This heatwave is making me lose my sleep again. Even for someone used to tropical climate, I find the weather unbearably hot, so hot that I wish I can immerse myself into a whole bathtub of ice cubes to cool down!
Except the bathtub has been knocked out. I wish I can just go swimming or even treading water, yet forbidden to do so. Doctor's orders. My entire house is like a furnace, yet going out is worse, as the sun literally burns down on my body.
Apparently my house is not the only one undergoing a massive renovation. Our old house, which is actually an executive condominium apartment, and which my parents still hold on to it to rent out even after they bought this house, is also breaking down, so my dad sent the contractors over to renovate that place entirely too.
I came across a banner promoting the Speak Good English Movement, or SEM for short. Just a thought : ours seems to be the only country that has the Speak Good English Movement, and the Courtesy Campaign. It is like the government has to tell people to speak good English and be couteous, yet their efforts went down the drain.
Clearly, after the recent debate over the standard of our local English, it has been said that in general, the average Singaporean does not speak good (or proper) English. Not just in speech, in writing as well.
Face it, we will never sound like Native speakers no matter how fluent or proficient we are in the language. We are simply not brought up in the culture, and even if three generations of our families speak English, we are still not native English-speakers.
So just how good is considered as "good" or "proper" English? Must we adopt some kind of accent, which in the end may backfire as we will sound very fake? Must we string all our sentences in words of five syllables and write like a TIME reporter?
I must admit, for myself, perhaps I may give others the impression I put on airs at times because honestly, if I hear bad grammar or mispronunciation or "Singlish", I will squirm. And at times when I sit in a coffeeshop and I ordered drinks from the stall owner, he looked at me as if I was speaking to him in double Dutch.
And when I meet new friends and they start speaking Mandarin peppered with Singlish and Hokkien to me, I will reply in a complete English sentence, and sometimes they look at me in awe as if I am some foreigner.
When my mobile was stolen few years back and I had to make a police report, the report came back filled with grammatical and spelling errors, and I actually pointed out all the mistakes to the police officer in charge. He muttered an apology.
Some people will say I am being very mean. I take it as an occupational hazard. I was in a profession where I had to correct grammar, spelling and vocabulary. I had to edit and sometimes massacre compositions and essays. Then I went to another profession, where again, I had to spot mistakes in grammar, vocabulary, terminology and sentencing.
But it was probably due to my background too. I was in a school where everyone spoke perfect English. Since primary school, we were told to use three syllable words to form sentences, even in lower primary. Where other Primary One kids learnt sentencing by using "I love cats" or "I ate an apple", my school made us use "I adore felines" or "I polished off a red apple".
When I was in upper Primary, someone used the word "impotent" and I asked my teacher what is "impotent". The rest of my class laughed at my silly question, but at that point in time, I had no idea what was so funny about my question. And I was in a secondary school where English and Literature are compulsory subjects for streaming.
After that, I continued being in an English-speaking environment. Law students and English majors speak only perfect and "powderful" English, nothing less. So having been educated that way, when I first went out into the heartlands for the first time, my ears suffered the brunt of poor English speakers and vulgar dialects.
I am never considered as someone powerful in the language. Speech wise, there are many others better than me. Writing wise, the same. There are so many better writers than me. Even for hearing wise, sometimes in movies, if there are no subtitles, I may not be able to understand certain parts of what the actor was saying.
But the concern is that through the generations where bilingual education is emphasised, students turn out none the wiser in either language. If anything, it seems that judging from the standard of English in major examinations, there are complaints that the standard is dropping, instead of getting better.
One reason can be the lack of reading. Kids nowadays prefer watching television and playing games than reading. And in reading, I do not mean reading comics alone. How many people nowadays, even for adults my age, are willing to read books by Oscar Wilde? Or Charles Dickens?
When I tell people I read these books, they look at me as if I am an alien. Worse is when I say my favourite author is William Shakespeare, they no longer want to associate with me as they take it like I am some kind of psycho. Wonder how their reactions will be like if I tell them I ever read the unabridged version of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales"?
Another reason is the lack of exposure. Teachers can do all they can in schools, but once outside school, if the kids are not exposed to the language, they will not be able to use it. If the parents are non-English speakers, then the kids may end up this way too.
But then again, I have seen some kids who speak and write the best English, yet their parents are non-English speakers too. Perhaps it is all to do with an indivdual's initiative and discipline.
Another reason can be the use of colloqualism, or what some countries call pidgin English, and technology lingo. I have seen some students actually writing an entire composition in MSN or SMS lingo. And when I graded them an all-time low, they told me that this was how they always write their words!
A friend once told me I should cut down on my language. Just what does he mean by "cut down"? I need to improve my language usage, not cut down! He quoted the example of when in Rome, do as Romans do.
So in order to "fit in", I have to speak and behave like "normal" people. As in I have to start speaking more Singlish, peppered with Mandarin and dialect, start dressing like a middle-aged lady in oversized T-shirts and bermudas with my nerdy glasses when I eat at coffeeshops, and talk about the same topics.
What same topics I wonder? Girls talk about money, men, sex, shopping and fashion and how to hook the richest men. Guys talk about (and sometimes whine about) girls, girls, girls, and why some girls just cannot accept them.
Can people not hold any decent conversation regarding religion, or classics, or world affairs, or environment or artistic movies, or musicals?
The thing is I do not believe I need to start speaking badly in order to get any attention whatsoever. I was brought up to speak properly and fluently. Even vulgarities are an ear sore, because my parents never allowed me to use words like "shit", "bitch", "slut", let alone the F-word. So I still cringe whenever I hear people spouting vulgarities at every alternate word.
Perhaps the standard of the language is dropping may be due to the fact that generally, people do not watch themselves anymore. There is more freedom of speech, and for convenience sake, people will get the message across in the least amount of words possible, thereby killing the entire language altogether.
And honestly, our standard of English is really nothing to be proud of. Even for people of my generation, let alone those younger. My Australian cousins sometimes correct my pronunciation too.
But if people are going to have this mentality that it does not matter and speaking proper English is uncool, and those so-called literate people are geeks and not to be associated with, then we will never improve.
The effort has to come from everyone, to improve our usage of English in both speech and writing. Parents have to take the time to educate their children, and if the parents are non-English speakers, at least make the effort to engage a tutor or expose them in the language, rather than telling the child to give up if the child finds the language difficult.
And teachers themselves must be equipped to teach the language properly. The thing about primary school teaching is that anyone is supposed to teach any subject. Some teachers can be Mathematics majors, and not that proficient in English, yet made to teach English. And real English teachers were made to teach Mathematics and Science, which could be subjects they were not proficient in.
But overall, the effort has to come from the self. I was not born speaking English too. My parents were Chinese-educated, except they opted to go to an English-medium university, so they managed to grasp the language, albeit their pronunciation and usage is still a bit off at times.
When I went to school, it was a full culture shock for me. I struggled to find all the difficult words to use. My first year in primary school, English was my weakest subject, and Chinese was my strongest, believe it or not.
But from Primary Two onwards all the way until I finished school, it became the other way round. I put in the effort to master the language, and I am still mastering. Still trying to improve, still finding more synonyms to use.
What I am trying to say is that if even someone like me, who is linguistically weaker than a lot of others, can master a language, so can most others. It all depends on whether they want to put in the effort.
And if native Indonesian speakers can speak and write such good English, all better than me, then I do not see why local Singaporeans who are educated in the language since young cannot do it.
Except the bathtub has been knocked out. I wish I can just go swimming or even treading water, yet forbidden to do so. Doctor's orders. My entire house is like a furnace, yet going out is worse, as the sun literally burns down on my body.
Apparently my house is not the only one undergoing a massive renovation. Our old house, which is actually an executive condominium apartment, and which my parents still hold on to it to rent out even after they bought this house, is also breaking down, so my dad sent the contractors over to renovate that place entirely too.
I came across a banner promoting the Speak Good English Movement, or SEM for short. Just a thought : ours seems to be the only country that has the Speak Good English Movement, and the Courtesy Campaign. It is like the government has to tell people to speak good English and be couteous, yet their efforts went down the drain.
Clearly, after the recent debate over the standard of our local English, it has been said that in general, the average Singaporean does not speak good (or proper) English. Not just in speech, in writing as well.
Face it, we will never sound like Native speakers no matter how fluent or proficient we are in the language. We are simply not brought up in the culture, and even if three generations of our families speak English, we are still not native English-speakers.
So just how good is considered as "good" or "proper" English? Must we adopt some kind of accent, which in the end may backfire as we will sound very fake? Must we string all our sentences in words of five syllables and write like a TIME reporter?
I must admit, for myself, perhaps I may give others the impression I put on airs at times because honestly, if I hear bad grammar or mispronunciation or "Singlish", I will squirm. And at times when I sit in a coffeeshop and I ordered drinks from the stall owner, he looked at me as if I was speaking to him in double Dutch.
And when I meet new friends and they start speaking Mandarin peppered with Singlish and Hokkien to me, I will reply in a complete English sentence, and sometimes they look at me in awe as if I am some foreigner.
When my mobile was stolen few years back and I had to make a police report, the report came back filled with grammatical and spelling errors, and I actually pointed out all the mistakes to the police officer in charge. He muttered an apology.
Some people will say I am being very mean. I take it as an occupational hazard. I was in a profession where I had to correct grammar, spelling and vocabulary. I had to edit and sometimes massacre compositions and essays. Then I went to another profession, where again, I had to spot mistakes in grammar, vocabulary, terminology and sentencing.
But it was probably due to my background too. I was in a school where everyone spoke perfect English. Since primary school, we were told to use three syllable words to form sentences, even in lower primary. Where other Primary One kids learnt sentencing by using "I love cats" or "I ate an apple", my school made us use "I adore felines" or "I polished off a red apple".
When I was in upper Primary, someone used the word "impotent" and I asked my teacher what is "impotent". The rest of my class laughed at my silly question, but at that point in time, I had no idea what was so funny about my question. And I was in a secondary school where English and Literature are compulsory subjects for streaming.
After that, I continued being in an English-speaking environment. Law students and English majors speak only perfect and "powderful" English, nothing less. So having been educated that way, when I first went out into the heartlands for the first time, my ears suffered the brunt of poor English speakers and vulgar dialects.
I am never considered as someone powerful in the language. Speech wise, there are many others better than me. Writing wise, the same. There are so many better writers than me. Even for hearing wise, sometimes in movies, if there are no subtitles, I may not be able to understand certain parts of what the actor was saying.
But the concern is that through the generations where bilingual education is emphasised, students turn out none the wiser in either language. If anything, it seems that judging from the standard of English in major examinations, there are complaints that the standard is dropping, instead of getting better.
One reason can be the lack of reading. Kids nowadays prefer watching television and playing games than reading. And in reading, I do not mean reading comics alone. How many people nowadays, even for adults my age, are willing to read books by Oscar Wilde? Or Charles Dickens?
When I tell people I read these books, they look at me as if I am an alien. Worse is when I say my favourite author is William Shakespeare, they no longer want to associate with me as they take it like I am some kind of psycho. Wonder how their reactions will be like if I tell them I ever read the unabridged version of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales"?
Another reason is the lack of exposure. Teachers can do all they can in schools, but once outside school, if the kids are not exposed to the language, they will not be able to use it. If the parents are non-English speakers, then the kids may end up this way too.
But then again, I have seen some kids who speak and write the best English, yet their parents are non-English speakers too. Perhaps it is all to do with an indivdual's initiative and discipline.
Another reason can be the use of colloqualism, or what some countries call pidgin English, and technology lingo. I have seen some students actually writing an entire composition in MSN or SMS lingo. And when I graded them an all-time low, they told me that this was how they always write their words!
A friend once told me I should cut down on my language. Just what does he mean by "cut down"? I need to improve my language usage, not cut down! He quoted the example of when in Rome, do as Romans do.
So in order to "fit in", I have to speak and behave like "normal" people. As in I have to start speaking more Singlish, peppered with Mandarin and dialect, start dressing like a middle-aged lady in oversized T-shirts and bermudas with my nerdy glasses when I eat at coffeeshops, and talk about the same topics.
What same topics I wonder? Girls talk about money, men, sex, shopping and fashion and how to hook the richest men. Guys talk about (and sometimes whine about) girls, girls, girls, and why some girls just cannot accept them.
Can people not hold any decent conversation regarding religion, or classics, or world affairs, or environment or artistic movies, or musicals?
The thing is I do not believe I need to start speaking badly in order to get any attention whatsoever. I was brought up to speak properly and fluently. Even vulgarities are an ear sore, because my parents never allowed me to use words like "shit", "bitch", "slut", let alone the F-word. So I still cringe whenever I hear people spouting vulgarities at every alternate word.
Perhaps the standard of the language is dropping may be due to the fact that generally, people do not watch themselves anymore. There is more freedom of speech, and for convenience sake, people will get the message across in the least amount of words possible, thereby killing the entire language altogether.
And honestly, our standard of English is really nothing to be proud of. Even for people of my generation, let alone those younger. My Australian cousins sometimes correct my pronunciation too.
But if people are going to have this mentality that it does not matter and speaking proper English is uncool, and those so-called literate people are geeks and not to be associated with, then we will never improve.
The effort has to come from everyone, to improve our usage of English in both speech and writing. Parents have to take the time to educate their children, and if the parents are non-English speakers, at least make the effort to engage a tutor or expose them in the language, rather than telling the child to give up if the child finds the language difficult.
And teachers themselves must be equipped to teach the language properly. The thing about primary school teaching is that anyone is supposed to teach any subject. Some teachers can be Mathematics majors, and not that proficient in English, yet made to teach English. And real English teachers were made to teach Mathematics and Science, which could be subjects they were not proficient in.
But overall, the effort has to come from the self. I was not born speaking English too. My parents were Chinese-educated, except they opted to go to an English-medium university, so they managed to grasp the language, albeit their pronunciation and usage is still a bit off at times.
When I went to school, it was a full culture shock for me. I struggled to find all the difficult words to use. My first year in primary school, English was my weakest subject, and Chinese was my strongest, believe it or not.
But from Primary Two onwards all the way until I finished school, it became the other way round. I put in the effort to master the language, and I am still mastering. Still trying to improve, still finding more synonyms to use.
What I am trying to say is that if even someone like me, who is linguistically weaker than a lot of others, can master a language, so can most others. It all depends on whether they want to put in the effort.
And if native Indonesian speakers can speak and write such good English, all better than me, then I do not see why local Singaporeans who are educated in the language since young cannot do it.
4 comments:
I always believe there is always time & place for certain thing. IMHO speaking perfect english to the kopi auntie .. may not be a good idea and may get yourself misunderstood :P.. there is time to blend in and fit in. There is also time to standout (i.e during meeting, in jobs, exam etc) . It's not always cut and dry unfortunately.
IMHO balancing act is needed :-)
As one who speaks in a very distinct style - a deliberate and complete enunciation, not out of pretension, but because it is the way I speak. I am often told I have a hint of a British accent (despite having learned English in Canada). I also rarely use contractions (they are more frequent in my prose than my speech) and I do not swear.
I can empathize with having difficulty in fitting in speech-wise (and in many other ways).
The language which you deem so vulgar is just that - vulgar (coming from the Latin Vulgus meaning of the common people). While I cringe at sloppiness in language, barbarisms and tortured constructs, the truth is that language evolves and there is no formal official correct version of the language (unless you wish to switch to French :-)
While you may decry the way your people persecute the English language, the truth is that they are no worse than others who speak several languages.
The English you speak (and I speak), the Spanish my wife speaks, is an elitist language. A language of the minority, not of the vulgar majority. Now, I do not speak the way I do because I want to be a snob, but rather because it affords me the precision and clarity I want in expressing myself. However, I am also aware that my speech can easily be misconstrued if I were to say, "We request that people refrain from ejaculations during the debate." or "I am feeling gay today." or "I am just going to step outside and fetch some faggots" or "I have been running around like a madman all day and am completely fagged."
The worst degradation of the language is coming from SMS (which I do not use). My reading speed slows to a crawl as I try to decipher what is written.
Of course, none of this is new. Over the centuries many words and phrases have been bastardized. Many immigrants coming to Canada in the early days had their names changed because the people at the ports misspelled them. Or a priest registering a birth spelled the name wrong. Place locations like Kingston are contractions of King's Town.
Correct people gently, stick to your guns and speak the way you do, comforting yourself in the knowledge that in some time hence, the English you speak will be as obsolete and strange to the ears as that of Shakespeare's.
BTW, I am very impressed by the quality of Singaporean English. There are a number of Singaporean blogs I visit and while the quality varies, it shows that English is a well known and understood language among your people. You have less to cringe about than you think.
Gus : I'm trying to balance as well. I'm not as judgmental as before, and I do speak a bit of Singlish lately, whent he situation calls for it.
Richard : The blogs you visited probably belong to those who have a strong command of the language. It can really be an earsore if you go down to the heartlands and hear how the real average Singaporean speaks.
After my stint in Japan, I have began to feel that the word "native" has to be better defined when it comes to describing a speaker of a language.
I may be a native Indonesian speaker by the simple definition of "born and raised in that language", but my English is much better than my Bahasa. Just like there are people who live in New York whose English is worse than the coffe shop auntie.
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