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Could you learn "Singlish"? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5177 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 9 of 16 09 November 2011 at 11:09am | IP Logged | |||||
Maybe, maybe not. The boy in the first vid has spent 9 years in Singapore and speaks pretty good Singlish. But its also entirely possible to find people who don't or don't bother to learn Singlish even after 9 years in the country. Of course, his exposure to it since childhood has probably helped a lot. However, to say that the only purpose of interviewing him is cos he's white would be to make an overly hasty judgement. It is uncommon to find a non-local who speaks Singlish well and I believe that he was interviewed based on that alone. In other words, if there were other non-white foreigners (e.g. Arabs, Africans, Hispanics etc) who spoke Singlish well, would they still only interview the white boy exclusively? I don't know. And probably neither do you. But I also don't know of any Arabs, Africans or Hispanics who speak Singlish and probably neither do the producers of the show. So we can't really test that theory now can we? Edited by strikingstar on 09 November 2011 at 11:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6383 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 16 09 November 2011 at 11:16am | IP Logged | |||||
The interviewer calls his Singlish, Winglish, white boy's Singlish. Pretty clear to me that is the emphasis of the piece. He's basically a Singaporean. He's spent more years of his life in Singapore then anywhere else and attended local schools. Edited by newyorkeric on 09 November 2011 at 11:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5177 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 11 of 16 09 November 2011 at 11:35am | IP Logged | |||||
That is likely just a product of him being white and speaking Singlish. If he had been Hispanic, it would be just as possible that they called it "Hinglish".
The show acknowledges as much. The title is "The Singaporean White Boy". But the duration he's spent living in Singapore was never the point of interest. The fact that he speaks Singlish as well as any local makes him unique and that is where the interest in him arises. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6383 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 16 09 November 2011 at 11:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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Strikingstar, the point is he IS a local. There is no other reason to interview him other than the color of his
skin. I don't want to derail the thread any longer so I'm going to drop it at this point. Edited by newyorkeric on 09 November 2011 at 12:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5177 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 13 of 16 09 November 2011 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Seems like I have a penchant for being complicit in derailing threads related to
Singapore. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| QiuJP Triglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 5859 days ago 428 posts - 597 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Czech, GermanB1, Russian, Japanese | Message 14 of 16 09 November 2011 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I do not speak Singlish even I can roughly understand others who use it. Am I weird?
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6383 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 16 09 November 2011 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think so. I know a lot of Singaporeans that can understand it but can't speak it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5195 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 16 of 16 10 November 2011 at 6:48am | IP Logged | |||||
Sure it's written. Go to an on-line forum or chatroom with Singaporeans talking to each other, and they are likely be typing in Singlish. It's not all that hard to pick up, especially if you have a bit of background knowledge of Hokkien or even Mandarin already. The Singaporeans I have met have always been happy to teach me / converse in Singlish. Needless to say, I don't travel in the same circles as Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Boy would I love to see him talk like ah beng. Ha ha ha! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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