Chinglish, Spanglish, Hinglish and Singlish.
These are just some regional variations of English - Chinglish
is English as it's spoken in China, while Spanglish is English as
it's spoken in Spain and so on.
Amidst the ongoing debate on how to drive up the standards of
English in Singapore, Jeremy Koh spoke to two foreigners who've had
to pick up the language from scratch in their teens.
And they say Singlish is detrimental to Singaporeans' learning of
good English.
When Xaisongkham Induangchanthy arrived in Singapore in 2000, he
had learnt English for a grand total of one and a half
years.
And after a one-year bridging course to bring his English up to
scratch, he started his undergraduate studies in NTU.
"It's very different and it's very difficult coming from country
like Laos where we use very little English in the classroom. For
other students, they might read one chapter once and they already
understood everything, but for me, i had to take notes of the words
i didn't understand and then check the dictionary and then read a
few times until i got the meaning."
But for someone who's only had two and a half years of formal
English training, Xaisongkham has done well.
He graduated with an honours degree in communication studies - a
course that requires a high level of English
proficiency.
And now, he's pursuing his Masters in Australia.
"I try to use English as much as possible in my daily life. I try
to mingle with other foreign students. Even with my Lao friends,
sometimes we try to speak English."
But Xaisongkham thinks Singlish is an impediment to Singaporeans
learning good English.
"You use Singlish and then everyone use Singlish and it's
acceptable so you don't feel the need to improve yourself."
A view which 41-year-old Liu Ying from China agrees
with.
Mdm Liu, a Chinese language teacher at a primary school here, had
learnt English as a foreign language when she was 12.
But it was only after she came to Singapore five years ago, that
she decided to brush up her English by attending
classes.nbsp;
"I think it's important to speak good English, speak standard
English so we can communicate to the world better and the world can
understand us better."
--938Live
