奖滑雨

I suppose Singapore wins hands-down for being the country with the most language campaigns. Probably.

We're neither here, nor there. Our national language is Malay, with 3 other official languages (Chinese, English n Tamil), but we have 77% Chinese amongst Singaporeans. The Chinese roots hails from various parts of China, bringing their own dialects over.

To standardize business and admin operations (trying to align with powerhouses US and UK), English is promoted and claimed the 1st language throne. With English being so emphasized on and parents planting potato kids, ppl tend to forget Chinese after their O or A levels. Then Singapore came up with a Speak Mandarin Campaign (useful now since China is breaking into the market, Taiwan is a hot tourist spot for Singaporeans).

So with English and Mandarin vying to be spoken, the Singaporean Chinese forgot their dialect roots. So again, another campaign, for dialects, but soon died off.

Thus with so many languages to speak and be spoken, the innovative Singaporean started to rojak them like their local food. Then is Singlish liao lah. Everything oso use.

So the govt once again came up with a Speak Good English Movement (English not good enuff, mus good english then can), along with the on-going Speak Mandarin Campaign.

It jus implies the competitiveness of Singapore, even language oso mus fight. We want to be a Singapore cultured, China imported high quality potato.

What's so cool abt speaking English? I mean, issit even apt to use cool as a description in this case? Is that the mindset of the potatos or issit an implied stigma from the govt? Does the target audience of the campaigns associate themselves with anything cool?

A lot of ppl dun like learning Mandarin. Jus bcos its simply too hard, too many characters to make frens with, and they cant mix and match. So we have a system similar to the romanji of Japanese, the hanyu pinyin. But even with this, some are still ditching their chinese for the 26 alphabet english.

I'm rather neutral to learning both languages. Not particularly like nor dislike. To me its jus another subject, a compulsory subject for english to get into poly.

But I love my Chinese teacher for my upper sec days. She's a new teacher from NIE, something different from the old women we used to have for languages. She made the class lively, and more interested in listening to her classes which leads to better knowledge absorption which ultimately to better results. What happens after dat is up to the individual. I dunno how many of my classmates have returned the knowledge.

Probably I'm a natural at languages, jus like wat the palmistry master says. I speak Chinese at home, Teochew with my ah ma, English to whoever speaks only English, Jap to Japanese who initiates conversations to me in Jap, Moos to Animals United and Singlish to everyone else. I read Chinese comics & English novels. I watch Japanese anime with English subtitles. I listen to Chinese songs more than English songs. I blog in English bcos a lot of ppl cannot read Chinese. Haha!

小牛津不是随随便便叫的hor?

For me, I'll definitely prefer speaking in Mandarin, jus bcos English is too formal. But normally i'll reply in the same language as wat the speaker was using. Languages other than Mandarin, English, Teochew, Hokkien n Jap will be simply replied with a huh? n a blur look. Of cos, jus like a typical Singaporean, I do have my lahs n lors n wat-nots.

As for the campaigns, doesnt anyone find dat 华语 Cool! sounds like 华语 哭!?

Maybe a slogan like 华语 我可以! sounds better.