Some Singlish Sort Of English - to baffle Brits, amaze Americans and embarrass or enlighten English speakers

When I first arrived in Singapore I was often confused.

A lady on the Singapore airlines plane to Singapore told me, "I live in a house with a garden which is good because of have tree children." 

I wondered how many children she had, and if they were all tomboys who liked climbing trees. 

I asked, "Boys or girls?"

She replied, "Two boys, one girl."

I exclaimed, "Three children."

She agreed, "Yes. Tree children."

Then I understood. Three.

She told me, "My brother is in Australia. He has tree houses. He lives in one, rents out the other two."

For an instant I had visions of her brother building a tree house, very big, like Robinson Crusoe. Must be in construction. Building a tree house as a home or guest house. Then renting out two more. Interesting business developing. Then I realized he was the owner of three houses. He was probably well-to-do, but not the eccentric millionaire, the ecologically minded man I had imagined.

I phoned my other friend in Singapore and asked, "When can we meet?"  

He replied, "I'm having an off day." 

I said, "I'm a bit jet lagged, not feeling too good either, so we would only make each other miserable. Why don't we meet when you are feeling better. Tomorrow?"

I was really worried when he said, "I want to meet you to die."

He meant today.

I eventually heard, "I am not working to die. To die is my off die. I am working tomorrow."

 

Another friend met me at a shopping mall and called a taxi to take us elsewhere. She said to him, "Thank you, uncle."

Afterwards I said to her, "I didn't know your uncle was a taxi driver. Did you call him specially, or was it just luck that your uncle picked us up?"

She looked puzzled, "I don't have an uncle who is a taxi driver."

I said, "But you were chatting away to him and when we out, you said,'Thank you, uncle!"

She told me, "We say auntie or uncle to strangers of an older generation who are friendly."

"Ah," I answered, "In England we do that when we are children. But not from one adult to another."

Here are some phrases you may think you hear, and what the speaker means

Phrases and Pronunciation

Singlish - English

cannot = I can't / you can't / it can't be done / it's not possible/ no/ nope

drop off = drop out (of an online event)

even = even if

kampong = (Singapore) village (primitive - cleared by government upgrading, but friendly, remembered nostalgically by residents now living in modern skyscrapers)

Kiasu - competitive, getting ahead, pushy, fear of being left behind eg getting first into lift, overtaking and pulling ahead into your lane on the near empty motorway, determined to be first

la = (exclamation) yeah/ yup / really/ is that so/ definitely/aren't you/ isn't it/don't you think so/amazing/hilarious

loyal = royal

off day = day off

off the light = turn off the light

team = theme

tree = three

uncle = friendly person of an older generation, not related

English - Singlish

bad hair day = bad day

day off = off day

drop out = drop off

even if = even

I can't = cannot

off day = bad day

one-upmanship = kiasu

royal = loyal

team = theme

turn off the light = off the light

three = tree

uncle = brother of your mother or father

village = kampong

Useful Websites

https://singlishbible.fandom.com/wiki/Genesis_1

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is British and a Singapore Permanent Resident. 

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is Vice President Public Relations of Braddell Heights Advanced, and Tampines Changkat Advanced,  speakers training club which are part of Toastmasters International. The USA has several Spanish speaking as well as the English speaking clubs. You can pick up Spanish from buying or reading online their Spanish clubs welcome pages and manuals. 

In The USA, UK, Singapore and worldwide, there are many clubs which are English speaking, as well as Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Tamil, Malay.

The inauguration of Tampines Changkat Advanced was Tuesday 29 2021, online on  zoom. Their meetings are on the fourth Tuesday evening of the month. They hope to hold meetings with a few people meeting physically, the others online, as soon as the Covid-19 conditions allow.

You can find the club through their facebook page as well as through Toastmasters International find a club. 

https://www.facebook.com/tampineschangkatadvTMC

The meetings are free for visitors. Visitors can watch, and join in speaking by introducing themselves and volunteering to do a 2 minutes impromptu  speech in table topics.

If you wish to join for a year, it costs about 190 US dollars, to have monthly meetings online, a mentor, a magazine, and one of the 11  Pathways, consisting of 14 projects. Each project starts with 3 speeches of your choice of subject, lasting 4 to 6 minutes, then 5 to 7 minutes. The Pathways include the most popular Presentation Mastery. I chose  humorous speaking as my second Pathway, costing 20 dollars. Then my third was a leadership course. Come and see for free.

The club also has meetings in person in Singapore

You can also contact my other club, smaller Braddell Heights Advanced, which is a cosy little club with more chances to speak.

Login through bha.learncool.sg/meet/bha 

That will link you through to Zoom or googlemeet. 2 pm to 5 pm.

BHA meets the first Wednesday evening each month, starting at 7 pm Singapore time. 

Then an extra meeting on the 3rd Saturday afternoon, starting at 2 pm Singapore time.

To check your time zone,  

https://24timezones.com/difference/singapore/ 

Meetings will be on Wed July 7th and  Saturday July 17th.

Contact either of these or other clubs through Toastmasters International Find a Club.

Recording Your Travel Trips

It is very useful to have a record of the dates of your travel trips and the hotels, restaurants and airlines and even the fellow travellers, hosts and people you met.

My husband has a travel spreadsheet on his computer, as a diary on Excel. If I want to know how many years I have lived in a foreign country, I can ask him the dates of our first trip to or from that country. He can do a search for the country or destination or date.

In my family history book, a page at the back lists all your vacations. When I was just married for a year or so after the birth of our son I started compiling the family history book and added the list of where we went on our honeymoon and first anniversary.  It seemed like overkill as I could remember the dates and places clearly.

However, as each year passes, the list become more important and interesting and relevant. I went to Morocco for my honeymoon.





Which year did I visit Morocco on my honeymoon? Morocco is a country in the ancestry line of my future daughter in law.




How many times have I visited the USA? Which year was my first trip, before or after the Vietnam war? When did we live in Rockville, Maryland? When did we move to Connecticut? Which years did we go skiing? How long after the earthquake did I visit San Francisco? Was it the same year or a year later?

Which trips did I take without my husband and without my son?

If you don't already have a list, start one.

You may also wish to keep a record of the number of countries you have visited. This is useful when writing the introduction to yourself when giving a talk on your travels, visiting a country on a conference, talking to your in-laws and the audience at a wedding.

In the good old days you could keep your passport forever with a record of your travel trips. After my late uncle died I could see which countries he had visited and when. I knew whether his stories about going to America on a cruise ship and visiting Berlin postwar were lies, fanciful, muddled dates, or the truth. I could see the exact truth, the day he arrived in and left each place.

Now that concerns about stolen or copied passports make the authorities ask you to return documents. it is helpful to take photocopies of photos of yourself in your old passports and on holiday and in ID documents, as well as recording dates, visas, entry dates.

Author
Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.  

Why You Should Take Videos And Photos Of Music At Family Reunions and Holidays - And Family Talent Spot

Are you travelling to a family event, or organizing an event at home which will be attended by family from far away? Now is your chance to record them all singing dancing and playing musi c instruments. They could be reciting poems. those not invited to give a speech could be asked for a quotation or proverb - in English or another language translated, a piece of advice for harmony at home for a married couple.

To open your video, you could use a recording of local music and picture of musicians taken on holiday, or even a sculpture.

Amusing cartoon in tiled wall in the Ladies toilets in Singapore.

Harpist at Writers' holiday in Fishguard, Wales.

Uncle Ronnie
At a family event, our son's coming of age party in the 1990s, I wanted my beloved Ronnie uncle on my mother's side of the family to play at least one piece of music. He played the piano and violin and taught many other instruments including the trumpet.

My family vetoed the idea of anybody in the family playing music on the grounds that family were invited because we wanted to talk to them. They should not have the stress of needing to perform and carry along their instruments.

No Unpaid Work!
Nor should they be performing unpaid or thinking they were invited only because we wanted to  them to play music and save us money. In the event, we invited a neighbour to perform a couple of comic songs which our son liked.

My uncle Ronnie on another occasion told me how he was asked to play in people's living rooms but always refused. He said, "It's very unprofessional".

What he meant was that you could not expect to get paid properly if you were constantly performing unpaid, like an amateur needing publicity, looking for work.

Rest Needed
Besides, you needed to rest, have a change of activity, on your evening or day off.

As for the rest, that cannot be entirely true. After Ronnie died, a friend of his told me that he often called on Ronnie but when he rang the bell could not be heard, because Ronnie, all by himself, was sitting playing away on the piano.

Undiscovered Skills
Now, looking back years later, I regret not having the uncles playing music. I had three family members who played music. The only one I knew about was Ronnie, who played in the BBC radio orchestra.

Musical Monty
Uncle Monty, related to both sides of the family (because I married a distant cousin, a second cousin), was considered just an amateur musician, who had a better paid office job. However, I later learned that Monty had a second job, possibly after retirement, as a session musician. (A backing musician for recordings of bands and soloists, himself not featured, often unnamed, uncredited, perhaps paid a one-off fee for performing.)

Musical Ken
Another pianist was Ken, a third cousin by marriage. He had married the aunt of my husband. Ken was also a very accomplished musician.

They are now all dead. I do not have recordings of any of them playing music. Two of the uncles never married.

Ken had two daughters who I see on Facebook. I am sure they would have loved to have recordings of their father playing music, both as a souvenir for themselves, to have shown his their stepmother when she was widowed, and their children.

Clearly, for any one uncle to have played music at length at a relative's wedding would have been tiring and unfair on him. To pick one uncle and not the other two would have had the opposite effect, to have given him a pleasure and prominence denied to the others, causing jealousy that he was chosen to perform, as if the others were not real musicians.

In theory, I could have recorded them all on video later. But at the event we had an organized video, not available later.

Piano Playing Parents
I still have my parents' piano. But no video or even a photo of either of them sitting at the piano. Most people have photos of their parents. Unless they are professional musicians, you are unlikely to have a picture of them playing the piano.  On your next trip to see them, when looking for an interesting action photo, get them to play the piano. Maybe get all the musicians in the family to play an instrument, even the primary school child (called elementary school in the USA) with a recorder.

You can add in those who don't play music in the photo. Add the toddler with a Fisher Price baby piano. Take along a triangle or marrakas. Add your holiday souvenir castanets.

My parents at their wedding.

I have a photo of my parents on their wedding day. What was the music? What was the top hit that year?

What I would have loved, would have been a compilation of all the musicians in the family, each playing a piece of music, or singing a song. One would need a tough m.c. to time limit each piece and tell them they could play a second piece later, after each person had played one piece. Or maybe time it with one person playing before dinner, one after the starter, one after the main course, one after dessert.

The moral for you is this:
If you are having a professional video, include a talent show so that all the members of the family who play an instrument or sing or dance or do stand up comedy can have their two minutes of recorded fame.  At very lease, record yourself or the voice over asking them about their music tastes and abilities. Also ask them if they have appeared anywhere on film or TV or radio. In years to come you might be able to track down a recording of them acting, singing or playing.

Happy Birthday

If all else fails, phone up your relative and make a recording of the phone call. Or ask them to sing Happy Birthday To You as a surprise for a mutual relative, or to play Happy Birthday To You on the Piano or Violin.

You can then use that recording for later birthdays, or even to raise a smile as part of a funeral or memorial service.

Music Lovers Who Only Listen
If you have no musicians in the family - but you love music, what can you do. A video of your family holiday or honeymoon to an opera house could include a picture of you outside the opera house, inside the opera house, or by the statue of a musician.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have other posts on music, including Freddie Mercury, musicians' statues worldwide, Amy Winehouse, and Handel in London. Please share links to your favourite posts.

How to Understand Singlish and British English

I had lots of slides for my workshop at the Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters meeting, but was searching for an amusing attention-getting Introduction.

I found the opening words for my workshop on Business English is I hurried towards Braddell Heights Community Club in Singapore. "Today as I was walking towards Braddell Heights I received a message from Rachel asking me, 'Where are you?' I was tempted to reply, 'Reaching'. Is that Singlish or British English?"
A few people instantly answered, "Singlish!"

However, others replied, "British English?"

I smiled and shook my head, "It's Singlish!"

Somebody asked, "What would British people say?"

I suggested, helped by members of the audience:
"I'm on my way.
I'm nearly there.
I'll soon be there.
I'll be with you shortly.
I'll be arriving any minute."

I suggested that they should get out pens and paper and write down phrases they liked which were new or useful.

A Couple Of Minutes
My next story: "I was recently told that in Singapore if somebody says, 'I'll be there is a couple of minutes,' don't stand on the corner of the street checking each passing car and frowning at your watch. You could be waiting half an hour. To British people, a couple of minutes means 120 seconds or less. A Singaporean does not take the phrase literally. He or she thinks it means soon."

More Singlish - Uncle said: "Go Straight? Cannot?"
Cannot. (Means I can't or you can't or it is not possible. In British English you need to add the subject, unless you are issuing a command such as 'Go!')
Go straight. (Go straight ahead.)
Uncle. (Addressing any older person whose name you don't know. You could be speaking to a taxi driver. They do not have to be related to the speaker in any way.)
Aunty. (Likewise. Addressing any older woman.)

Phoning Telephone Operator Answering
I gave a one hour workshop. The participants were paired and asked to pretend to be a member of staff in an office answering the phone and a caller.

This exercise was an amazing success. They loved it. Such high spirits. Such fun.

One couple played an irate woman employee and the called was a man who persistently called a wrong number. At one point she told him, angrily, "I told you before ..."

I suggested that it might sound more polite to drop the personal word you and be more neutral with a phrase such as, "As I said ..."
However, she repeated my words in an angry tone, 'As I said!'
The audience was in hysterics.
I pointed out that being polite and sounding friendly also depends on your tone of voice.

I recommended the use of Grammarly. It checks spelling and Grammar. 

Word has a spellchecker and grammar checker built in.

To find more:
grammarly.com
goodenglish.org.sg
Duolingo is a free internet service for learning English.  It does teach Mandarin and Indonesia but does not teach Singlish.
Google translate translates into English from many languages, but not Singlish.

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

Dealing With Your Dead Relative's Social Media Posts, Online Obits And Outpatient Appointments

You will have trouble trying to take down a relative's media sites if you don't have their passwords.

Even people who you would think would know, don't know. After my late uncle died in Barnet hospital, in 2002, I received a notice from Barnet hospital giving him an appointment for an eye test.

When I phoned during hospital hours, the line was engaged. When I phoned after hours, the only department I could get through to was maternity. I left a message asking them to call me back. 

When maternity called back, I explained the problem. I asked to be put through to the right department. 

I started by saying I needed to cancel the eye appointment for my uncle. The lady who answered said, "You can't cancel for somebody else. They have to cancel their own appointment."

I replied, "That's not possible. He's dead."

She said, "Can you supply us with evidence?"

I said, "I can't. But he died in your hospital. You should be able to establish that you are wasting time filling up your day with appointments for somebody who is dead."

After that, she was very apologetic. "Oh, no," she said, "Not again!"

If you have a relative who is in a hospital or undergoing a major operation or making a will, ask them to write down all their passwords for you.

Book
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5488203/Why-technology-reminding-Ive-just-lost-Mum.html
The Art of Not Falling Apart by Christina Patterson, published May 2018, can be pre-ordered through amazon.co.uk.

Useful Websites
ancestry.co.uk
https://www.cwgc.org (Commonwealth War Graves Commission)
facebook.com
https://www.findagrave.com
(My memorial to my uncle is at /memorial/8841031/joseph-ronald-geduld )
flickr.com
forcesreunited.co.uk
friendsandrelations.com
gonetoosoon.org 
inmemoryof.co.uk 
linkedin.com
muchloved.com 
myheritage.com

You might also wish to check for family photos and add a post about the lifespan or gravestone on sites such as:
Instagram
twitter
And dating sites!

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have several other posts on funerals. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Recording yourself and your family and colleagues on holidays and business trips

Problems
When my uncle who was a professional musician, died; and I had no photos or recordings or him speaking or playing. At our wedding, my family insisted that the two musicians on both sides of the family should be invited to a meal and not have to perform. The result was that after they died we had not record of them playing, for ourselfves or our children and grandchildren.

At weddings and other important occasions, we were at venues far from work and home and our musicians who were guests did not have musical instruments with them, so even if we had asked them to play, they could not.

When my mother died in her late eighties I had no instant record of her life ready to help me write a quick speech for her funeral.

When my father died a few years I was better prepared. I went through family photos with him and added dates, places and names. I wrote 100 word and 500 word and 1000 word accounts of his life ready for a funeral speech or obituary for a local paper and professional journals. I still had not thought to make a video of him.

Now if I were to organise a wedding for my son I would ask the photographer to ask everybody in the room their name, what they did for a living, the country they were born and where they met their spouse and their advice on life of business.

Answers
Video records.

If you have a musician in the family, make sure you get a recording of them playing. Either go to watch them perform. Or ask them to play just an opening bar.

If they say it's not professional, you caon't play except when being paid, instead ask them to demonstrate their musical instrument and why it's good. Or ask them to teach or deomonstrate to a child in the family. Ask uncle of grandad or auntie or grandma to teach the grandchild. (And pay the going rate or if they won't take money then give them soemthing else they need.) Then ostensibly photogh or video the child, whilst at the same time you will have the video of the adult.

Yourself on video
I often go to events and take photos. I come back with photos and video of others but not myself.

Make sure something of yourself is in the public domain. You cannot expect your family to preserve every photo and old computer. Ensure that something is in the public domain so that it is preserved and can b found.

When you go on a trip, record the family. The recording is most likely to be o f interest and to be kept and passed to others if you say aomthing interesting about the place or the family history.

Place
Ask a family member to describe the place you are visiting on holiday or business and to say how it differed from their expectations. Ask them to describe how the place has changed over the years. Ask them to compare the old parts of the city with the newer and say whether the new parts are an improvement or if they are pleased the older areas have been preserved.

Books of family records which you can buy and fill in by hand. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Family
I was sold a family tree book from the trolley at a maternity ward after I had my baby. In addition to the books which you see in the pictures I have also bought a Grandparent's book which I gave to my father to fill in.

Media and On-line blogs
Nowadays you can make a book from Facebook or a blog dedicated to your family or business and add videos.

Family History
Ask people to describe how they have spent their holidays or business trips and how things have changed.  If you do this even two or three years running you will have an interesting record. If you do it every year for ten or twenty years. you will have a fascinating record for your family and local archives and businesses.

 Your local history society will eventually be interested in the past. They might be interested in recording the present. If you don't have recording equipment, the local history or school might be interested in making a recording of your grandma (with you and grandchildren)  for you.

Similarly, when visiting a foreign venue, you could ask the children and adults and elderly people to tell you how things have changed or whether they are the same - food, activities, transport, business, items they sell, crafts, clothes. household objects.

A lot of shy people don't like to talk about themselves or say they don't look good on camera. However, if you ask them to demisntrate an object, you can photograph them sewing or fishing, or cooking and get them in the picture.

If you make a recording of the grandparent and the grandchild, the boss and the receptionist or post room worker, you will have a quick record to make a speech of thanks for the trip at a farewell business dinner, or a wedding, retirement party or funeral or obituary or your own memoir.

If you make a short video when you start a business, years later you will be able to look back, or show it on your website.

Remember to add thanks verbally or in subtitles at the end, the way they do in the movies.That way you have a reason to send the video to all the participants and ask them to check the spelling of their names is correct.
One of the dangers is that they might decide they don't want the picture of video shown to anybody else. However, if you have your own copy, it will still be useful to you when keeping accurate records of the places or people, or going back to different people a year later.

Just as people can be happy to be recorded, then change their minds, people can withdraw permission, then later change their minds.

A simple short video an later be expanded who you have time. You can add opening credit, closing credits, still of places, a map of the country or local area at the start, music, a diary cover, turning pages, special effects, repeat of the opening photo.

Books
The conventional family history book is a handy reference for everything from your passport number and national insurance number to photos of family weddings, or photocopies of birth certificates, and locks of hair secured in a transparent bag.

Tips
https://www.craftsy.com/painting/classes/expressive-pages-journaling-the-everyday
Family history books for you to fill in can be bought on line.

Author Angela Lansbury. Please share links to your favourite posts.

American English - British English - Australia and New Zealand

A few words you might like to remember.
USA rest room / bathroom / john  - UK toilet / loo / little boy's room / lavatory Australia - dunny

Foods
USA Jello  (brand name) - jelly (UK generic or general term)
USA jelly - UK jam or marmalade

UK - flip flops (beach shoes with toe post) - Australia - thongs
In the UK thongs are underwear or bikini bottoms with a string or t-bar at the back
So a sign at Bondi beach telling you 'no thongs' is referring to beach shoes, not bikinis

Names
In the USA it is common for a boy to be called Randy, as a 'given name'. In the UK anybody who is randy is hoping chatting up girls and looking for sex. In the USA they would be horny.

In England we refer to your maiden name (girl's family name before marriage). Surname is what other countries call family name. First name means what other countries call given name.

In Australia a sheila means a female.

In Singapore an older man might be called uncle and an older woman might be called Auntie, even though unrelated and not even a friend, just a stranger on the train or the taxi driver. In the UK this is only used by toddlers and small children.

I wrote a post a while ago about translating the words in Australia's favourite song Waltzing Mathilda.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Author of Quick Quotations; Who Said What When?