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Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Who speaks three languages in Singapore but not English?




Chineasy aid to learning Chinese picure language showing coloured pictures.


Singapore flag.

US flag
Singaporeans who studied in the USA will have American accents.



UK flag
British pronounication is the norm, inherited from parents who lived int he era when Singapore was British and schools tught British English then as now. Also founding father of the nation, Lee Kuan Yew, studied in the UK, so he favoured British English.

Many people in Singapore speak Mandarin which they learn at school and at home two Chinese 'dialects', one from each parent, such as Hokkien and Teochew. They struggle with English because English has a past tense whilst Mandarin speakers simple say I go yesterday. Also they do not have 'the' and 'a' so every English sentence is difficult to create and to recognize. I discovered this when I started learning Mandarin.

Useful language learning websites
Memrise.com
Duolingo.com
chineasy.com





Author
Angela Lansbury, teacher of English and other languages, author of 20 books.

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