Singapore. It’s not Manhattan. It’s not Tokyo and it is not Hong Kong.
Singapore is a wonderful city to live in. It is modern, clean, environmentally friendly, extremely efficient, and is home to very friendly and hard-working people. But the minute you talk to your taxi driver outside the airport, you know that you are going to have trouble for the weeks to come.
There seems to be a pulse here. If you know Mandarin or Tamil you can fit in easily, but even otherwise, the city is enveloping and welcoming with its own version of English. Singlish.
There seems to be a pulse here. If you know Mandarin or Tamil you can fit in easily, but even otherwise, the city is enveloping and welcoming with its own version of English. Singlish.
There's L.A., there's the immortal "la la la" song lyric, there's the rock band from Liverpool -- but there's no "lah" like the one in Singapore.
The word "lah" can be, and often is, added to the end of any sentence in Singapore.
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| English is widely spoken in Singapore. However, you will find Singaporeans’ speech peppered with Singlish. Singlish is a portmanteau word made from the conjunction of “Singapore” and “English”. |
Decoding Singlish
"Three dollar onny, dis one,” a street vendor might say to you in Singapore. A local might reply, “Wah! So espensive one, cannot leh.”
The government has launched an aggressive ‘Speak Good English Movement’, strongly discouraging the use of Singlish.
It is not used in everyday formal business interactions, presentations, meetings and job interviews, but if the audience is largely comprised of locals, Singlish may be used to build rapport and inject humour. You cannot escape it when you interact with taxi drivers, hawkers and shop keepers. Some of the phrases you will commonly come across are: Can lah – It can be done, Cannot lah – It cannot be done, Dat one finish oreddy – That one has finished already.
