Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Singapore English Gets Criticised

I was quite tickled when I read about this in the newspaper and I found the youtube clip showing a snippet of the show. In a nutshell, during a popular Taiwanese variety show, the celebrities were criticizing and laughing at the way Singaporeans are perceived to speak English. With their limited knowledge of what is the actual language standard of Singapore, they mimicked the way some Singaporeans speak English and actually had the audacity to laugh at our standard. I have posted the link to the clip, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYuIg7Tnc7g, hopefully this link works. In any case, I do not find it worthwhile to debate over the language proficiency of our fellow Singaporeans. We know better, the facts speak for themselves.

In fact, some of the interesting and entertaining moments when I am watching the Taiwanese variety shows are when the celebrities speak English - namely Jackie Wu, but I do not assume the entire Taiwanese population speaking like him. Let's be open and tolerant, and be proud that both countries' citizens have a level of proficiency in a non-native language.

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