If I pick the homeless / school dropout / drug addicts (not the
white-collar casual drug abuser) / alcoholic here, their English
grammar is crap too.
Thing is, compare an apple with an apple, ie. compare
school-going youths of the same age group with each other.
I think the focus of our societies are fundamentally different
....
oriental societies place emphasis on situational context, the
implicit, the unspoken, all have meanings .... we learn to pick up
on those .... thus we are not very expressive verbally ....
occidental societyes on the other hand, are more ...
"overt" ? ... they are heavily onto the spoken and written word ..
because this is their primary form of communication ....
but the koreans and the taiwanese and the PRCs, when they learn
english, they can approach it with vigor cos it's something
completely new and alien to them ... they have a lot less to
unlearn ... they don't have to unlean the habits of a lifetime of
singlish .... I suppose that's why they can make much better
progress ....
