Sunday, August 06, 2006

Jiang3 Hao3 de4 ying1 wen2(Speak good English)

No doubt the singapore government is spending the taxpayer's money on promoting 'speak good English campaign', it does potray a necessity to bring on the such awareness.
People should not get confused that it is rather trying to promote that Singaporeans should speak English with an accent/twang into it. For as long as one is able to bring on the message in a clearly pronounced wordings and well-structured sentences, that's probably all you need on that.
Just a little something to share on my 'English experience':
English has been my worst subjects since Primary 5. Partly because I hate the English teacher and she hates me too. That's what I gathered as a 11 year old school girl. From then onwards, I stopped reading and practising on my oral tests. Until my PSLE, I thought I was going to fail my English indefinitely coz I suffered from a bad case of sore throat on the day of English oral exam.
I was on the verge of breaking down and hate to think that for sure I'll get penalised heavily for not saying those words correctly.
Eventually, I got a 'C' and 'As' for rest of subjects. What can I say as I've tried my best.

First day of Uni was abit of catch 22. I found myself surrounded by a whole bunch of ozzies.Then you start to realise that the importance of communicating good and unstandable English to your fellow mates. Otherwise, you will find yourself being' isolated' in another world. At this point, I'm glad Singapore has made English as the first language. Most Ozzies are so surprised that we do learn English and we've learnt it well!

I don't condemn Singlish. After all, it is one of the significant 'signs' of Singapore culture. or trademark perhaps.

There is always a time for Singlish, a time for proper English.

*note: my ending is abit abrupt on this entry as my eyes are closing -_-

3 comments:

Rachel said...

My ang moh hubby thinks Singlish is cute. He knows that most S'poreans can speak proper English but choose instead to speak singlish because it is 'cool' in Singapore. He feels it is similar to how the African Americans like to use language like in da 'hood to feel like they belong.
Hmm times like these I love my hubby ! He is so understanding :D He also tries to learn some Singlish, of course he sounds silly when he tries to speak it. Maybe if we live there one day he will sound more 'local'.

Anonymous said...

Aye... totally agree with you.

Flatfeet said...

Rach: Your hubby is soooo cute! Eh must make him speak Singlish to me next time. Maybe afterwards, can promote him to learn a few typical hokkiens.*peace*

Spiro: howdy dude!Of course u sure agree with me ;p It would be a different story if it's 'speaking good mandarin' right? hurhur