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Accent Reduction Courses Attract Many Immigrants

Sonia Chopra

Over a decade ago, Harish Malhotra, a psychiatrist, was going nuts with his accent. "My patients couldn't understand me. The pharmacists couldn't understand me. I had to spell prescriptions out," he recalled recently. "It was frustrating, time-consuming and embarrassing."

In moments of solitude, Malhotra often fantasized about meeting 'Prof Higgins' (Rex Harrison's character in the movie My Fair Lady who changes Audrey Hepburn's cockney dialect to upper-class English). And Malhotra dreamt that Higgins would help him speak better.

Salvation finally came in a waiting room -- Malhotra was waiting for the end of his son's music lesson. Seated next to him was a lady. They made small talk. He asked her, idly, "What do you do?" She said, "I am a speech therapist." Wide-eyed, he asked, "Like Prof Higgins?" She answered, "Yes, exactly."

They exchanged phone numbers. But it took him two years to make the call. "It changed my whole life," said Malhotra, 54. "No one ever asks me to spell anything out now."

"I remain a student," said Malhotra humbly, who still speaks with a slight Indian accent. Inspired and uplifted by this experience, Malhotra began his own business, Speech Remodelers, Inc, in Summit, New Jersey, which helps immigrants, most of them Indians to reduce their accents and speak clearly. Its services are offered at large corporations like Prudential and in individual classes.

"I wanted to help my fellow countrymen," said Malhotra. "This is a much needed service." He still has his own private practice. Though the speech therapy business is his "passion and hobby," he does not participate in it directly.

Many professional Indians interviewed for this article said they went for accent therapy because of embarrassment suffered at work places.

"They snigger at you when they can't understand something," said Meena, 31, who asked to use only her first name. "They laugh and say, 'oh, you mean this'. .I hated it. I got sick of it. I would laugh along but I was hurt and upset, with my face burning." Meena, who works for publishing company in Manhattan, has just began speech therapy.

"I was tired of people asking me to repeat things." said Ravi Kumar, 30, who works at a computer software service in New Jersey. "I was fed up of them saying, 'What did you say?' and I was self-conscious of speaking up in staff meetings and conferences and I hid in the corner at company parties."

Kumar paid $85 per class for 16 sessions until he was satisfied. Though he still has an Indian accent, he feels his colleagues understand him better.

"Just taking the classes isn't enough. You have to practise, always," Kumar said.

Rebecca Vogelaar, 23, speech therapist for Speech Remodelers, Inc and Kumar's teacher, agrees.

"You have to keep at it, constantly. It's intense work and you have to be focused and determined. If you set yourself goals, you will reach them, slowly but surely."

"It's hard to break the habits of a lifetime," she continues.

Vogelaar said Indians at times chew 'Rs' and 'Ts', and their 'Ds' are not clear. The same goes for 'Vs' and 'Ws'. "For 'v', the tongue has to be placed on the upper teeth and you have to make a vibration and for 'w' it's a different sound, the lips must be rounded and puckered with no contact between the teeth and tongue," Vogelaar explained.

"In the beginning it's overwhelming. But they learn to smile, say their vowels, watch their tongue. As they watch themselves before a mirror and hear themselves on tape, they gain confidence and make strides," said Vogelaar, who has been teaching at Speech Remodelers Inc. since last September.

That's why when Vogelaar teaches students, she uses mirrors to show them how they can speak a certain way and tape recorders to play and replay their speech.

With a set of eight audio tapes, a textbook, taped homework and lots of work -- students take the eight-week course. Some of them take additional courses. Though they speak better and clearer, their native accent never really disappears.

That should not be a problem, says David Stern, PhD, a speech therapist, who has spent 12 years in Hollywood teaching American actors to put on accents for plays and movies.

"There is nothing wrong with having an accent," he said. "But you should work on speech patterns and strive to be clearer and make your voice stronger."

Stern, who teaches drama at the University of Connecticut, has written three books on linguistics and produced 65 tapes -- and also has a website -- from where he makes $250,000 annually in gross sales. He offers a set of three tapes dealing with 25 different accents -- including Indian accent -- which sell for $29.95 each.

Stern, who used to coach actors to put on accents temporarily for movies said he "just has the ear and the passion for linguistics."

He helped Forrest Whitaker acquire black cockney accent in The Crying Game. Sally Field, Darryl Hannah and other women in Steel Magnolias learned the heavy Louisiana accent from him.

"Indians speak very quickly in clipped sentences with no emphasis on syllables and it just throws Americans off-balance,'' said Stern, who has worked with many Indians in Hollywood and in individual speech therapy classes that he used to conduct in Vermont before he settled in Connecticut.

And the intonation for Indian -- which is the melody in the language -- tends to go higher at the end of the sentence, he said.

"Indians say, 'Why are you going there?' Or 'Is the train coming?' with the emphasis on 'there' and the 'coming' -- and with Americans, they go down at the end of the sentence," said Sylvia Amato, 68, who has been a speech therapist for 16 years and has been working with Speech Remodelers, Inc for six years now.

"It's complicated but if spelled out, it can make a tremendous difference, for some people it is easier than others, they have the ear and the talent and they learn quickly," Amato said.

Ajay Mehta, 40, who has the "ear" and the "talent" can change accents with the ease of the chameleon.

"I always had the ear," said Mehta, 40, who has appeared in television sitcoms like Soul Man (ABC) and The Nanny (CBS) and has a big part in Sex in the City (HBO). He is currently in an off-Broadway production called East is East.

"In school I used to imitate teachers. I quickly learnt to put on accents and it helped me," he said.

"If you're determined and willing to work hard anything is possible as is the case with Indian actors. Indians are wonderful. They have a real intuitive flair at dramatics. It must be because they come from a nation of storytellers," said Stephen Gabis, a dialect coach and consultant, who worked with the cast of East is East -- and taught them to put on a Manchester accent. He "tormented and tortured them till they got it right," Gabis said.
Some common words that Indians mispronounce:

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