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Speak Good English Campaign
Posted: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 9:32 pm
by Jhonny_Lever
Very interesting to see the ad campaign around "Speak Good English". When majority of the private schools in the US are teaching their kids Mandarin. What is really wrong with Singapore English? Is it the accent the government wants to fix?
Posted: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:04 pm
by nakatago
ಠ_ಠ
Posted: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:10 pm
by sundaymorningstaple
Agreed.
Posted: Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:29 am
by richie303
Yep, +2
Posted: Wed, 19 Oct 2011 3:01 pm
by Vaucluse
No, no, no . . . the OP is right. We need a frank discussion on this topic. We've always been too afraid to tackle the complex issues of regionality on this forum.
Carry on.
Posted: Wed, 19 Oct 2011 3:33 pm
by nakatago
Vaucluse wrote:No, no, no . . . the OP is right. We need a frank discussion on this topic. We've always been too afraid to tackle the complex issues of regionality on this forum.
Carry on.
ಠ_ಠ
Posted: Wed, 19 Oct 2011 3:55 pm
by sundaymorningstaple
I see Nak has discovered another use for the Kannada script and I didn't need a Masters to figure it out.
Posted: Wed, 19 Oct 2011 4:05 pm
by nakatago
sundaymorningstaple wrote:I see Nak has discovered another use for the Kannada script and I didn't need a Masters to figure it out.
It's
all over the internet; I just started to bring it here...like what I did with "+1".
Maybe if someone posts something rage-worthy, I could reply with this:
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Posted: Wed, 19 Oct 2011 8:17 pm
by movingtospore
Touche. BUT I will say if they really want to "speak good English" they would "speak English well".
Posted: Wed, 19 Oct 2011 8:29 pm
by nakatago
Posted: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:27 am
by earthfriendly
Singlish, especially the spoken form, may be difficult to understand if you are not used to it. It is the way the words are/aren't being enunciated + the grammatical structure. It has a very distinct accent (southeast asian, chinese malay mixture????). Say you work for an MNC overseas and need to communicate with the SG staff, you have to try to decipher it. It is important to speak standard English, from a business point of view.
However for foreigners living in SG, over time they should be able to grasp the flavor but a lot depends on how linguistically inclined their brains are which I am not. I have lived overseas for over 2 decades and usually speak mandarin with family members back home, so when I am back, I also kenna get tripped up by Singlish and sometimes need them to repeat. But you see, I am linguistically challenged. Trying to switch between English and Mandarin already very taxing for my little brain.
Despite the good efforts of the govt to promote bilingualism, I think most people can only master one language.
Posted: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 2:20 pm
by Vaucluse
earthfriendly wrote:
Despite the good efforts of the govt to promote bilingualism, I think most people can only master one language.
Most Anglos have a problem mastering one as well: English
I'm glad we started this topic!
Posted: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 4:25 pm
by beppi
I speak so many languages, but English is my goodest! (Lah!)
Posted: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 6:33 pm
by Matt-El
beppi wrote:I speak so many languages, but English is my goodest! (Lah!)
True that.
Posted: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 7:41 pm
by JR8
Matt-El wrote:beppi wrote:I speak so many languages, but English is my goodest! (Lah!)
True that.
I nominate this for the most wantonly vacuous post of 2011.
Run along now Matt El, you've got your 5 post threshold to PM.... sigh...
