lordie
New member
they got boobs and ass macam beyonce? take video and post pls! no proof no talk!
Beyonce Says Singaporeans' English Suck
- Thread starter hecklerkoch
- Start date
they got boobs and ass macam beyonce? take video and post pls! no proof no talk!
Accesscoms
New member
actually ... thinking about it .... theres no way to know that the front row crowd are 100% local singlishers ... there could be arigatoes, sawadekraps, etc lol
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lordie
New member
i take both in 3some. \m/
tannerism
New member
well honestly, my sisters were like.. quite a great number of Singaporeans speak the way Ris Low does..
but certainly not All of us rightt.
i mean..boomz..gins..bigini (alamak)
anyways Beyonce is just being a typical American la.
they think they speak such good english.
pls. firstly, black english aint proper english.
the slangs they use and all
and even the whites, they always commit grammatical errors without realising it.
but certainly not All of us rightt.
i mean..boomz..gins..bigini (alamak)
anyways Beyonce is just being a typical American la.
they think they speak such good english.
pls. firstly, black english aint proper english.
the slangs they use and all
and even the whites, they always commit grammatical errors without realising it.
blueprintstudios
New member
most impt of all , be understood. speak people's language. that's the universal key to all efficient communication.
I only try to speak better english than I should or attempt to put up a disgusting fake accent when angmohs have that stupid look on their face which they have no idea what you're talking about.
I simply love japanese-english, it's like a kind of english which they try to get something serious across to you yet you can't help but find it amusing and at the same time try to understand them. it's a beautiful thing to have both parties trying with all their heart to understand each other.
Language was invented I believe for communication. and one is judged based on "impressing with command of language" rather than understanding the speaker's true intentions, then the "listener" a.k.a Beyonce or whoever else is "highclass/atas" feels bad english speaker means "not worth your attention". then they're probably not worth your attention either cos they're not giving a shit about what you have in mind but how you speak it. It's a little hard for me to describe into simpler examples apart from this :
Music, is communication.
1) Amazingly talented kid , dressed in rags with cheap copy budget guitar and small amp but plays the guitar really really well
VS
2) bornwithgoldenspoon kid, designer rockstar clothes and $5digit guitar + amps but plays basic crap
1)'s playing (intentions) is great but his sound (command of language) is bad cos of his poor family background/environment/upbringing
2)'s playing is no big deal, but his sound is really great cos of the gear he uses cos his rich dad can afford to pay for the "ideal" environment.
so it's not 1)'s fault that his "sound (command of language)" is bad is it?
so am I right to say that Unrealistically if everyone of us were born and raised in the royal palace of england. we'd have perfect english? but realistically, we all have different upbringings and society, we can't blame those who speak crap english neither can we blame those who try to encourage the use of "proper english" (By what ISO standards I don't know.)
I believe Beyonce has probably been misquoted from the "chain of command" unless there was actual footage/recordings of her saying it.
I only try to speak better english than I should or attempt to put up a disgusting fake accent when angmohs have that stupid look on their face which they have no idea what you're talking about.
I simply love japanese-english, it's like a kind of english which they try to get something serious across to you yet you can't help but find it amusing and at the same time try to understand them. it's a beautiful thing to have both parties trying with all their heart to understand each other.
Language was invented I believe for communication. and one is judged based on "impressing with command of language" rather than understanding the speaker's true intentions, then the "listener" a.k.a Beyonce or whoever else is "highclass/atas" feels bad english speaker means "not worth your attention". then they're probably not worth your attention either cos they're not giving a shit about what you have in mind but how you speak it. It's a little hard for me to describe into simpler examples apart from this :
Music, is communication.
1) Amazingly talented kid , dressed in rags with cheap copy budget guitar and small amp but plays the guitar really really well
VS
2) bornwithgoldenspoon kid, designer rockstar clothes and $5digit guitar + amps but plays basic crap
1)'s playing (intentions) is great but his sound (command of language) is bad cos of his poor family background/environment/upbringing
2)'s playing is no big deal, but his sound is really great cos of the gear he uses cos his rich dad can afford to pay for the "ideal" environment.
so it's not 1)'s fault that his "sound (command of language)" is bad is it?
so am I right to say that Unrealistically if everyone of us were born and raised in the royal palace of england. we'd have perfect english? but realistically, we all have different upbringings and society, we can't blame those who speak crap english neither can we blame those who try to encourage the use of "proper english" (By what ISO standards I don't know.)
I believe Beyonce has probably been misquoted from the "chain of command" unless there was actual footage/recordings of her saying it.
Whitestrat
New member
Good english isn't about accents. It's about diction. How clear your words are. Regardless of accent. The words actually have a proper method of prounciation, and it's to do with Phoenics. The dictionary actually does teach you how to pronounce words specifically. Accents actually spoil those words in some cases. Australians squeeze the wrong vowels, and "No" becomes "Noe". Americans pronouce "Preh-zentation" while the English pronounce it as "Pree-sentation".
Singlish is actually bad mainly because it inhibits your ability to communicate with the outside world. Yes, it's a local flavour, but it's something that doesn't require teaching. You'll pick it up on the streets.
We generally have an average grasp of languages in Singapore, be it English or Mandarin. But You'll find that just being average makes us not so ideal when dealing with the Chinese or the English due to the limited vocabulary for either language (yes, our vocabulary is VERY limited, have no doubt). But it does allow us to have some footing in both cultures.
However, you'd be surprised at how many well-educated people I've met where they have a poor grasp of language skills, especially in communicating their points across. So many mis-pronounced words and poorly constructed sentences are flooding our work-communities everyday.
MaCcA
New member
When i said slang i didn't mean accent. I meant informal words and expressions, which in Singapore's context would be Singlish.
I personally think this topic is making us out to be worse than we actually are. I'm not super old but been working and out there enough to at least see that my colleagues have no problems communicating in proper english most. Well even in school I dare say people speak proper english.
Just read all the posts in this thread so far, is our english really that bad?
I personally think this topic is making us out to be worse than we actually are. I'm not super old but been working and out there enough to at least see that my colleagues have no problems communicating in proper english most. Well even in school I dare say people speak proper english.
Just read all the posts in this thread so far, is our english really that bad?
Whitestrat
New member
That's a good point. Thing is, many people I've come across seem to have a good command of written english. but when in conversation, the problems begin to appear.
I understand now what you mean in your previous post. Yes, slang is a problem. For us, when we say "Shake Leg", we mean to sit there and do nothing. Or the hokkien version being "Bua Long Long". But to the english, they don't understand this. To them, it's "Shake A Leg" which means "To Hurry Up"! But many Singaporeans seem to have absorbed our own slang, and have incorporated them into their form of English, not realising that it's actually slang.
Plus, the black vernacular english we hear many Americans speak, isn't taught in schools either. But the media perpetuates it, and we begin to believe that it's cool.
Ain't it right? DAWG? Amen to that brutha!
Hahahaha...
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Whitestrat
New member
you're so right... I was actually shocked when I corresponded with some of them for work... Can't even spell correctly... ouch.
I can! C-O-R-R-E-C-T-L-Y. "Correctly". Haha. But to use Queen's English all the time...
Singlish, with its subject-verb compression - eg, "you want or not?" instead of "Do you want this (insert object here) or not?" - actually gets to the point faster, don't you think?
And Beyonce would have to say, "Are you having a good time?" Instead of "Y'all havin' a good time?"
Singlish, with its subject-verb compression - eg, "you want or not?" instead of "Do you want this (insert object here) or not?" - actually gets to the point faster, don't you think?
And Beyonce would have to say, "Are you having a good time?" Instead of "Y'all havin' a good time?"
i can see 2 ironies from 2 different perspectives:
1. a group of people schooled in queen's english needing someone schooled in americanised english (and using heavy slang) to tell them that their command of the language is poor.
2. someone schooled in americanised english (and using heavy slang) telling a group of people schooled in queen's english that their command of the language is poor.
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Bad English
Yes, most Singaporeans speak bad English. I have two Americans engineers working in my company and they totally amazed the way we Singaporeans speak so called 'English'. They could only understand 30% of what we speak.
I am also amazed hearing a few engineers who are chinese nationals speaking better English than our loical graduates. I think it is high time we Singaporens start to speak properly. In English there are no such terms as
" sometimes can sometimes cannot"
"You don't say me I don't say you"
" my people not like that one"
" try and try don't know why cannot"
We should forget the old saying" as long as you can understand what I am saying that's good enough".
Come on SOfties, Beyonce is 100% right and we are wrong.
Yes, most Singaporeans speak bad English. I have two Americans engineers working in my company and they totally amazed the way we Singaporeans speak so called 'English'. They could only understand 30% of what we speak.
I am also amazed hearing a few engineers who are chinese nationals speaking better English than our loical graduates. I think it is high time we Singaporens start to speak properly. In English there are no such terms as
" sometimes can sometimes cannot"
"You don't say me I don't say you"
" my people not like that one"
" try and try don't know why cannot"
We should forget the old saying" as long as you can understand what I am saying that's good enough".
Come on SOfties, Beyonce is 100% right and we are wrong.
unfortunately its true. as a pr in the army from uk.. i have no idea what anybody is saying.. even the emails and talking on the phone is a big hassle because the command of english is not so good, however it was not so good for beyonce to generalize all singaporeans there are a majority who have an excellent command of english.
AgingYouth
New member
Some of the members have confused the term 'accent' with 'slang'. There's a difference.
Oh, by the way, Maria Ozawa has been spotted in town before. Details in PM!!!
Oh, by the way, Maria Ozawa has been spotted in town before. Details in PM!!!
Backagain
Yes, most Singaporeans speak poor English. I have two Americans working in my company and they told me that they only understood 30% of the conversation with our Singapore colleagues. Most people misinterprete the word Singlish. Bad English is not Singlish. Singlish is you add the words la,lor and sometimes malay lingo into the conversation. Poor English is poor grammar.
Bad English is:
"Sometimes can sometimes cannot"
" Try try try, also cannot"
" You don't say me and I don't say you"
" You don't call be can or not"
Therefore Beyonce is right and we are wrong. Sometimes is good to let others criticize us so that we can improve.
Yes, most Singaporeans speak poor English. I have two Americans working in my company and they told me that they only understood 30% of the conversation with our Singapore colleagues. Most people misinterprete the word Singlish. Bad English is not Singlish. Singlish is you add the words la,lor and sometimes malay lingo into the conversation. Poor English is poor grammar.
Bad English is:
"Sometimes can sometimes cannot"
" Try try try, also cannot"
" You don't say me and I don't say you"
" You don't call be can or not"
Therefore Beyonce is right and we are wrong. Sometimes is good to let others criticize us so that we can improve.
There is no doubt in my mind that if Beyonce realized exactly what that comment would mean to us Singaporeans who have a command of English approximate to Queen's English, she would have never said it. Her comment was meant to flatter the enthusiastic Singaporean spirit, not to criticize it.
American brains are not wired to listen to Singlish. It is absolutely unintelligible to them. I personally use American enunciation when speaking to my American teammates for the simple reason that I do not want to waste their time (or mine) re-explaining what I had said. It isn't a matter of lack of national pride - I would NEVER give up using Singlish where appropriate - but simply a courtesy to other people in ensuring that I am expressing myself clearly. Remember those irritating girls in school who always spoke in pig Latin?
Most Americans have no problems with enunciating their words, but there are plenty of ang mohs who do. Here's an example you might relate better to: ever had to deal with a rambly Irish or Scottish old man? Their accent is THICK like you would not believe, but I'm pretty sure that they are speaking proper English.
The common Singaporean's problem is not just that Singlish-bred enunciation is bad; our actual command of vocabulary, grammar and syntax is poorly trained. Americans aren't necessarily better at the latter. In my experience, a lot of American kids have pretty poor English with horrendous typos and wierd grammer (hehe). In fact, if you asked Beyonce to write a formal letter by herself, chances are that her English might be pretty bad too. The key thing is that they don't sound like they speak bad even if their written English is bad. For many Singaporeans, they have a poor command of written AND spoken English, no thanks to our environment and lackadaisical attitude to proper English.
I completely disagree with the person who said that our command of English would be fine had we simply bothered to pay attention throughout primary/secondary school. Most people in this world have a tendency to write the way that they speak. Not all of us were "lucky" enough to grow up in an environment filled with only English speakers (ACS kids, I'm looking at you), so if one has to listen to a mish-mash of Mandarin, dialect and imperfect Singlish daily, don't you think that's going to spill over to the way we write? I believe this is true for a vast number of Singaporeans.
The "take it or leave it" attitude that Singaporeans have about Singlish strikes me as rather cloistered and almost xenophobic... IMO, Beyonce has already phrased it pretty gently; if your reaction to her is simply to clam up and slam African-Americans from 'tha hood' (which Beyonce clearly does not hail from, anyway), I am going to gently point you in the direction of Ris Low, and ask you to take her place on the international stage - then see what sort of comments YOU get.
I think Singlish should be enjoyed as a social and cultural element of our national identity. If other people don't get it, yes, that's too bad, but Singlish is not something we should be tooting our horn about as superior to the vernacular of other cultures. Neither should it be seen as inferior. It is indeed our own unique thing.
However, our civic responsibility is to avoid letting our country down, and by perpetuating the poor uptake of proper English (at least at the level required to execute business transactions), we are also perpetuating the image of "speaking poor English" that Beyonce brings up.
American brains are not wired to listen to Singlish. It is absolutely unintelligible to them. I personally use American enunciation when speaking to my American teammates for the simple reason that I do not want to waste their time (or mine) re-explaining what I had said. It isn't a matter of lack of national pride - I would NEVER give up using Singlish where appropriate - but simply a courtesy to other people in ensuring that I am expressing myself clearly. Remember those irritating girls in school who always spoke in pig Latin?
Most Americans have no problems with enunciating their words, but there are plenty of ang mohs who do. Here's an example you might relate better to: ever had to deal with a rambly Irish or Scottish old man? Their accent is THICK like you would not believe, but I'm pretty sure that they are speaking proper English.
The common Singaporean's problem is not just that Singlish-bred enunciation is bad; our actual command of vocabulary, grammar and syntax is poorly trained. Americans aren't necessarily better at the latter. In my experience, a lot of American kids have pretty poor English with horrendous typos and wierd grammer (hehe). In fact, if you asked Beyonce to write a formal letter by herself, chances are that her English might be pretty bad too. The key thing is that they don't sound like they speak bad even if their written English is bad. For many Singaporeans, they have a poor command of written AND spoken English, no thanks to our environment and lackadaisical attitude to proper English.
I completely disagree with the person who said that our command of English would be fine had we simply bothered to pay attention throughout primary/secondary school. Most people in this world have a tendency to write the way that they speak. Not all of us were "lucky" enough to grow up in an environment filled with only English speakers (ACS kids, I'm looking at you), so if one has to listen to a mish-mash of Mandarin, dialect and imperfect Singlish daily, don't you think that's going to spill over to the way we write? I believe this is true for a vast number of Singaporeans.
The "take it or leave it" attitude that Singaporeans have about Singlish strikes me as rather cloistered and almost xenophobic... IMO, Beyonce has already phrased it pretty gently; if your reaction to her is simply to clam up and slam African-Americans from 'tha hood' (which Beyonce clearly does not hail from, anyway), I am going to gently point you in the direction of Ris Low, and ask you to take her place on the international stage - then see what sort of comments YOU get.
I think Singlish should be enjoyed as a social and cultural element of our national identity. If other people don't get it, yes, that's too bad, but Singlish is not something we should be tooting our horn about as superior to the vernacular of other cultures. Neither should it be seen as inferior. It is indeed our own unique thing.
However, our civic responsibility is to avoid letting our country down, and by perpetuating the poor uptake of proper English (at least at the level required to execute business transactions), we are also perpetuating the image of "speaking poor English" that Beyonce brings up.
hifi_killer
New member
whos maria ozawa? some singer?
it seems some of you might be active/veteran members in some other local forums.
If you see a need to speak proper english, naturally you will attempt to speak better english. In same way, if some ang mohs see the need to speak singlish , they will make the effort to 'learn' singlish (look at botak jones menu).
Well. apart from a a small group of Singaporeans whose jobs specifically demands proper spoken english. A huge majority do not really see the need to speak such high standards of english, its not that they simply suck at english, but rather there isnt a need to speak proper english, when local substitutes are more easily understood across many contexts. As long you are able to function well in enough in the society who cares if you're english isnt perfect.
IMO, the most adaptive way for Singaporeans, is to develop the capacity to speak english at different standards, i.e to be able to speak in the context of hawker centres, within SAF, conducting a presentation, addressing your professors.
Just as speaking singlish to an ang moh client is disastrous,
You certainly dont want to speak perfect english when you're ordering prata or bak chor mee ? Furthermore, if you insist on speaking perfect english across all context and situations, you will be likely perceived to be arrogant/an elitist.
English is a relatively new, and dynamic language , its standards are constantly changing throughout space and time.Who is to say 'X english' is more english than 'y english'? English isnt a pure language, it borrows several words from latin, arabic even some asian languages.
Different ethnic groups have different inherent ability at enunciating certain phonemes and it has little to do with the standards of education. Personally i find it extremely difficult to pronounce the double 's' sound in "risks" , while others seem to do it naturally. And so if you want to judge someone's spoken english ability base on enunciation, it dont think its fair.
our language has been subjected to so much attention..
but we dont really see the same amount of attention on mathematical ability do we?
some people simply suck at maths why dont we ridicule or criticise people suck as maths? seems more fun.
it seems some of you might be active/veteran members in some other local forums.
If you see a need to speak proper english, naturally you will attempt to speak better english. In same way, if some ang mohs see the need to speak singlish , they will make the effort to 'learn' singlish (look at botak jones menu).
Well. apart from a a small group of Singaporeans whose jobs specifically demands proper spoken english. A huge majority do not really see the need to speak such high standards of english, its not that they simply suck at english, but rather there isnt a need to speak proper english, when local substitutes are more easily understood across many contexts. As long you are able to function well in enough in the society who cares if you're english isnt perfect.
IMO, the most adaptive way for Singaporeans, is to develop the capacity to speak english at different standards, i.e to be able to speak in the context of hawker centres, within SAF, conducting a presentation, addressing your professors.
Just as speaking singlish to an ang moh client is disastrous,
You certainly dont want to speak perfect english when you're ordering prata or bak chor mee ? Furthermore, if you insist on speaking perfect english across all context and situations, you will be likely perceived to be arrogant/an elitist.
English is a relatively new, and dynamic language , its standards are constantly changing throughout space and time.Who is to say 'X english' is more english than 'y english'? English isnt a pure language, it borrows several words from latin, arabic even some asian languages.
Different ethnic groups have different inherent ability at enunciating certain phonemes and it has little to do with the standards of education. Personally i find it extremely difficult to pronounce the double 's' sound in "risks" , while others seem to do it naturally. And so if you want to judge someone's spoken english ability base on enunciation, it dont think its fair.
our language has been subjected to so much attention..
but we dont really see the same amount of attention on mathematical ability do we?
some people simply suck at maths why dont we ridicule or criticise people suck as maths? seems more fun.
