melody is sadly quite common.
Someone saying "I'm going to pick up my ute in the arvo while I eat a jaffle" - sure, let me look up what that means. Whereas "Kindly do the needful" - no fuck this, you need to learn to fucking speak English.
I'd say the difference isn't what you've pointed out, it's the colour of the skin of the speaker. White people saying anything they feel like - the onus is on the listener to adapt. Brown/black people saying anything - they need to learn to speak English.
> lumping "Scottish" together is already weird
You lumping "Indian" together is equally weird. What's the matter? You can't tell the difference between a Tamil person and Malayali person speaking English? Spare me the condescension, please.
I grew up familiar with "do the needful", which I still use. I also grew up many thousands of miles from India. But my favorite Indian expression, which I learned later is to "prepone" something, as in the opposite of to "postpone" something. That one, I genuinely love. Neither of these are slang, like "ute" or "arvo", they're a thoughtful evolution of the language.
I put in the effort for every English accent I've encountered - French, Turkish, Greek, Scottish, Australian, Indian Canadian.
You put in the effort for white people's accents.
But sure, I'm the racist.
Typical isn't it? Indian person complains about racism and you immediately decide that complaining is racist. Says everything I need to know about you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pit0OkNp7s8 This Irish Sheep farmer is my favorite example of a hard to understand Irish accent. I've lived nearby to this location and can attest that it is quite common.
For example, I thought I had a decent handle on Scottish accents. Turns out I don’t, just that all the Scottish people I worked with were anglicising their accents. I only heard their natural accents after we had a few pints. Now I’m working with several Scottish people who don’t change their accent and it is hard. I’m thinking I probably have to watch a few seasons of Outlander to get used to it.
There’s nothing “natural” about any accent. How difficult was the Boston accent the first time you heard it? I needed subtitles for sure. Then I watched several movies set in Boston (Good Will Hunting, The Departed, The Town) and it’s understandable now.
All this to say - you need familiarity to understand and you need to put in effort to gain familiarity. That’s fairly uncontroversial.
Here’s the controversial part - people will put in the effort to understand the accents and dialects of people from Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, America. But if it’s an accent/dialect from India, they say some racist shit about the brown people being unable to speak English.
So yes “Strong Indian accents are very difficult” for you. And now you know why.