Disclaimer: Through this post, neither do I intend to put down Singaporeans, nor do I claim that I speak perfect English. These are my observations about Singlish. That’s all.

I got the idea for this post during an irksome training session, where the instructor was droning on in Singlish. For the uninitiated, Singlish is Singaporean English, very much like Tanglish (Tamil + English) or Hinglish (Hindi + English). It is very easy to learn the language. Here is what you have to learn (or unlearn):

1. Singlish advocates economy of words. As a result, you do not need to care about grammar rules.

If you want to know the time, don’t waste your time and civility by asking “Excuse me, what time is it now.” Just ask “now what time aah.”

2. Don’t be surprised if you get a “can can” or “cannot” for a yes/no question.

3. Do not pronounce the last syllable of any word. “What do you want” becomes “Wa yoo wan“. Also, “peak hour” becomes “pee owa” :p

4. Singaporeans believe in living in the present. So, they do not use past tense in their speech. :p

Here is a gem of an example: “He talk talk talk, never stop.“

As you can see in the above example, they find it ok to repeat the verb to emphasize the action.

5. “Never” replaces “didn’t“

“I never see you” does not imply that I’m blind or you are invisible. It just means “I didn’t see you“

6. Append sentences with “lah“, “leh“, “lor” much like how you would append “da” and “di” when speaking in Tamil.

7. Append “mah” to sentences when you want to indicate something obvious.

“She boss mah! Can do anything“

8. “Already” becomes “orready” and is used very often.

9. There are a number of Hokkien phrases thrown in during any conversation. It is quite difficult to learn them all.

This is not all. There are more and more rules, but the above rules are sufficient to survive daily life. If you are interested to know more, read the wikipedia entry for Singlish. Or go to this site.

Have a nice weekend!