Singlish and English Misunderstandings

Angela Lansbury with the Singapore flag. Photo by Trevor Sharot.

Singlish Problems

Singaporeans often translate from Chinese (Mandarin) into English, word by word, instead of taking the meaning of a sentence or idiom. A British English speaker has to work hard to understand the meaning.

Singlish Solutions 

You can buy books on Singlish from book stores in Singapore and on line and probably find them in Singapore libraries.
Big dictionaries and Reference sections of libraries have books or chapters on English grammar and spelling and common errors.

Singlish Stories

White Here
A shop assistant directed the Chinese girls, all size 6 or 8, to small cubicles on the left and sent me, size 16, to a larger cubicle on the right. She said firmly, "White here."

I had heard that in Chinese foreigners were known as big noses. I wondered why white people, who wore larger clothes were sent to different cubicles. Maybe so they could find the person wanting the larger sizes. When she returned and thanked me for whiting, I realised she had meant, "Wait here".

Pronouncing L and R

Peasant Frights

On flights to and from Hong Kong the announcers really do say, Have a pleasant fright. Asians have trouble with the letters L and R. Just as I have trouble rolling the letter r in Italian, the Asians have trouble with the letter L in English.

Theme of the Day

At Toastmasters International speakers' meetings, I often hear: "I will now introduce you to the team." I expect to meet the members of the committee. Instead I hear that the team is Chinese New Year. The speaker means THEME.

TEETH and Tongue and English Pronunciation

When I am the Grammarian or Language Evaluator, I ask the audience to say TEETH. I demonstrate placing your tongue behind your top front teeth to say T, and putting out our tongue and pulling it back under your top teeth or touching your tongue three times with your top teeth while breathing out to say TH.

Similes and Metaphors

Similar to and Simile
You are very similar to your mother.
Your dress is like butterfly wings.
Your bride's dress was like a ship's sails.

Metaphor
You are your father.
Her dress was butterfly wings.
The bride was a ship in full sail.

Metaphor Wrap up
Let's wrap up the meeting.

Oxymorons

Howling Silence (title of a book by Catherine Lim).

Phrases
Raining cats and dogs. One of many phrases I had to explain when teaching English to Singaporeans in a school. They don't need to understand the origin of the phrase. They need to understand that it means raining very hard, torrential rain.

Why you should explain jargon
I am a Singapore Resident. I have lived in or visited Singapore every year for two decades. I recognize and understand:
Ni how? (Translation: How are you?)
Gong Xi Fa Chai (Happy New Year - not literally happiness but something about prosperity)
Hong Bao - red packet containing money for children and unmarried relatives or vouchers or discount coupons for customers.
Lo Hei (Chinese New Year Dish of mixed colourful shredded vegetables.)

But many foreigners won't understand Singlish. If you are a tour guide leading a group, a restaurant owner, taxi driver, or speaker in a speaking contest, one person in thirty in a room of people will not understand. They will appreciate a translation.

Anything anybody does not understand is a distraction. They might miss the next thing you say while trying to get the translation from they mobile phone. They might distract you, the speaker, and other members of the audience, by loudly whispering to the person next them: "What did he say?"

If you are in a speaking contest and the vote is divided, one extra judge is the pre-arranged tie-breaker. If the contest has a clear winner, that one person has no vote. But two speakers might get an equal number of votes. You can have as few as five judges and three speakers. The voting could be as low as two each for two speakers, one vote for the third speaker. The result of the competition is decided by the one vote of the tie breaker. If they cannot understand the punchline of your speech, the title, the joke, the dialogue, they are likely to give their vote to the other speaker.

Singlish Misunderstanding Of Lend and Borrow
Singaporeans often confuse lend and borrow. This is because Mandarin has one word for both, bi-directional, a bit like our English word exchange.

Singlish Tips

Use the grammar and spell checker on our computer to edit the draft of any speech or greeting you are planning when meeting people who speak English or Singlish. You can buy books on Singlish.

Author Angela Lansbury

Angela Lansbury, English language teacher and tutor. I visit Toastmasters Clubs in the UK and Singapore and have tight workshops in China and Singapore on public speaking and English grammar and pronunciation. I also teach individuals as a home tour and on Skype.

Language Misunderstanding With Pills and Time

When I was in hospital in Corsica I was given pills at intervals. I was in pain and asked if I could take the pills myself.

They brought me the pills and told me to take them every four hours, but not every two hours, because that was dangerous. They repeated the instructions, every one very two hours, or two every four hours, but not two every two hours because that was dangerous. The instructions were in French, the second language of the nurse, who spoke Italian, and I spoke French as a second language because my first language was English. I was thinking about this, and distracted by people walking in and out of the room. I then looked at the instructions on the bottle. They did not seem to match what the nurse said.

Not only that, but when was I supposed to take the next pill? I had no clock, no watch, and did not know when I had taken the last pill. In any case I had been knocked down by a car and had multiple injuries. I could not move. My right clavicle was broken so I could not raise my head. I could not lift my right arm. So I could not look at a wrist watch or reach for the pills (on my left). So I had to call a nurse, in a dialect of Italian, discussing pills and time.

I had two broken ribs. I had bleeding from my ear which meant I had a brain injury. The nurses on the tour bus had thought that if I recovered I would be brain damaged. And I was trying to speak to nurses and make myself understood in Italian.

Time In Other Languages
I could ask the time, but times are different in different languages. A quarter to, a quarter past, a quarter after? In German it is different to English. In English six thirty means thirty minutes after six (English) but in German half sext means five thirty, six minus half an hour, thirty minutes to or before six.

Then there's the twenty four hour clock. Take the next pill at eight, eight in the morning or eight in the evening? Eight today or every day? Eight or eighteen (which means 6 pm). About five thirty or about five thirteen?

Tips
If you are going into hospital, take with you the packets for the medication you take at home.
Take a dictionary and a device for translating.

Keep not just the number of the hospital, but the number of a translator, embassy, or friend or family member who can ask for an interpreter. A translator is better. Your friend or family member may be like I was in hospital, prone to misunderstanding.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, author, speaker, language teacher.

Language Misunderstandings - and the radio

Language misunderstandings can be amusing, puzzling, annoying, or downright dangerous.

In hospital misunderstandings by doctors or patients can cause trouble. I know this from my own experience.

Hospital in Corsica and The Radio
In 1984 I was knocked down by a car in Corsica. I was flown by rescue helicopter to the hospital in the capital Ajaccio. I spoke fluent French, I thought, as a second language. For the Corsicans, Italian was a first language and Spanish a second language.

Nobody could converse much with me. I was on a painkiller, morphine. I tried to speak to the woman in the next bed but she didn't answer. (I later discovered she had had an operation on her throat or jaw!)

So I asked if I could have 'un radio'. The nurse said she would ask. Later she came back and said she had arranged for me to have a radio in about an hour. Time passed. No radio appeared.

Meanwhile I was taken downstairs for an Xray. I came back and still no radio.

I asked again. Another nurse came back. She said, "The other nurse says you had a radio."

I asked, "Where is it?"

She went away and came back with a file of X-rays. On the cover was the word Radiography. The word radio in French was short for radiography, meaning X-ray.

Not only was there no radio. Not only that, I had asked for and received an unexpected X-ray.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, language teacher.