After a year here I thought I had mastered the art of understanding Singlish; until, that was, we had a talk from the second in command of Singapore prisons at church. I thought I was listening to another language. I guess what it is, is that most of our Sing friends tone down their Singlish when they talk to us and all we get is the occasional 'lah' in the middle or at the end of a sentence.
This guy was in full flight Singlish mode, I was amazed. It can be quite fun to listen to, but I have to resort to lip-reading quite often because of the accent. The picture above shows a sign from Pulau Ubin, one of Singapore's islands.
Singlish is basically the skeletal structure of English, with some key grammar missing and some Malay and Chinese words thrown in. It is spoken in a more abrupt manner than English is spoken. It also uses some quaint English idioms
Some examples:
lah - kind of like a tag question eg 'isn't it?' or 'aren't they' or even just 'heh?'
makan - to eat a meal
already - can be used with the present tense to indicate something that happened in the past
Can (also repeat several times to emphasise)- yes/I will be able to/I was able to
Cannot- no/I can't/I couldn't/I won't be able to
Off the light - Please turn off the light.
habis -finished
cheem -difficult, obscure
ang mo -a white person (that's us!)
rojak - mixed, something mixed
blur - adjective meaning confused
no perfect tense, no articles - eg makan already lah? = Have you eaten yet?
The verb TO BE
The verb TO BE is used in Singapore Colloquial English, and when it is used, it changes (AM, ARE etc) as in standard English. But it is often optional, e.g.
She so pretty.
That one like us.
The first one downstairs.
This new revision ah, REALLY new!
No wonder I get confused. Now imagine trying to teach British English to learners from all over Asia when they go to shops, restaurants, bars etc and people speak to them in Singlish. Yikes...
For more info see http://www.une.edu.au/langnet/singlish.htm#grammar-SCE
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