scrubbedexpat027

Just spent 30 minutes on the phone to TWC to arrange a move and I just couldn't get the woman to understand my phone number. How ever many times I said 8, she said she didn't know what I was saying.

I got to the point where I said "Let's take it slowly. We're having a problem with one number because of my accent. It's not 5. It's not 6. It's not 7 but it is 8"

The response was "So the number's 5-6-7-8?"

Had to give up in the end and I'm going to have to visit a store.

I understand I have an accent but why can everyone at work understand me perfectly?

penguinsix

Just hang up and call back. With big places like that you rarely get the same person at the call center you are talking to in India.

You could also say "Ocho" which is Eight in Spanish. Sometimes that works.

md95065

scrubbedexpat027

Brilliant!! Yeah, it was exactly like that

Bink

I understand your frustration. For the first 2-3 years I was here, every time I'd ask for a diet coke, they thought I said Dr Pepper, or Sprite?! My wife found it hilarious. I gave up trying to order anything and just got her to order instead.

Mummy in the foothills

sorry for laughing, but well it is funny, I think we've all been there.
I used to ask for water in Spanish when I fist got here, then I figured out they say it as wadder. Viola I can ask for it in "merican now.
I tried giving my email address over the phone to someone recently. OMG I wanted to yell at him. So frustrating. I must remember not to watch corrie before spelling out stuff over the phone. Apparently I am back to full Brit for a while after watching

Pulaski

I still get similar issues after eleven years. .... Anything I say ahead of "sweet tea", leads to me getting unsweet tea. So I am trying to fight my natural tendency to follow Mrs P's drink order with either "... And sweet tea for me", or to answer using a sentence: "A sweet tea, please.", and trying to remember to stick to the three word retort "sweet tea please".

robin1234

OK let me get this straight. The waitperson wants your drink order, and you list out the instruments in a string quartet to them?

Bob

Same here. I don't even bother with drive-thru's.

Oh and OnStar, terrible. One saving grace, it also doesn't understand Main-ah's. One time it took almost 2 hours between the missus and I to get it to understand us so we could call her folks because the phone had died and was stuck in traffic so going to be quite late.

Gave up in the end

Zoe Bell

Same in Canada too. It seems to be vowels that they have the problem with a for e that kind of thing.
When you have a first name that has two vowels and only one consonant, well lets just say I get some interesting spellings.
ZOA is the usual , even if I say "e for elephant". I once made the mistake of trying to use the phonetic alphabet, that really confuses them.
My middle name isn't "Oscar"

Pulaski

Are you an African warrior?

Tegwyn

This reminds me of this wee clip on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMS2VnDveP8

scrubbedexpat027

Hilarious. I have the same problem with the Sync system on my car. It's useless to me.

That just made me think. How come I can perfectly understand tons of other accents. (Scouse, Geordie, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, American, etc, etc)? It's not like I've really been surrounded by them growing up. Maybe I just picked it up from TV.

GeoffM

It's annoying when they don't even understand trying to spell phonetically. Not even with common words rather than alpha/beta etc. Can you imagine the trouble I have spelling my name to Americans (and them pronouncing it)?

I have often thought about finding an email service with a suitably short domain name and username that are both hard to mess up.

Zoe Bell

I hate going into food places that ask your name for your order ( even my local Maccy ds has started doing this)
The combination of my accent and their inability to speak English leads to all kind of problems
I started giving a fake name but I cAnt even find one of those that doesn't cause problems.
I tried Jo, they even manage to mess that up !