Singapore is the opposite of London. London's East End was the old poor side by the docks, whilst the West End was for richer people and more expensive property as the city spread west and the airport of Heathrow was built on the west.
In Singapore Changi airport is in the East. If you are looking to rent property, the further away from the airport towards the west, the better value, but the longer commute to the airport and the city centre.
In the old days the train service did not reach everywhere and the poorer people and property had to depend on buses. I prefer the MRT because you can get a map from most major train stations, a map which is small and light, and free. But the bus guide is a have book which costs money. You can use Gather on your smartphone to look up bus routes. Even so, some buses run only every 15 minutes. Trains are faster.
Many of the station names are not the majority language, Mandarin, but Malay. Malay is phonetic so easy to say. Mandarin words are pronounced with equal emphasis on each syllable. mandarin has rising and falling inflections.
Malay is called Bahasa Malay or language Malay - if you are in a bookshop looking for a dictionary. The inflections are all equal for all syllables. So thank you is ter-i-mah ka-si.
Mandarin speakers tend to speak English in a series of equal syllables with no clear indication of the start of one word and the end of it, so the effect is of listening to machine gun fire. You cannot hear where one sentence starts and the next begins.
English words usually emphasize the first syllable. Good MOR-ning.
English people call the capital of France, PA-ris. The French speak of Pa-REE. They drop the last consonant and emphasize the last syllable.
In Singapore Changi airport is in the East. If you are looking to rent property, the further away from the airport towards the west, the better value, but the longer commute to the airport and the city centre.
In the old days the train service did not reach everywhere and the poorer people and property had to depend on buses. I prefer the MRT because you can get a map from most major train stations, a map which is small and light, and free. But the bus guide is a have book which costs money. You can use Gather on your smartphone to look up bus routes. Even so, some buses run only every 15 minutes. Trains are faster.
Many of the station names are not the majority language, Mandarin, but Malay. Malay is phonetic so easy to say. Mandarin words are pronounced with equal emphasis on each syllable. mandarin has rising and falling inflections.
Malay is called Bahasa Malay or language Malay - if you are in a bookshop looking for a dictionary. The inflections are all equal for all syllables. So thank you is ter-i-mah ka-si.
Mandarin speakers tend to speak English in a series of equal syllables with no clear indication of the start of one word and the end of it, so the effect is of listening to machine gun fire. You cannot hear where one sentence starts and the next begins.
English words usually emphasize the first syllable. Good MOR-ning.
English people call the capital of France, PA-ris. The French speak of Pa-REE. They drop the last consonant and emphasize the last syllable.
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