Singaporean English called Singlish - subtly different word shifts

Problem
I know what they mean but it sounds different.

Answer
Stop worrying about Singlish and be glad that you are constantly reminded that you are in a foreign country and if you come from England, America, or Singapore, you have your own brand of English.

Here are some differences which strike me in Singapore even though I've been visiting and living in the country on and off for more than twenty years, since the 1990s.

A Singaporean asks me, 'Where do you stay?'

I answer, "I live near Cashew MRT." (Meaning Cashew underground railway station. MRT is the Mass Railway Transit system.)

I don't copy his sentence construction and he does not copy mine. I am wondering whether it is time for me to start echoing local people and talking like them. However, I have positioned myself as a teacher of English, so I should sound English to maintain my credibility.

I ponder the subtle uses of the word stay in British English. When I say I am staying somewhere, I mean temporarily. I am staying with a friend, on holiday. That's a temporary arrangement. Living with a friend would be a permanent arrangement.

You stay in a hotel. Years ago, people lived in hotels, for years.

On the other hand, I could say, "We went to Singapore on a two-year contract but ended up staying there for more than a decade." That's a long-stay arrangement.

Car parks are short-stay and long-stay. You don't live in a car park.

Moving and Shifting
My conversation with the Singaporean continues. He says, " I used to live near there, but I have shifted to Yishun."

That's very Singaporean. Nobody in London would say that. I might move from the centre of town to the suburbs. I shift furniture. You shift something small and heavy, like a wardrobe, a big box of records. You say, "Can you help me shift this into the corner of the room?"

You don't shift people, unless they are in wheelchairs or on stretchers and unconscious. You shift something with a trolley. Lift and shift. You shift things short distances, within the same room, or within a house or building. Lift and push. You don't shift yourself.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English and other languages.

Noises Overhead in Singapore - Why?

Problem
What's that noise overhead?

Answers
I've learned to identify a lot of noises.

America
Noisy footsteps overhead. Sounds like elephants stomping up and down. The block where I lived in Rockville Maryland in the nineteen eighties was a three storey wooden construction. Every time anybody walked overhead, you heard every step. The people who lived in the middle of the architectural sandwich, on floor two (the English would say around and then first) was at loggerheads with both the people below and the people above.

Sinapore
In Singapore we hear:
the traffic,
the children shouting in the swimming pool
and the children's playground,
people shouting in the corridor,
the noise of
machines blowing the anti mosquito fogging.
During the evening we hear the ball going backing wards and forwards in tennis matches.

At bedtime we hear the crickets. The noise rises to a crescendo, stops, then starts again.

We get noise at bedtime. The building gradually goes silent. Often we are woken at night by thunderstorms. Sometimes we are woken by noise overhead. More usually we are woken by a storm, get up early, then hear the people overhead also up early.

In Singapore the second apartment we rented, in a block called The Beaumont, we rented the top floor so that there would be no overhead noise.

Now we are in a very solid block, yet we hear noise overhead. The noise starts at 5 am.

Why so early? Are they on shift work?

I came up in the lift with a couple who lived on the floor below mine. I told them, "I'd like to meet the people above me. I want to ask why they get up at five am?"

The woman replied, "It is often because they want to get children ready for school. It takes time to wash them and dress them and give them breakfast. Then you want to drive them to school before the rush hour starts."

Now I know. Now you know.

Please share my posts.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.