I wanted to add a couple of suggestions to docsedated's January 27, 2011 remarks to Sirob about passing for Indian-American or Indian-British rather than Indian, particularly as regards accents.
docsedated says "[tell the Swiss girls] you were in Morocco till 9 then moved to NJ". I'd change that to "thirteen". The reason is that age twelve, approximately, is a cutoff time for language and accent acquisition. Up to about age twelve, kids immersed in a new language or dialect or accent will usually acquire it perfectly, and do it semi-unconsciously. Around age twelve, your brain prunes away much of the extra language-learning circuitry that you needed up till then but that--your genome believes--you won't be needing any more. After that point, kids immersed in a new language or dialect are generally only able to learn it imperfectly; if simply immersed in a new accent, they may not bother to pick it up at all. So if Sirob is talking to some Swiss girls and they're sharp-eared enough to pick up on his Indian accent and are somewhat knowledgeable about language acquisition, they're liable to think to themselves, "This guy has been in New Jersey since he was nine and he still has an Indian accent? There must be something really wrong with him."
Now on the other hand, if Sirob can do a reasonably good though not perfect job of faking an American accent, he might be able to stick with the "in New Jersey since age nine" claim when gaming in Switzerland, as long as there aren't any sharp-eared Americans around to expose him.
One other similar comment, regarding docsedated's statement "I[f] you have lived in Bombay till you were 28 you would have a strong Indian accent": I'd rephrase that as "If you've lived in Bombay past early adolescence, you'll normally have a full-on Indian accent". From early adolescence to age 28 the accent isn't going to get any stronger, it's just going to stay the same.
docsedated says "[tell the Swiss girls] you were in Morocco till 9 then moved to NJ". I'd change that to "thirteen". The reason is that age twelve, approximately, is a cutoff time for language and accent acquisition. Up to about age twelve, kids immersed in a new language or dialect or accent will usually acquire it perfectly, and do it semi-unconsciously. Around age twelve, your brain prunes away much of the extra language-learning circuitry that you needed up till then but that--your genome believes--you won't be needing any more. After that point, kids immersed in a new language or dialect are generally only able to learn it imperfectly; if simply immersed in a new accent, they may not bother to pick it up at all. So if Sirob is talking to some Swiss girls and they're sharp-eared enough to pick up on his Indian accent and are somewhat knowledgeable about language acquisition, they're liable to think to themselves, "This guy has been in New Jersey since he was nine and he still has an Indian accent? There must be something really wrong with him."
Now on the other hand, if Sirob can do a reasonably good though not perfect job of faking an American accent, he might be able to stick with the "in New Jersey since age nine" claim when gaming in Switzerland, as long as there aren't any sharp-eared Americans around to expose him.
One other similar comment, regarding docsedated's statement "I[f] you have lived in Bombay till you were 28 you would have a strong Indian accent": I'd rephrase that as "If you've lived in Bombay past early adolescence, you'll normally have a full-on Indian accent". From early adolescence to age 28 the accent isn't going to get any stronger, it's just going to stay the same.