I miss Singlish


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digitalbuff

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Aug 18, 2004
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I never thought much about the way Singaporeans (us) speak until i worked overseas. Here in Beijing, I have to think(construct) before saying anything and its quite unnatural.

Recently, I heard a guy speak at the airport here and i knew immediately he was Singaporean. I felt so happy at the familiarity of the "language". I also visited a singapore restaurant opened by singaporeans and the boss is always there. I was eating and I could hear him swear in Hokkien and also speak Singlish. So refreshing.

TO sum up, i really miss speaking like a singaporean, cos that's how we were brought up. Singlish sounds awful as a language but it is close to my heart now i know.
 

Yes, I'm sure a lot of Singaporeans who have stayed overseas for some time can relate to that.
 

jumbocrab said:
Yes, I'm sure a lot of Singaporeans who have stayed overseas for some time can relate to that.
YES!!! One day I ask my staff whether they have 'liquid paper', the whole office looked at me blankly... Until I gesture what 'liquid paper' is, then they understand. In this part of the world, they call it 'tipp ex'. :embrass:
 

Hmm not really.

Met a SG family at a local restaurant here. The way they behave would make anyone embarrassed to be associated with them.

1. Had to sit at 2 different tables, then started yelling across to talk to each other.
2. Asking for discounts and saying that the food was not very tasty.
 

i remember when i was down with food poisoning in Istanbul and was lying almost dead on bed in a hostel. Heard Singaporeans talking outside my room and immediately recognise they were from Singapore. Coincidentally, they were from my school... lucky cos i have no medicine with me.
 

Hitman said:
YES!!! One day I ask my staff whether they have 'liquid paper', the whole office looked at me blankly... Until I gesture what 'liquid paper' is, then they understand. In this part of the world, they call it 'tipp ex'. :embrass:
actually "tipp-ex" was the correction fluid
i used to call it tipp-ex as well. but liquid paper became more popular... lah
 

Hitman said:
YES!!! One day I ask my staff whether they have 'liquid paper', the whole office looked at me blankly... Until I gesture what 'liquid paper' is, then they understand. In this part of the world, they call it 'tipp ex'. :embrass:

It has become so popular that it has become a genericised trademark because the verb to tippex means to erase. (exactly the same thing that happened to Google, Hoover, ....)

180px-TippexOldStyleBottle.jpg
 

When I first came here, i asked what time fang gong 放工 and my staff look at me weirdly. Here they say shang ban 上班,xia ban下班.

We say go work, zuo gong (做工), they say gong zuo (工作)。:dunno:


So actually we speak Singnese too lol
 

Dont worry lah, u can try internet to tune in Singapore radio stations, especially those with ppl call in type, sure got lotsa singlish inside lah, hehe.
 

digitalbuff said:
When I first came here, i asked what time fang gong 放工 and my staff look at me weirdly. Here they say shang ban 上班,xia ban下班.

We say go work, zuo gong (做工), they say gong zuo (工作)。:dunno:

Our chinese language are generally crude compared to mainland China/Taiwan.

上班/下班 is the correct usage, so is 工作.

工字不出头,try not to use it too often.

Cheers
 

Oh I sympathize with you.

When I was working in AU (of all places), I have to speak and pronounciate with extra care, else the Aussie (not Americans, mind you) would have problem understanding.

Gosh, properly constructed English sentences at all times made me felt like working in an office full of English teachers! :sweat:

I still remembered that I had to spell out "character", alphabet by alphabet, as the SG way of pronunciating it was unrecognized by one of the Aussies :bsmilie:
 

Watcher said:
Oh I sympathize with you.

When I was working in AU (of all places), I have to speak and pronounciate with extra care, else the Aussie (not Americans, mind you) would have problem understanding.

Gosh, properly constructed English sentences at all times makes me feel like working in an office full of English teachers! :sweat:

I still remembered that I had to spell out "character", alphabet by alphabet, as the SG way of pronunciating it was unrecognized by one of the Aussies :bsmilie:
When I was living in a small town along the Scotland & England border, they spoke a different english accent, after some time I realized that what they did was to "swop" the vowel (A,E,I,O,U) around and after that I actually started talk like them for a while.
 

Astin said:
When I was living in a small town along the Scotland & England border, they spoke a different english accent, after some time I realized that what they did was to "swop" the vowel (A,E,I,O,U) around and after that I actually started talk like them for a while.

Bot naw yoo con speok Englesh liao! :bsmilie:
 

Singlish is fine, if you know when to switch from proper english/mandarin to Singlish. So long as your message gets across to the listener, it's fine. The problem is when you can only speak in Singlish....;(


The way my nieces speak, you think they teach singlish at school...

Anyway, its nice to speak singlish overseas, cause you don't get that much of a chance to feel at home...
 

Singlish is good, as long as you can speak properly too. When you're overseas, speaking to a Singaporean makes you feel really a lot better.
 

xray said:
Singlish is good, as long as you can speak properly too. When you're overseas, speaking to a Singaporean makes you feel really a lot better.
Yep..very true...especially if you are there alone:)
 

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