A Singaporean colleague provided me this sample of what I may have to expect when I teach in Singapore :
Hi Sir. You're the ang moh teacher from Melbourne, is it? If you got
time, give me private tuition, can or not? Alamak! My English so terok,
my teacher also cannot understand. Wah lau, the Singapore garment want
us to speak like Lee Kuan Yew! Where can? Also, where got time to
learn?
My parents so kia su, want me to go to Raffles Junior College. Chee
sin!
Down there, the teachers so chiong hey, use big, big, words, where can
understand? Already, I so blur in Chang Kat Changi Secondary School,
where got hope go to Raffles? My friend mother say you dam good
teacher.
You help me get 8 A in O level, I be your good friend. I got pretty
sister. Also can cook. Wah lau, her laksa is dam shiok! I think you
like
her. I be your pen friend, can or not?
Fabian Oh Ah Beng
*DISCLAIMER* - I've not experienced this kind of English on my trips to Singapore so far. I'm not sure whether this reflects on the people I associate with or the stereotype contained herein. However I did piss myself laughing when I was sent this. As a teacher of English as a Second Language you are occasionally faced with utter garbage, there's no other way to put it. That says nothing about the speaker's intelligence and more about the difficulty of becoming proficient in a second language you didn't learn from childhood. But at times it's either laugh or cry stuff.
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1 comment:
Chee sin! means crazy in Cantonese.
I see it's peppered with Mandarin, Malay, perhaps Hokkien as well! Goodluck. I correct my sister-in-law's English all the time and she doesn't mind because she wants my nephew to learn proper LKY-styled Cambridge English as opposed to Singlish. Just don't fall into the trap of copying how they speak because it's contagious. Instead of very sweet, it's sweet sweet!
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