Singapore society progresses from 3rd world to 1st world, but the people did not. In fact, the govt is still using 3rd world means to govern this country. Legalise, ban, impose fine system, set up red tapes. Doesn’t look 1st world to me.

Although English is an important means of communication, be it in schools or working life, Mother Tongue is also equally important and therefore should not be neglected. Being pro-English will make your Mother Tongue suffer.

Thanks for the article, it’s really food for thought.

I’m a 33-year-old Singaporean-Chinese and my mother tongue isn’t Mandarin either. Neither my grandparents nor my father speak Mandarin. While my mother speaks some basic Mandarin, she considers her mother tongue to be Cantonese.

So when I had to learn Mandarin in school, there was really no one at home who could converse with me until my younger brother learnt it in school as well…

When I was in China 16 years ago on business, the chauffeur asked me curiously why I looked Chinese but did not speak Chinese well or think like a Chinese. That triggered me to think when I should not be adapting to the Chinese as much as when they should be adapting to me. So now I only speak Mandarin socially, and I used English when we talk business. Otherwise, using Mandarin for business will be to my own disadvantage

Singaporeans must learn the bitter lesson of NOT allowing the politcal elite to dictate every damn single policy which very often its detrimental impact can only be felt many years later, some times one generation after. The language policy is a good example. It was decide by the PAP elite for two reasons, one politically to kill off the leftist threat of the Chinese educated and the other which came much later when China opened up – economic usefulness. Language is not just economic usefulness, it has to do with the huan ’soul’, cultural roots, etc. Very sadly, we have lost one generation.

I still remember what Francis Siow said at one of the mass rally during the General Election he participated as a candidate in the GRC team of Enous. Francis Siow then urged Singaporeans to wake up to the idea of never to leave everything to the Ruling party of the day and a strong check and balance is important to critique policies that may have grave consequences for our nation and future generation. These policies may not be felt in the immediate years but its repurcusiion can come much later. He was right with many of the policies now coming back to bite the present generation of Singaporeans.

Good Evening,

I have to go with the old man on this one. Only bc grey matter is finite. And even if its limitless, there is opportunity cost to consider.

In the 1980’s Mahatir thought he was the Aga Khan reincarnate, so he installed bahasa melayu as the lingua franca (working languge) as he believed the West to be decadent.

Fast forward to present day. Most Malaysians especially those in the rural districts cannot even import and export basic information to gainfully interact with the outside world as most books are written in English; whole entire generations are ineffect marooned in their own brains due to the limits of Bahasa Melayu.

Even today the general of level of English in Malaysia is appaling, and its riven their service industry, public and private sectors to levels slightly better than what one would normally find in Loas in Cambodia.

The tragedy is when you go down this sort of nostalgic road; all too often its irreversible and it has a damning effect on millions of people.

This is something we can never ever take away from the old man – he was wise. This is NOT abt power, politics, class or even different states of minds – its plain and simple common sense.

SD (Internet liaison officer of the brotherhood)

Thank you for the treatise.

History of Singapore would have been very different if the PAP had not killed off the dialects and closed Nantah. a choice had to be made then.

It is the consequence and the presence that is going to haunt the policy makers and hence the mandarin campaign to try to maskover.

Singapore as a conduit to China ? Fat Hope ! The economic reasons are purely academic – ask any Taiwanese and Hong Konger who are doing business in China. The Singaporean in China is as loss as any westerner – perhaps the only real purpose is to prepare Singaporeans to work fin the future or Chinese companies.
What more need to be said when MM, PM, DPM , etc are needed to help manage just a small industrial park in China.

At the cultural stage, the Singaporean is not even quarter baked in any roots – the saving grace presently is perhaps some good English because we are so well colonised and the choice made by the policy makers years ago. Look beyond that and the the question ” who are you?” beckons.

Simply said, the policy failed in its cultural objectives if there are any ? Most have been lost to the West, the moment they step into an English taught primary school and so what are we ?

Some westerners say ” Bananas – yellow outside and trying to retain the white inside” You cannot stop the history train as you cannot stop the bananas from riping and turning brown and black, and if not consumed in time, will have to be thrown away……………
It is a sad situation and looking back -could things have been done differently ?
No, so face the music and speak and write mandarin – it may not be too late. Speak to your parents and grandparents in dialect but prepare your children well to be really good in mandarin and use Englisg whe you really need to.
There is no choice now.

Do you think that speaking fluent Mandarin, you could land a job in China ???when 20 million or more thorouhbred Mandarins are jobless. Unfortunately I’m Baba and many of my counterparts have headed Australian shores for whatever the reasons.

Hi KJ, thanks for the response to MM Lee. It’s irritating to hear the ‘benefits’ of Mandarin being hammered in every year.

I think the manner in which the state conducts its ‘Speak Mandarin’ campaign and its rapid dismissal of dialects requires a serious review: there is inadequate reception.

This is how Mandarin speaking Singaporean speak English: as examples
“Nows aday things change” ……correction ” Nowadays things change”
“We cannot bargain as it is fixs price”……….”We cannot bargain as the price is fixed” and many many more that is laughable

beautiful writing.

singaporedaddy, i think u misread. the article seems to be referring to Mandarin vis a vis dialects. in any case the writer already cautioned against thinking in ‘mutually-exclusive’ terms. i suppose that is one of the chronic ailments that singreans seem to be afflicted with.

19.3.09

We as Ordinary Singapore born Chinese must continue to speak our dialects ie Hokkien, Cantonese,Teochew, Hakka, Khek, Hock Chiew among ourselves and keep our rich traditions and cultures embeded in each of us via our dialects alive as they are the real colorful ones unlike those who only speak Mandarin (they are colorless, cultureless and traditionless). Further, let us focus on the use of English on the whole as the English speaking world is much bigger and wider than the Mandarin speaking world. Since Hongkong and Macau reverted back to China, the people of Hongkong and Macau continue to speak Cantonese and hell with Mandarin (this was what I was told last night when I had dinner with friends from Hongkong).

Regards
Andrew Chuah

All these complaints is not going to get you guys anyway! And don’t give me the crab of being forced to learn Mandarin or whatever language! You do have a choice! You can ever fail all the languages! Singapore government, though discourage, certainly didn’t stop Singaporean for for using dialects at home. If you don’t want to learn, that’s your own fault!

Of course, the consequences are all YOURS!

Still remember the day you ENGLISH speaking Singaporean made fun of CHINESE HELICOPTER? Now who has the last laugh? Ha ha ha!

Continue this attitude and soon you will find all the top students in school are Chinese immigrants! The New Singaporean will take over and your guys can step aside and continue to complain!

Hello: 11) into the heart on March 19th, 2009 8.50 pm

Au contraire. I did NOT misread, I merely extended the ambit of the author’s remit to overeach and compare the use of English and Bahasa Melayu in the context of Malaysia; that I believe is what intelligent people usually do when they really want to draw useful comparisons between the use of this or that language – mandarin vs dialects would do just as well.

But then again. I dont consider it a matter of choosing one and throwing the other away; how can that be? Its really after a matter of personal choice. If you want to learn teochew, hokkien or cantonese, then go ahead, who is stopping u. ONLY as far as the mainstream vernacular why should we try take this all of this in one go – my feel is we would be building a tower of Babel rather than building a strong foundation to understanding one and another.

SD

Singapore is fast losing its Chinese heritage. The patient is dying because he has been mis-diagnosed, and the quack doctor still pretends he is right.

Mandarin is only the Beijing dialect, masquarading as THE Chinese language.

In fact it is probably a bastardised version of Chinese. It only appeared during the Mongol Yuan dynasty and became dominant under the Manchu Qing dynasty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese

Our southern Chinese languages are much richer. They are certainly NOT dialects of Mandarin.

I’m Teochew, but was deprieved of my natural learning environment by another stupid “Stop At Two (languages)” policy of the government. Mandarin is just like the toliet paper I use when it’s convenient.

Mandarin is my mother tongue? Tan gu gu!

1 aspect that wasn’t explained by policy makers is the differential benefits when one’s proficiency in Mandarin, say gets ‘better’ by another 10%…. e.g. what how much benefits (soft or hard) are you going to get when your Mandarin proficiency increases from 40% to 50%, ad compared to 85% to 95% ? The law of diminishing returns dictates that your benefits can then no longer increase proportionally or multi-fold at some point. So, it is too blunt a statement to declare all so-called dialects as ‘redundant’ for everyone. Language should also be looked at in terms of overall richness it brings to a person’s life/ culture and those around. The fact is you will never be able to establish a proven case (well-sampled population) that those who have engaged in dialects telling you that they have led a less fulfilling life, so much so that they would have made a different choice if they are allowed to make it one more time. At this point, I remain unconvinced on the course of direction taken by policy makers.

Hong Kong people can continue to say Hell the Mandarin and continue to see their market share in entertainment continue to shrink! Who listen to Canton-Pop now? Even they are listening to Chinese Pop!

Yes the benevolent issue of speaking mandarin crops up again and again since I was in my primary school until today in my mid-forties.

Let me share with all how the speak mandarin policy had benefited me through out the years

I came from a presently well known primary and secondary mission school and my dad who is a first generation Singapore born Chinese still speaks to me in English even until now in his late 70s. A diehard British subject I think.

I never made the grades in mandarin and the teachers could never find a grade below F9 then. Students who did not make the grades in mandarin and other subjects will be grouped into delinquent classes, where we are taught there is no hope in our future. I believe it is an equivalent of the EM3 streaming today.

Because of my delinquency in mandarin, and not by choice, I had found it surmountable to qualify for entry into a good class each year, the pre-university college and subsequently the local university, where the cream of the crop would be.

I estimated that at least 70% of my youthful efforts were spent learning and writing mandarin during that time. I had even developed my own English version of the “hanyu pinyin”, which was written above each Chinese character just to make my mandarin sound right during orals.

By an Act of God, it was a miracle I got accepted into a local polytechnic for students with GCE ‘ O’ levels 16 points and above.

But something happened in the polytechnic and I had the prerogative to keep my hair long, wear jeans with tee shirts and slippers for school lessons, sorry lectures.

Basically the educational policies resulting from the speak mandarin campaign were no longer applicable in a tertiary institution like the polytechnic.

In my most memorable three years of the polytechnic, I obtained distinctions in most of my subjects, which allowed me direct entry, sorry “Back Door” entry into local university with exemption of the 1st year of studies. In the same university year, guess what, I met my senior head prefect of my secondary school who was one year older than me doing the same course. I found out later that he had to retake another year of his pre-university examinations to qualify for the university.

As a young and energetic graduate then working for an international exploration company, I was posted in 1989 to Tianjin for six months by myself to work with my Chinese counterparts onboard a drill ship. None spoke to me in English and thankfully the ship did not sink.

Many years after the Tianjin exposure, I joined a local company as a project manager to oversee at least 100 China workers from Nantong and successful completed some of the public projects here, which are still standing today. I got to speak and understand technical mandarin by communicating with the workers who were educators I could relate with.

I have graduated some twenties now, got my professional qualifications and am a practicing consultant in my own firm.

My other direct experience in China includes, specialized projects in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing, working with the British and other Chinese peers.

Looking back now I never expected that for a person like me who could not make the local educational standards all because of the speak mandarin policy could go to places where most would not have gone first and made it.

Today I am determined to learn mandarin with all my heart. Why? Because now my family have been relocated there, hopefully for the long haul to ride China’s economic success.

Finally I want to dedicate my heartfelt appreciation, for my distressed teachers who became psychopathic teaching me mandarin, the biased World Class educational policy, which made me a dropout and of course our benevolent Speak Mandarin Policy which made me successful today.

Beautifully articulated. I don’t need someone else to tell me what my
mother tongue is.

being a chinese singaporean, i detest mandarin. i hate it when i speak to people at coffeshops in hokkien and they reply in mandarin. to hell with it !

Yeah, yeah one profocient in Mandarin can converse with millions of mainland chinese.
What make you so cock-sure that those millions wants to converse with you – what have you got to offer them that they need to converse with you, please la, your face or your pockets mainland chinese wants to talk to you about ??

I wonder why we are killing ourselves over an old man’s comment/advice about what we should speak in our own friggin’ homes! Let him/them say all they want, but ultimately it is us who decide what we want to utter in whatever damn language we deem fit.

Hi KJ, very insightful article.

I can see they don’t believe in free market movements. I dont see how dialects cannot help Singaporean do buz with China, in fact it is that feeling of ‘kah kee nan’ that will create opportunities for us. Speak mandrin to the mainland chinese is like speaking a foreign language to them how are we to make them feel we are ‘kah kee nan’.

sgdaddy, now you’re backpedalling on your previous comments. do think about your contradictory statements.

22, i think it’s because, as the old man had said and done: “To effectively promote Mandarin, we closed down all dialect programmes on radio and TV from 1979.” … and etc. so you see, its not just about wat goes on in our friggin homes but the inescapable grip of the gahmen.

It’s amazing how SD can backtrack and still remain so unfazzled by it all. Amazing. Tell me is this some secret technique that all of you learn online?

If we are aware of who we are, then we will be awaken !

Did anyone still realized the Koreans are still speaking their own language, and eating “kimchi” ?
The Japanese are still speaking their own language, and eating “sushi”?

Whereas we have no identities to date, and try to “copycat” or “imitate” others?

When we were under British rule, eating “fish and chips” was a norm.

But now we learned to eat steaks.

Look what happened ? The Lehman Bros, etc. and Citibank ?.

My friend said we were spurned !

he he he

I suck at the written Chinese language. But I can hold a decent conversation in Mandarin and my family dialect; my Mandarin is good enough for me to understand China-made television productions and I can understand chinese comics in general lol. But I love the Chinese culture. Art, history, customs… etc

So, while being the product of the same system that KJ has, and also not too keen on the rote-learning of Chinese being taught at school, I won’t go so far as to blame the gahmen for depriving me of my ability to converse with my grandparents. But then again, I spent a lot of time as a kid at my grandma’s so it could simply be that I was exposed to the dialect at a very young age.

But I can also understand how the over-emphasis on the economic benefit of learning the language can kill the joy of learning it in the first place. And perhaps that is why the Chinese businessmen also dun think so highly of us as ‘Chinese’. We may speak the language but it is just a language for, and of money. Beyond that, how ‘Chinese’ are we?

This isn’t anything new, but I believe that the approach has to be to get people to be interested in the culture first – their cultural roots and the language profeciency will come naturally. Learning happens best when it’s spontaneous. Ask most people who take up a foreign language – those who don’t take it out of necessity will tell you they love the culture and learning the language is for them to understand the culture more.

But of course, the love of anything simply for the pure joy of it is not something EconLee will ever understand.

If you can, continue to talk to your aged parents in dialects and teach your children dialects too from birth to as old as they can follow. To me, I regretted not doing it. Talking dialects is as easy as breathing and eating. Only Babas like LKY who don’t talk dialects at home found it difficult, so rather than learning dialects, they use Mandarin to comm with the Chinese. For the rest who are dialect-based in origins, let’s continue not to let our rich dialects die. Mandarin is actually rather easy to learn to speak – it’s a matter of figuring out the phonetics. Even my aged mother could pick it up. The children will pick up Mandarin in school anyway. Writing Chinese is difficult and it has nothing to do with learning dialects as a rival to Mandarin! I’ve gone thru the experience – My late father taught me Chinese in dialects before I went to school until I was quite old; he also taught me to write with the brush and read anagrams.My foundation has withstood to this day, and I still can pick up Mandarin when they started it in schools and I am also fluent in English and other dialects.

26,

Who are we? We aren’t PRCs, nor are we Americans.

I guess, one could say that who we are is dictated by our daily lives, and yes, there is a nascent Singaporean identity, although many will debate over its form and structure, and also how it is projected through our daily interactions across dominant Eastern and Western ideologies of culture.

I just realized I would most probably be the last in my family line to be able to understand & speak (albeit poorly) Hokkien. Dialects are gonna be lost in Singapore by the time of the next generation.

To understand exactly the problem,
just go and speak in mandarin to A level grads who passed chinese language subject.

Don’t be surprised if some of them tell you, ’sorry, could you speak in english? my mandarin not strong’ I encountered many like this.

Can pass but can speak of not? I mean not all lah. Just like any other thing in this world, there is no absolute 100%. So, guess what happens if you ask them to write their name in chinese?

I think we have to accept that our English and Mandarin will always sound different. Southern Chinese don’t sound like northern Chinese even when they use putonghua. People in differnt parts of China are different in their thinking too.

In US, people from different geographical locations sounded and think differently as well. They have people with southern accent. In Great Britain, there are the Cockney accent. Everywhere in the world, people speak differently even within the same country.

When a place is truly cosmopolitan, the people will realise that there are no absolute. So, let’s not allow such setbacks to bother us. With good command of English or Mandarin, we can pick up their accent and communicate effectiively when needed to.

If we are interested in learning Hokkien or Cantonese, we can do it on our own and not formally, at the expense of English and Mandarin. You will realise that our Hokkien is different from taiwan and our Cantonese is different from Hong Kong. So, whatever language we learn, it will be laced with our accent. We really don’t belong anywhere else but here.

My interest spurred me to start learning Malayu. So, I think it is nicer to have the freedom to do what we want in our free time. And let children concentrate on English and Mandaron. They can pick up other languages if they are interested when they grow up.

I agree with this article totally.

I’m a Singapore living and working in Hong Kong now (HK is a more vibrant city and a more developed financial centre than Singapore) and I am being placed at a tremendous disadvantage because the main mode of communication here is Cantonese, not Mandarin or English. Although the people here try very hard to speak the latter two, because we are all not native speakers of Mandarin or English we find it neigh impossible to communicate with each other using those languages. The circumstance has made me learn to use the most primitive language available to humankind: gestures and well-timed eye contact.

I’m not Cantonese but I do admire a city which embraces the cultural heritage of its people instead of discarding it like a ’soiled rag’ in the name of economic exigency. Does HK owe its prosperity to its proximity to China? Or the fact that people here feel more connected to the place and therefore wouldn’t mind working harder to generate wealth because they feel that they have a home here, a home where they can converse freely with their parents and grandparents in their native tongues. Alas, home is where the human heart is, and Singaporeans are left bewildered as to the diaspora.

Kudos to KJ !!

6) Singaporedaddy on March 19th, 2009 8.18 pm

If I’m not mistaken, CANTONESE is the language of instruction in HONG KONG schools.

Is HK worse off as in Malaysia?

Dear KJ,

This time, I’m delighted to congratulate you for writing such an insightful, sensitive and well-argued essay. Very well done indeed. I happen to agree with most of your points.

I particularly like this sentence of yours:
” What consolation does it bring, to be able to speak to 1.3 billion Chinese all over China if I cannot even engage in a proper conversation with my own family?”

Keep it up!

Long long time ago, my father was already in his retirement years when all of a sudden there was no more LEE TAI SAW, the Cantonese story teller that sprout his famous “siong yat chi, or dey gong tou ” on radio or reddifusion. No more Cantonese shows on TV too. No more that hokkein story teller ( I think it is Ong Tei or something or somene like that) too and no more Wang Sa & Yeh Fong.

My dad & mum reads chinese characters in their dialet and so they can read the newspaper very well. But there were no more simple entertainment for them. It was a very sad era as I watched them stared at the TV and not understood a word of Mandarin or English. My father hated LKY for that ! Do you think it was easy to get to see dialet shows during that period ? No video, no CD or DVD then.

Our family have lots of fun talking to our parents in our dialet. Now our sibblings still converse in dialet when we see each other. But our children do not speak dialets and they are fascinated when they hear us adults chatting away in our mother’s tongue. And they say they want to learn! Hurray, got a bit of hope lah, but it’s a lost cause. NTU professor also kena hammered for talking about it.

Yup, I failed my O levels’ Mandarin. But I did not have to use it for work for so many years because we get by with dialets, Bahasa Malayu & English.
Now the environment is different. Mandarin is spoken commonly in Singapore. But I am an old man and I don’t care a hoot about it. When I am in a restuarant or food centre, I order food in Cantonese, Hokkien, Malay or English. If the pretty young waitress (from China) cannot understand me, I just call for the captain and I can assure you he/she would definitely find someone that can speak my lingo, if not English then.

Don’t tell me to learn Mandarin now, it will kill my brain. I rather learn how to play the guitar and enjoy my singing.

And for the last time, my mother’s tongue is Cantonese, not Mandarin.

Socrates: My dear elder statesman, why do you force your subjects to learn Mandarin to the extent of suppressing their real mother tongue – the dialects?

Elder Statesman: Well, for one thing, it would be very useful given that we want to do business with China.

Socrates: But, is the value of a language solely dependent on its usefulness?

Elder Statesman: Why Socrates, I’m surprised at you. Isn’t it obvious that a thing is valuable because it is useful? Don’t tell me you value useless things?

Socrates: Superficially, of course, useful things are better than useless things. But, it is important to consider the purpose for which a thing is useful for.

Elder Statesman: Hey, doesn’t the usefulness of a thing mean the capacity of that thing to bring you more money? Money can buy you many things, you know.

Socrates: You told people that you practise Pragmatism. You think that Pragmatism makes you prefer useful things. If that’s the case, actually everyone practises Pragmatism in the sense that everyone pursues something in order to secure something else. It’s the something else that is important. You say that something else is money. I may say that something else is love, honor or fulfillment. If everyone is a Pragmatist, no one is. Ultimately, Pragmatism is an empty philosophy.

Elder Statesman: Are you sure about this? Throughout my whole life, I thought my way of practising Pragmatism is cleverer than all the theorists and ideologues…

Socrates: It’s not too late to turn back now.

Nobody is stopping anyone learning dialects. If you have terabytes of brain cells go ahead learn as many as possible. If you think dialects are going to help you your family and your business please proceed at your own pace…… I think no government institutions especially MSMs are going to promote dialects.

One should not take MM Lee words so seriously afterall he is a senile old man trying very hard in making himself relevant so that he can justify his high pay and all benefits including the best of medical care. He just do not admit he is old and irrelevant. So he has to say something once in a while in the press, go jetting all round the world and get CNA to blow up his relevance for all Singaporean to see. Do you think other countries really care what he does? What they care is how to take advantage of GIC and Temasek in order to lay a hand on our hard earned money the RESERVE!

Dear 37 Mr Think Talk

Are you one of the brainwashed who can’t see that the GOVT has removed ALL the avenues there are to learn dialects? IS there a language school you could go to learn Hokkien like you want for Japanese or French?

I’ve never seen a more proud citizen proudly spouting goverhment propaganda!

Your whole underlying reason for having a language is economic ones, which leaves much to be desired. Anyway what kind of half baked Mandarin are you talking about? Mandarin good for laughs???

terabytes?? Are human beings or robots??

Going by your logic, since most Singaporeans cannot speak English AND their ‘MOTHER TONGUES’ well, does that mean Singaporeans uniquely lack braincells? Singaporeans uniquely stupid??? DUH!?!??!

aiyoyo

maybe need ask : the mandarin we speak, can other Chinese understand?

if can be understood, then think it’s good.

reason – language is basically a communication tool…

times are bad, chin cai a bit, i think…

aiyoyo

The Japanese and the Koreans need not replace their mother tongues with English to compete in the world market and they did well over the last few decades. So are the Taiwanese. Why did we not allow and support Chinese schools to survive and carry on in the 70sand boost the study of English just like the Japs, Koreans and Taiwanese had done? Then we would not have a lost generation who has become rootless, sadly and yet neither proficient in English nor Chinese. Look at the Malaysian Chinese, they kept their Chinese schools and the Malaysian Chinese mastered much better Chinese language than us. I spoke with young Malaysian Chinese and their spoken and written Chinese are way beyond the standard of our schools. So much so, there is a large enrolment of Malays into Chinese schools in Malaysia.

In the US, people are free to learn languages based on an individual’s needs, whether for economic gain, one’s family/cultural environment, or just out of interest. The government does not force (in spite of some bigoted cries for ALL US citizens to have to know English) people to learn (American) English. Instead, the US government adapts … in areas where there are more Spanish speakers, you tend to see more documents available in Spanish. If it is not economical to make multiple copies of forms and instructions, they offer translation services as best as they can.

What Singapore lacks is the confidence in ourselves. We are not confident that need, economic or otherwise, will necessarily inspire an individual to pursue what is required to fulfill that need. Instead, we rely on the government to “provide”.

In doing so, the government left no one with much of a choice as we grew up! We get pigeon-holed into 3 secondary languages (Bahasa Melayu, Tamil and Mandarin) and a smattering of tertiary languages (French, German and Japanese). Under this scenario, to survive in our education system, one has no choice but to tackle a secondary language.

I personally struggled with Mandarin for which I either lacked talent with or just hated the way it was taught. Either way, it felt uninspiring. I learned more about Chinese culture and history playing games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms than from my Mandarin classes in formal education. Perhaps I should have chosen Bahasa Melayu as my “mother tongue” (had I, as a kid, the choice) but Mandarin was the “natural” option given my ethnicity. Cantonese had to take a back seat. It is unclear if I would have succeed with Cantonese given my failure at Mandarin, but I still regret having to “converse” with my late maternal grandmother in broken Cantonese with Mandarin words thrown in when I failed to find the equivalent Cantonese ones (and the awkward moments when grandma fails to understand what I think were the appropriate Mandarin replacements).

Today in the US, I still lack any serious linguistic talent (outside of English), but I no longer feel strait-jacketed. Nowadays, I take joy trying to get a feel for every language my (very) international friends had to offer. From English (it is more diverse than you think) to Italian to Spanish to Polish to Mandarin to Hindi. I do not learn enough to actually converse (other than English and Mandarin, and barely the latter), but I feel great satisfaction understanding aspects of a language (eg. gender associations) and sometimes the cultural aspects. The diversity is staggering and at the same time, beautiful.

The people in Singapore who insist on eliminating everything outside the “supported” languages presented by the media (since we do not, in practice, have private media) are really depriving Singaporeans of this beauty. I would love to see the day private media enthusiasts in Singapore are allowed to present material in any language (or dialect) they desire (eg. “The World of French Music” in French) instead of being strait-jacketed by “official policy”.

It is the policy of Lee KY government to promote Mandarin and kill of the other Chinese languages (wrongly called dialects). Being a baba, Lee KY’s mother tongue is Malay and so has no attachment to any of the Chinese langauges.

Today S’pore is not producing enough babies to replace itself. The policies the Lee KY and PAP government has put in place is the reason many Singaporeans are leaving Singapore; in its place are many 2nd and 3rd rate migrants who can’t migrate to the US, Australia, etc. Many rich business people have parked their ill-gotten gains in S’pore because it is a tax-haven and a money-laundry capital of the world.

The only people that benefit from PAP policies are the PAP elites, the very, very rich (often dirty). For the rest of the population, the PAP give handouts only during election time.

It’s time we vote in more opposition into parliament.

May S’poreans save Singapore from the failed policies of Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP government

The curx of the matter for Singaporeans is that we have to be bilingual in Chinese and English. Once this was an accepted premise, the next question is do we learn the dialects or do we learn a compromise called Mandarin?

If we go for dialects, which one -Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka? So I think in a sense, the govt settled on a compromise middle ground which was Mandarin instead.

But what I cannot understand is why it had gone on to stop dialects in the MSM, the TV, the radio etc. when this was most unnecessary! The reason used was that the brain only has so much capacity, so it could not absorb Mandarin without giving up dialects. This is what I do not agree. This seems to be the whole point here.

Contrary to what the govt and LKY think, dialects do not compete for the memory banks with Mandarin, but rather it is having to master both Chinese and English and to be good enough in school to qualify for local admission for University that is taxing – so really we should drop either English OR Mandarin, that is the casus belli.

Dialects are Chinese in basis and Mandarin is also Chinese based; the only difference is in the phonetics. So this is not such a great barrier to cross, as compared to the jump from learning English to Chinese (whether dialect or Mandarin), for obvious very clear reasons, in which the former is based on 26 letters of the alphabet and the latter, which comprised ideograms! This is the main problem the educators have to address! How to simplify the learning of Chinese language per se vs. the English we are so used to. Dialects is only collateral damage!

In fact, if the MSM conduct intensive regular Chinese programs as well as Chinese language classes over the air and in the newspapers in all 4 major dialects in conjunction with Mandarin, I’ll bet you that the standard of Chinese (and I’m not drawing any diff between dialects and mandarin where there is none) will see a quantum leap!

“If you have terabytes of brain cells go ahead learn as many as possible.”

“So what if you have terabytes of brain cells”, ask those with terabytes of brain cells to solve this present financial crisis before the world has to solve theirs first before we can solve ours.

I can only surmise that the majority of opponents to the policy of learning mandarin comes from people who are not very well versed in the language. Although my mastery of the language has been gaining in recent years, I surely belong to this group, but I have a different take on the issue.

Unlike Japan and Korea which are homogenous societies, the Chinese in Singapore are a diverse lot and Mandarin (superficial as it may be) serves as a useful bond which allows the Chinese to associate with one another as one race and provides a link to their common heritage, ancestry and culture. Persisting with dialect as the predominant tongue will only emphasize differences among the various communities and create group abrasions in the community. From a nation building perspective, this policy cannot be wrong. People remember the racial tensions during the 60s but not many will remember the riots and clashes between the Ghee Hins and the Hai San triads, which are essentially Teochews vs Hokkiens fights at the turn of the century. To a unique, young and diverse country like Singapore, any socially disruptive force must be negated and making the people learn Mandarin is a useful tool in this sense.

Limited resources also mean that it is not possible to promote dialects in the media, although I turn on radio 95.8 sometimes to listen to dialect news. However, learning mandarin and using it as the dominant language does not mean that dialects cannot be passed down within the home. If anyone feel so strongly about learning dialects, take the opportunity to learn from older relatives while you still can.

Learning Mandarin does not give one an advantage doing business in China, but it makes sure that one does not feel as lost as a Westerner because the language exposes one to the psychological make up, habits and values of the Chinese. For the same reason, many westerners and Hong Kong Chinese are learning mandarin (fast). Perhaps it must be made known that even among the indigenous groups in Southern and South Western China, many of the Chinese themselves are learning mandarin because they see it as a pathway to economic, social and political opportunities. I therefore fail to understand the antagonism to the use of mandarin as the language of choice for Chinese Singaporeans besides English as first language..

Mandarin is not a difficult language to learn but some may lag behind others. So be it for not all are born (or bred equal) but do not condemn its role or usefulness.

Does this in ANY way,
have to do with EDUCATION quality?
how much of a success has mother tongue education been?
Lets move on?

“I do wonder what their Singaporean world has been like, for them to one morning find themselves strangers in their own land, unable to be understood and unable to understand, the foreign chatter on the streets, and recounting life stories in a voice whose sweetness their loved ones would never know.
”

Dear KJ,
Always i find your article very well written and nice read. :)

I used to be a IT worker.
I have been experiencing the same problem as you described in the above when I was working in a large IT department of a large MNC. Their IT department is majority foreigners of 1 nationality. The other majority is of another foreign nationality. kind of like 40:60 split. As singaporean, I was definitely the odd one out. I was feeling like living in a strange land which is my country full of strangers who are foreigners.

Well, this is why I am gonna be a employer instead of an employee – its so easy to get foreigners even now!!! But I must do it quick because there is this ENTREPRENUER PASS for foreigners to come here and bring their dependents
here. To apply, the brochure says “NO MINIMUM Qualifications” and “HIGH SUCCESS RATE” and “UPON Approval, you can bring your immediate family members to sg as Dependent pass holders” (means he get PR???)

Found this website: http://www.jje.sg <—- read all about it.

Wow! sg is so great! I have decided to be employer to take advantage of the pro-business policies and do it quick cos FE (foreign entreprenuers) pass holders are coming ! great, I get to enjoy competition both when I was an employee and employer. Retirement is secured.

While I take pride in teaching my children my mother tongue, Hokkien, I have no issues with learning Mandarin. My main grouse is in the teaching of Mandarin and the strict requirements on children at a very young age. How many children can handle 2 languages effectively at age 6 – 12? Those who have young children will know how challenging the text is. I understand that in Europe, you only pick up a 2nd or 3rd language in Sec school so as to ensure that their 1st language is proficient enough. I think it puts off a lot of young children in learning Mandarin when they have to struggle so much with it. My nieces and nephews threw away their Chinese textbooks first thing when they finish school, shows the contempt for the subject. Ask those with Pri school going kids and they will tell you the high % of time spent on Chinese where it could have been better spent on other more enriching curriculum. I have seen angmohs speaking better Mandarin than our kids who have been schooled for 12 yrs. So, the main problem is the teaching and implementation, not the language inself.

Thanks KJ for this article.
I do understand that this issue of language and dialect is very emotive.
I’m a Teochew. And i only communicated with my parents in this dialect. But they are long gone. With my Teochew colleague, i still communicate in Teochew but with alot of English words thrown in. I seem to detect that in the near future communication in dialect will be a thing of the past in Singapore.
Not so long ago, i was at the airport. There was a group of Chinese national speaking among themselves in unadulterated Teochew. It was truly music to my ears. Even though my language ability was limited, i pluck the courage to share a few words with them. My son who was leaving for work in China join the conversation but in Mandarin. And one of the Chinese ( they are from Swatow) told my son that my Teochew was not good.
My son comes from a typical English speaking home. He was given Mandarin tuition from Primary One to his A level but fail through out and thus was denied a place in the local university and thus was sent to an overseas university. He is now working in China and thus had no choice but to learn and speak Mandarin
My son has two daughters. But i communicate with them in English. As a grandfather, i asked myself whether i should communicate with my grandchildren in my limited Teochew. If so, is it worth the effort. I dont think so. But ultimately my son has to make the decision for his children . Dialect against language. And the proportion of time, energy and money on studying them. The pull between the head and the heart will always be there as it was for the past 40 years.

Good Morning,

Dialects vs Mandarin will always be emotive; only because culture, power and heritage will always play a preponderant role whenever we talk about it; will something be lost, if we don’t learn dialects. I don’t know; my colleague darkness thinks so as he put it so well here:

http://dotseng.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/the-joy-of-stupid-people/

The main problem is; its all primroses and parks vs factories and Henry Fordism; and we all know the latter does little to quicken the heart of the tax man. That I feel is the main problem the tug between what must be and what should be.

SD (Internet liaison officer of the brotherhood)

Some scholars have now claimed that ” The World Is Awesome” with such diversity in languages, cultures, etc.

Speak to those frequent travellers and you would heard wonderful stories.

The day some of us go for holidays, like in Europe, the surprises would be reckoning. Even in Britain, the accents are different.

And if you intend to be a ‘free and easy’ tourist, and wants to take a taxi ride in France, it is ‘good’ to learn some basic French spoken words. Mind you, they are very proud of their heritage and cruisines!

I have seen a program, how Hitler’s remarkable staging and fiery rhetoric had brought the demise of the german youths. And the concluding comments were that the surviving youths now realised that they had been brainwashed and indoctrinated. (You can just google search in the internet).

So have some been brainwashed and indoctrinated?

Some says we are in fact living in a ‘make believe world’, as some religious stories now even begin to surface. Story like the shroud had failed the carbon tests, ink tests, material tests, etc. . And after ‘the ark story’ program, the host of the program had since left. So now scholars just simply labelled them as ‘controversies’.

So look at the mirror today, and reflect !
Wonder who are you, and who Is ’superior’ !
ha ha ha

Did Michael Jackson regretted ?

I felt the comment on 12) is a big insult to those Mandarin-oriented young Singaporeans. Be thankful that they still preserve their Mandarin while adopting English at the same time. Don’t say they are colourless, cultureless and traditionless as many are much more traditional, cultural and colourful than you initially thought. You just need to meet these people before passing off this particular sentence.

For most Chinese Singaporeans and Peranakans, Chinese is an evil stepmother tongue.

Mandarin is the main representative of the entire Chinese language, just like Han Chinese is the major of the Chinese race. Mandarin has been existed since Han Dynasty, not Mongol Yuan or Qing like wiki says.

I do not support young SGreans to learn regional Chinese languages (I don’t view it as dialects) because if you want to learn, better to learn all languages from Hokkien to Hakka which is too much to absorb. Otherwise, one is skilled in Teochew but can’t understand Hakka. There will be a gap among the Chinese people if Mandarin is not used as a common language to narrow it.

Americans make lots of money in China too, but they seem to get by just fine by just speaking English to the Chinese. Educated mainlanders can speak English just as well or even better than Singaporeans (and with correct unadulterated non-Singlish grammar). I think we would have been better off had we just learned English in school as a compulsory subject. We could then speak in sophisticated English to the Chinese and not get made fun of. Why bother with Mandarin when they already studied English?

I don’t think it’s about going to a language school which people go to learn Japanese or French, etc as mentioned in a post above.

Dialects are learnt at home, and killing off radio and TV broadcasts has effectively stopped children from picking dialects up easily. My mum used to watch Cantonese dramas on Malaysian TV channels which I absorbed as a kid. It came in very handy in Chinese restaurants while I was studying in Aust and on business trips in Hong Kong.

i do not think to learn to speak just 1 dialects will affect english and chinese or even other language or culture or style or studies results, or anything.

A,decade ago, I used to hold Monthly Dinner and in my group was the farher of a Minister, The Cantonese waitress from Ipoh commented that his 80-years face had baby complexion. The Old Man asked me what was she saying and I told him the waitress’ remark. The Old Man replied in Mandarin to her but his pronouciation was not Han Yee Pin Yin…..sounded like Peranakan mixed with Hokkien. The whole table roared with laughter ! To be exact, the spoken wprds sounded like sex language,,,,but the waitress was ignorant.
This a true story. The tone can mean dirty words !

Obamaosamataksama

As far as i know singaporean has no identity nor culture so what is mother tongue.Money speaks louder than any language in the world.

Actually, I dun see MM’s logic.

We speak dialect, we dun write it. And if it’s our mother tongue, I dun think we even as many brain cells to know it, unlike some foreign language one is forced to take up.

I asked my children what’s the most difficult thing about learning Mandarin, and they replied :” the writing part.” They just can’t cope with the strokes and they find the Chinese curriculum boring.

My wife jokingly told me to take a look at the textbooks if I can’t sleep at night.

I think finding scape goats for our inefficient education system is easier than looking for real solutions.

I think many years ago when a QIN king wanted to enforce a common script in Chinese among the six other states ( Zhao,Wei, Chu, Han ,Yan, Ji..) there were a lot of emotions mainly because dissidents felt that their own culture would be lost. He did it anyway and now China has a common script..and her culture is still intact. I predict in generations to come dialects will fade away in China , including Hongkong. What do you think?

maybe not really true.

if got another qin king might mean will need a dictator?

or i am wrong.

The over zealous effort to force Mandarin to be the Mother Tongue for Chinese has in fact, spurred the growth of Singlish.
Look around us, or rather, Hear amongst us. Those that grew up with the Hanyupinyin generation speak largely Singlish because many of these went on to become Teachers !
The govt just doesnt concede that that Speak Mandarin and puntive environment was counter-productive to Most students and in the end their Mandarin is not up to par and their English is atrocious !
Why liddat one.. get my point?

67), To add to your point… in the past, there were those who were EXCELLENT in English, not just the language, but Western culture, literature etc, though they were not necessarily good in Chinese. And there were those who were EXCELLENT in Chinese and learned in Chinese history and culture, though they may not know a single word of English. Then the Great Equalizer happened, and now most people know bit bit Engrish, yi dian dian Hua Yu, and that’s it.

What is the fuzz? Is anyone stopping anyone from learning or speaking dialects?

I think the Chinese Clan Associations and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce should get together to jump-start dialect education in Singapore. It is not illegal to setup dialect centres in institutions not funded by the Singapore government.

70) ….I think the Chinese Clan Associations . . . ….. dialect education in Singapore. It is not illegal to set up dialect centre . . ….

Friend you ok or not ?? Looks like you are pappy-supporter to trap innocent people is it?
Do you know why ISD/ISA are still around??
The answer is they are around so that they are needed for Mas Selamat’s case and to keep jobs. If not many of them in the ISD will be retrenched already notwithstanding our economy is dependent on global recovery.

Think more important is to re-introduce the cultures of the different dialect groups. The language is a part of it. IMHO, one reason why there is an over-emphasis on materialism is because the erosion of the traces of our roots has created a vaccumn which is only poorly filled by whatever passes off as the current fads these days. Spirtualism/religion can fill that gap, of course, and also a deeper understanding of where we came from.

Well said. Pls send it to the press n LKY office…

If someone tells me what language to speak at home to my kids, I will tell him or her to PISS OFF!

My mother tongue is $$$……………everyday when wake up speak $$$ , work for $$$ try luck on 4D or TOTO for $$$ why bother about mother toungue so long you live in $ingapore……………World top 10 most expensive city’s culture is all about $$$

The China gals speak fluent English when I reply in Mandarin. Lingo not the same with a deeper Mandarin accent compared to mine

KJ,

there is nothing wrong with singaporean mandarin.

when you say we have appalling levels of proficiencies of mandarin, who are you talking about? zaobao? newscasters? hawkers? schoolchildren? for the common person (eg the last two), obviously she would be more likely to speak COLLOQUIAL singaporean mandarin, which is different, syntatically, lexically or otherwise, from the standard or written form.

this does not in any way imply that the colloquial form is inferior.

the same applies to ‘ lightweight grasp (of Mandarin and) English’.

who cares if the angmohs and china chinese laugh at our languages. there is nothing wrong with our languages.

in any case, effective communication is not just about fluency of language alone.

Quadrophonic better than stereo #71,

We don’t need LKY’s approval or the government’s approval in what we do. I think you don’t understand what it means to be free as long as you are operating under the legal framework.

LKY is no longer fit for office and his dementia is irreversible. Why are you hanging on to a piece of an antique that has outlived his usefulness? An old freak like him should pass on without state funeral.

Quadrophonic better than stereo #71,

SM Lee is no longer fit for office and his senile dementia is irreversible.

Stop hanging on to a decomposing piece of antique

Correction to Post #79

I meant to say:

MM Lee is no longer fit for office and his senile dementia is irreversible. Stop hanging on to that decomposing antique. He is not the future but a legacy that we Singaporeans must live without. If we citizens don’t take our own direction, who will?

The public will always be perceived as having a clutch mentality if we do not take our own initiatives to lead our own lives and provide our own cultural direction. You cannot expect someone who uses economic indicators to tell you that.

58, Triple Threat

Mandarin was only a dialect before the advent of the Qing Dynasty. Let’s not twist history to suit an agenda.

Thanks.

Dear # 77 Jun, colloquial is inferior because it is basic and simplistic. As the article argued, Singaporean standard of mandarin is simply not up to par! Do street people speak newscaster mandaarin? no leh. but our newscasters speak like the street people of Beijing. :)

#77 so there’s nothing wrong with singaporean mandarin if there is nothing wrong with substandard language.

Did we go “overboard” ?

I think the issue is to equip us with the necessary conversational vocabulary.

Maybe we should examine why the english spoken/ written in the US differs from the British, too !

Whereas I have also found that some of us tends to speak like amerikan or british.

Have you found any British trying to imitate the way the Amerikan speak/write or vice versa ?

I met an american tourist friend some time ago, and she told me she was in fact VERY IRRITATED when some of us try to imitate the way she spoke.

I was “taken aback” instantly, but immediately recovered, and told her something like “well……! ”

So ?

It is like saying, for example, american food writer/ journalist Anthony Bourdain visiting Singapore to eat ‘flamed prime ribs’, and seeing all american sceneries
and cronies.
A tourist may say “oh, this is one of the states of the US ?”.
Then we may have to reply, possible, since we have lost billions through Lehman Bros., etc. and Citibank is to “bleed” us ?

But we have Sands !
For a very high price though, possible we have been ‘ripped-off’ !
he he he

#82

–> I am not twisting the history. Mandarin existed way back since Han Dynasty. Read your history please, do some research, ask your professors, and no wiki.

Different dynasties spoke different dialects, Ming, Han, Song, and a few spoke Mandarin as the national communication language, if you are focusing on whether dialects/regional languages or Mandarin come first.

mrthinkbeforeyoutalk ,

even if colloquial mandarin is ‘basic and simplistic’, what is wrong with that? it has its uses, it serves its purposes well – it functions exactly the same way as singlish does – to communicate with friends and family. do you think singlish is basic and simplistic as well?

the reason why our newscasters speak standard mandarin is simply political – which tv station in singapore would be wanted to be seen as promoting ‘bad’ mandarin, which is not even bad in the first place. AND you can be sure that even the newscasters themselves do NOT speak like newscasters once they are off air.

and there is no such thing as a substandard language. all languages were developed to meet their users’ needs. just as there is nothing wrong with the chinese dialects. ONLY political rhetoric made it seem like the dialects were inferior to standard chinese.

do you not see, colloquial singapore mandarin is exactly like these dialects!

dear Jun, substandard, simplistic, colloquial language serves precisely its function, i.e. to facilitate substandard, simplistic, colloquial levels of communication.

Nothing wrong with that. Just mediocre.

“He did it anyway and now China has a common script..and her culture is still intact. I predict in generations to come dialects will fade away in China , including Hongkong. What do you think?”

Ya lo, at the expense of many lives just because you feel that your fanciful ideal & kind of unity is going to save the world – perhaps you are the only few who feel so but not the others.

the world is going to carry on with or without just one person. the sad thing is that if that one person is ruthless, a lot of people are going to suffer.

mrthinkbeforeyoutalk, i find your argument simplistic at best.

if one day people decided that singlish is now high language, they would develop it accordingly – and people would be able to discuss nuclear physics in singlish. and if they one day decided colloquial mandarin is now high language, people could also discuss nuclear physics in it as well.

yet, as a linguistics student, i am forever discussing linguistic stuff with classmates in colloquial language – but we seem to have no problems understanding each other. maybe it’s because we’re all mediocre. ah well.

and anyway, colloquial language does NOT mean substandard or simplistic.

and even if we did speak substandard, simplistic, colloquial language, so what? effective communication is not just fluency in language.

dear Jun, as a linguistic student, u ought to know that languages cannot be ’set out’ to be high or low language. it is through amongst various things, borrowing of foreign words and conquest of lands, both of which take time.

then, u confuse ur ability to code switch between colloquial language and formal lang with having the ability to only speak colloquial ones.

obviously communication is more than verbal language. but that’s besides the point. verbal language is more than basic words and why not strive to be excellent and better rather than be so mediocre?

Let us put this comment into perspective.

What is the crux of the issue ?

Of our personal identity, or “Who Am I”?

Ok, let us now look retrospectively.

The first incident was the poor old trishaw man humiliated worldwide on “YouTube”.

British tourists ?

Fine !

Next the F1 Formula race, comments by the losers !

Singapore circuit….. a circus ?

Well…Europeans ?

And now, the recent $491 incident at Newton !

Amerikans, right ?

Were these incidents, accidental or coincidental ?

The other axis of evil ?

So, should we now look inside and examine ourselves, physically and mentally ?

Are we cronies ?

Sands for cash ?

Who carries whose baby ?

ha ha ha

mr thinkbeforeyoutalk, i think you are the one who does not get it.

firstly, all languages are equal. all of them were made to suit their users. (it is only the elites in power who perpetuate ideologies to index different languages to different values eg english – high language which are used by people like nuclear scientists, and singlish – low language used by those who have little education. note that these are IDEOLOGIES and may not even reflect the true situation on the ground.) so you can say nothing of any language being substandard or mediocre.

(aside: even though a language has few foreign borrowings or its users did not colonize other places, does not make it a low language. having many borrowings or being spoken in colonized areas does not then make it high language. it is more than that.)

most speakers of singlish are not nuclear physicists, and hence, singlish cannot be used to discuss nuclear physics, as its lexicon is not developed to that point. this does NOT in any way mean that singlish is inferior or mediocre, as i have already said, most speakers of singlish are NOT nuclear physicists and they guide how the language develops.

suddenly it is announced that singlish is now the high language! but it has such a tiny lexicon! how? so then again the elites will carry out status and corpus planning, where the language’s status and lexicon are respectively increased. now even nuclear physicists can discuss nuclear physics in singlish. sometimes lexicon additions are borrowings, sometimes they are not.

so as you can see, any language given the chance can be high language, if it is prized by the elites. (and that is how a high language becomes a high language, and not so much of the whole ‘it is through amongst various things, borrowing of foreign words and conquest of lands’ thing.)

and i am not confused but i rarely speak in the high language style anyway. i am too … lazy to do so.

dear jun,

u simply don’t get it: all languages might have their inherent value, that does not mean all languages are equal.

Yeah, I was also too naive, until I google search that “aramaic” was an ancient language prior to english.

As a Tamil-speaking individual I find MM Lee’s views to be tactless and rude.

All intoxicated views……..me got a headache when a Peranaka living in Australia visited Singapore and was questioned by a local speaking Mandarin
“jiang hui yu” he replied “Chang Kuda”……………….speak zero or catch no ball

AngloBaba,

Your comment is almost 2,500-words long and is thus not allowed. Please do not post such lengthy comments. If you would like for us to publish it as an article, please email it to us (length 800 to 1,000 words) and we will consider publishing it separately.

Thanks.

Dear MM Lee, Please have a look at this blog -http://blog.chinesepod.com/2006/05/26/can-mandarin-become-a-global-language/

The last time I was in China visiting my in-laws’ village in prospering Fujian province, the good folk were far more inclined to warm to me after I spoke in my native Teochew rather than the polite but somewhat officious Mandarin (the language of bureaucrats) we’d used up till then. Mind you, this wasn’t anywhere close to a Teochew speaking community, but they appreciated the gesture.

Talk about developing guanxi….

Yea I did sometimes regret it to myself that I lost the touch to speak in my dialects to my grandparents . Thus the generation gap was widened between me and my grandparents.
As for my own learning journey for journey, it goes like this. When I was a young kid , I spoke mostly chinese. I was really lousy in English. My school being one of elite Anglican school, introduced a reading program for all to brush up on English . Gradually, My command of the English language caught up gradually and I scored better in English than Chinese at ‘O’ levels. I always kinda felt bad for it.
When I went over to the America for studies, I grabbed the chance to re learn Chinese , albeit to make up for it. Maybe in the near future, I will re-pick up my dialects again

[...] Disadvantageous Mandarin, March 19, 2009 [...]

I feel like crying!

The Speak Mandarin Campaign has been around in Singapore in the last 30 years way before the ang mos were awakened to the importance of Mandarin. This age is likened to an experienced person in adulthood supposedly already endowed with skills necessary to earn him a livelihood in the next 15 years. Yet, many Chinese Singaporeans today cannot speak Mandarin properly. Even LKY for what he said about Mandarin is not able to handle a discussion in this language with reporters in China properly. The likes of GCT and George Yeo had to use interpreters most of the time. Having said this, I think after 30 years of investing heavily in Mandarin by those in Authority, the final result is a resounding “FAILED”. If you don’t believe, then watch out for the advertisements in this year’s SpeakMandarinCampaign. They used ang mos to remind us the importance of Mandarin. Is this an encouragement or a humiliation? Or an admission of the failure of government policy after witnessing so many ang mos spoke Good Putonghua in CCTV 4.

sad… even there’s lot of wrongly written or mispronounced characters in our Chinese newspaper and i believe in sks…

I believe the reason why Singaporeans cannot speak proper Mandarin is because many Singaporeans speak English at home.

Put it this way, if your home environment is entirely English-speaking, and school is also English-speaking, how much of your environment is exposed to Mandarin? If you’re only exposed to one language environment, needless to say, the other will be like a ‘foreign language environment’ to you and you will grow up trying to resist that language. That’s exactly what many young Singaporeans are facing.

To be effectively bilingual, I believe you need to be exposed two language environments, i.e. English and Mandarin. If you speak Mandarin at home, you will at the very least grew up speaking the language. You will naturally learn English, because you’re forced to learn it in School. In the end, you will grow up being able to speak both languages well.

I am quite fortunate to be tri-lingual (NOT bilingual). That’s because I’m exposed to 3 language environment: Mandarin, English and Hokkien. I can also speak basic German because I studied in Germany for 6 months.

I speak Mandarin with my parents from age 7 till 19. My parents speak to each other in Hokkien, so I grew up being able to ‘understand’ Hokkien, but limited speaking. However, because I have been speaking both languages: Mandarin and English from age 7 till 19, I grew up being fluent in both languages.

I started to speak Hokkien with my mum at 19 years old. It was very limited, but as I spoke more with my mum, it gradually pick up momentum and now I can relatively communicate my ideas in Hokkien.

Thus, what I’m saying is that to be good in Mandarin, you should speak to your kids in Mandarin at home, while speaking Hokkien or other dialects with your relatives. English is spoken at work and at school, so one will naturally learn it. That’ll create 3 language environments and your kids will know 3 languages after they’ve grown up.

What’s wrong with speaking Cantonese, Hokkien and other dialects? Malaysian Chinese community also speak Mandarin fluenttly but they can still speak another dialects, too. As long as I know no Chinese leaders there (be it BN or Pakatan Rakyat) try to treat Cantonese, Hokkien etc. like some sort of pariah language as LKY did. Speak Good Mandarin doesn’t mean you had to declare war on other dialects!

Man, being a Singaporean born during the SGM era, I suffered psychologically when I trying like hell to chat with my Malaysian relatives in Cantonese. Luckily they understand what I had to endure under this misguided SGM policy!

Well, SGM can also be defined as Speak Good Mandarin and Destroy Another Dialects!

Few years down the road I dont think there will be anyone using dialect in writing thier names in english letter. For example, Lee Yew Yew is called Lee Yao Yao. NG HOCK SOON is called HUANG FU SHUN? Simply Han Yu Pin Yin. No more dialect. So sad for Singapore. How can we attract tourist to come to our country? Multi cultural as an attraction? LOL. The generations now dont even know where there roots are.

Total Slaves: All U.S. States (1790-1860) Over 4 million

Do we have to be like the Black Americans? Only can YO YO YO? Not able to speak our mother tongue? Yes we should learn mandarine to communicate to all Chinese,but we should not forsake our REAL mother tongue. Many Chinese immigrants in the US and other countries around the world still speak thier mother tongue. Alright, perhaps they dont know how to speak mandarine. But at least we should try to preserve it and not to ban dialect speaking on TV.

Even the Australians are now trying to help the aborigins(natives). To prevent a something from dying up, the government got to do something.

Alot of languages died out throughout the decades, instead of preserving, we singaporean only think of the economical benefits of a language. Should we be regretting when it is too late or shall we start to do something before its too late? Endangered languages is the same as endangered animals, once its extincted, IT extinctED.

NO MORE. YOU WANT ALSO DONT HAVE.

My mother tongue is Teochew and i dont need anyone to tell me what my mother tongue IS!!!!