This immersion program is a great opportunity to continue to study Singlish. I have been fascinated by this ‘language’ since I have moved to Singapore, and now that I spend so much time with my students everyday, I can make observations and start to see patterns.
As a communication teacher, I hope that my understanding of Singlish can help me help them write/speak English better. I have nothing against Singlish – I think it is an important part of Singaporean culture. However, when we are talking about Business Communication, it is important to speak English well.
For this post, I am focusing on four issues.
Inventing Words
One of my students loves to tell really long stories, which I find hilarious and a prime chance to study the way she speaks. I started to notice that there are certain phrases that she uses over and over. At first I thought it was a Mandarin phrase (slang), but I could not figure out what it was on my own. When I asked her, she told me it was slang, and then told me how to spell it.
Hokkien, I thought.
When I finally had the chance to look up the word in the dictionary, I could not find such a word. After telling her this, she said, “no! it is not Hokkien, it is just a word that I made up. My group uses it. The government tells us to be innovative, so we come up with our own way of speaking”. She was not being serious.
I have had a couple of meals with her ‘group’, and for most native English speakers (even if you have some Mandarin), it would be every hard to understand. They speak fast, and mix several languages, including their own words! It is hilarious, but it can be really hard to understand. There have been several instances where they will ask me something, and my reply is “I don’t understand”. They then repeat the question in Mandarin.
Aready
If you have spent time in Singapore, you will notice the ‘aready’ (already/all ready). Some of my students use it all the time, and it usually does not make sense, or is redundant. Some example sentences:
“Can go aready is it?”
“I finish aready”
“Don’t want to go aready”
“I walked around all day, die aready”
When I hear this word in a sentence that does not require it, I ask them why they used it. They never know…just part of they way they speak.
Never mind
I hear ‘never mind’ a lot, which is probably like my ‘don’t worry about it’ (if you know me, you’ll know that I tend to say that a lot). The problem here, however, is that the meaning is not always clear. Let me give you an example:
Me: Do we have a meeting today?
Boss: Yeah, but never mind.
Eh? Does this mean I have to go, but the meeting won’t be that bad, or does this mean I don’t have to go?
When the meaning is clear, the word still stands out because they use it a lot.
Don’t Waste Time with Extra Words
One of the keys to Singlish is shortening everything as much as possible. In some cases, this can be a single word in place of a while sentence. Other times, it is a sound.
“Do want this?”
“Uhh”
The one word phrase that my students use all the time is “then”.
Student: “Teacher, Internet got problem”
Me: “Tell the guy at the front desk”
Student: “Then?:
Me: “Hopefully he will send someone to fix it”
Student: “Then?’
Or something like that. The point is that they don’t feel the need to speak more than they have to, and sometimes it is really funny (am I being mean?).
Reduplication
This one is fun. My students will often just repeat adjectives when describing something. For example – “I love those. The small small kind”.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The “already” in Singlish just indicates a change of state. “Can go is it?” would not be wrong, but it’s usual to denote the fact that the conditions have changed. “I finish aready” (= 我做完了) requires “already” because it isn’t using the English past tense. Similar reasons apply for the other two sentences.
BTW, I’ve been enjoying your perspective on Singapore as a visitor. Hope you’re having a great time here.
Great blog you have here. The repeating of adjectives is adopted from the Malay language whereby adjectives are repeated to create emphasis. In your example above, a native english speaker would be more inclined to say ‘very small’ (for emphasis) whereas a native malay speaker would say ’small small’. A Singaporean is likely able to both, depending on circumstance (i.e. code switch).