wrong ... the standard accent is NOT beijing's accent ....
that's only beijinger's egos speaking, and other people's
inferiority complex submitting.
I agree with you, a large segment of the population have a
problem with both languages, but the problem does NOT lie with the
accent ....
speaking good english doesn't mean having an alien accent, look
at our local thespians for example, many of the older ones speak a
very proper form of english without a fake ang moh accent, people
like lim kay tong etc, they speak a much more correct form of
english than some of those misguided youth who thinks speaking good
english is aping the black ghetto slang and bimbo speak they've
picked up on TV. do you think "oh ! I'm like ... I'm like" is good
english ? ... *snorts ...
So, similarly, why won't you find aping an alien mandarin accent
funny ? Are Singaporeans so spineless, and have such an inferiority
complex, that we are ashamed to speak english and mandarin in our
native accent ? ...
Not too sure about your first statement. From what I understand
from my chinese friends, the term 普通话 is meant to signify that
Mandarin is the de-facto standard in Beijing. But then again, I
could be wrong :)
Also I wasn't talking about us aping an alien mandarin accent. I
just meant to say that our standards aren't also up-to-par, what
gives us the right to laugh at other people's accents?
Coming back to Singapore accent, it's very interesting, but I
find europeans do have difficulty understanding us. I had been to
many places for business, research, etc, and when I present to the
western audience, even when I use proper Singapore English (without
the la, and lor, and slow down my speech to improve pronounciation
of words), some of them will still have difficulty understanding
me.
Maybe my English is really bad :)
