Class 95 news news news - Singlish

[Andaiz]

SGoku:

Today morning topic is able Singlish. Should we Singaporean change and learn proper English or we can stick to our own Singlish?


I admit i do not speak or write proper English but i am doing my best to improve on it. What are your views?

For work and/or other official stuff, proper English is expected. Don't have to be Queen's English, just something simple and understandable.
I've often been told I don't sound Singaporean in my accent :roll: (so there IS an accent, for crying out loud!)...but I know I need to speak my Singlish to the taxi driver, my fav kopi tiam auntie or I'd never be understood....imagine:

Me: Excuse me, I'd like to have my tea with evaporated milk, go easy on the sugar please.... :stupid:

or
Me: Auntie, wo yao teh si siu dai :celebrate:

Of course she'd understand the latter and I get my teh si pronto! :lol:

[SGoku]

so true. Sometime i talk to the Nasi Lemak Chinese Aunty.....1 Nasi Lemak Sa Tu Taar Bao please.


1 = number
Nasi Lemak - Malay food
Sa Tu - i say 1 already but add malay number 1 behind too
Taar Bao - Take away

Note that she is a Chinese lady.

Sometime she gave me extra ingredients.. :lol:

[schellen]

SGoku:

so true. Sometime i talk to the Nasi Lemak Chinese Aunty.....1 Nasi Lemak Sa Tu Taar Bao please.


1 = number
Nasi Lemak - Malay food
Sa Tu - i say 1 already but add malay number 1 behind too
Taar Bao - Take away

Note that she is a Chinese lady.

Sometime she gave me extra ingredients.. :lol:

Can you imagine if I want to add \"sotong\" to my nasi padang but said \"squid\" instead? :lol:

[SGoku]

:lol:


Yeah...Aunty will ask you \"Squat what? \"

[csc]

I have more tolerance for singlish than fake 'angmoh' accents. The latter literally give me the goose bumps.

[turquoise]

I am for good, grammatically sound and properly-pronounced English. The accent doesn’t matter. But the English has to be proper. You can sound Singaporean and still speak proper English.


What gets my goat is when they get these Australians to voice over on tv and they mangle our Singapore words. For eg., the trailer on football: "Bucket Gum-back!" instead of Bukit Gombak. For goodness sakes. pronounce Malay words as they should be pronounced. The producers ought to be shot for allowing our local names to be mispronounced so badly.

[joconde]

To me, it’s fine to use singapore style vocab occasionally, eg tao pao (take away), jia luck (severe), etc. What I feel needs to be improved is the way we construct our sentences. The way some singaporeans speak is really terrible. Eg : Everytime always like tat one. Bus want to come already, you faster lah. Like tat can or not ? She got give you the ticket ?


In fact not only English, the way we speak Chinese is also very bad. I have a friend who grew up from China/HK comments that she had a hard time getting used to the way we speak chinese when she first came here. She is surprised at how limited our vocab is, and our lack of ability to express ourselves clearly. We tend to simply our sentences and use only basic , general terms to describe everything. Eg, when it comes to using 量词, we use 一个 for everything. When we dun know the proper name for an object, we simply say 哪个黑黑的, 那个扁扁的. Just look at the way we speak when Ch8 TV news interview people on the street. Then compare how those commoners from China, HK or Taiwan speak on their TV news interviews. Not only they use proper language, they are also far more eloquent than us. Even China low-educated peasant can express their views much better than us.

On the whole, I conclude that we singporeans just dun appreciate the beauty of language. We are simply too lazy when it comes to speech and don’t bother to expressing ourselves clearly.

[Andaiz]

joconde:

Just look at the way we speak when Ch8 TV news interview people on the street. Then compare how those commoners from China, HK or Taiwan speak on their TV news interviews. Not just they use proper language, they are also far more eloquent than us. Even China low-educated peasant can express their views much better than us.

Well, there's less confusion in China/HK coz their first language is Chinese (not necessary Mandarin or pu tong hua)/Cantonese. Just think back to our childhood - we probably spoke our Mother's dialect, a smattering of Malay to our friends next door, and English at School. That's the beauty of growing up in a Cultural melting pot! :celebrate:

Yes, we could do a better job in enunciating our words and speaking a good language (grammar, sentence construction and all) - whether in English or Mandarin

[buds]

joconde:

On the whole, I conclude that we singporeans just dun appreciate the beauty of language. We are simply too lazy when it comes to speech and don't bother to expressing ourselves clearly.

Ermmm... i'm not included in the whole, okie!
I'm never too lazy when it comes to expressing
myself... sometimes too clearly...

[en107rn.01056yahoo.01056com.01056sg]

I would rather opt for inter-changeability. It is highly dependent on who I am talking or writing to. Proper English with good pronounciation and enunciation when I am doing serious business meeting.


Among friends, depending again which group of friends. If they speak proper English, I use proper English. If the friends speak Singlish, I join the fun Singlish with Singapore accent. The lah, the lor, jia luck, wah lao, bo pian, auntie ahh, 1 kopi etc.

Often in unknown environment (can’t gauge my audience), I’ll be myself which usually prompted people to ask are you not local or which country are you from. So, that kind of question will make me just change my tune to suit the person I am talking to.

Make the person I talk to feel at ease talking to me mah…