is it just me or are the PRCs really rude?
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I always bang back those PRC.. They bang u and will not apologise. It is their culture. They always squeeze train back home in china, so it is normal to bang into other. Imagine, they need to apologise to who and how many when squeezing for their train home?
They bang u hard, u bang them back even harder. I once bang a china auntie damm hard at seng siong until she nearly fall. She stared me and I stared back at her. In the end, she do nothing... LOL..
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Originally posted by jhston:
china chinese or singapore chinese all originate from china. and if u go to europe, everyone start to call you china people. they speak with that accent because that is what mandarin is suppose to be. ours is not mandarin. but a mixture of half mandarin mixed with hokkien/teochew/cantonese/malay/indian... therefore, the prc should be the ones laughing at us & joking abt our rojak language.
there are 100 over languages/dialects in china. and when china unified. they were suppose to choose a 'national language' 'guo yu'. si chuan, hainan, cantonese, min nan, peking etc were all considered. and finally they decide to use a northern chinese language as the national language. and thus, today's mandarin. china's langauges were so magnificant because all of them sounded different. but all have only got 1 written form.
decided to share my humble knowledge abt china here because i hope my fellow singaporean don't make a fool of themself anymore by condemning the prcs.
You are spot-on. Who are Sillyporeans, with their rojak accent, to comment on China Chinese's Chinese accent? Sillyporeans probably think they could go to England and laugh at their English accent. Good Lord!
6. Quick at finding fault in others, but never seem to be aware of their own. http://sgforums.com/forums/8/topics/323994
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Originally posted by CannyOng:
I always bang back those PRC.. They bang u and will not apologise. It is their culture. They always squeeze train back home in china, so it is normal to bang into other. Imagine, they need to apologise to who and how many when squeezing for their train home?
They bang u hard, u bang them back even harder. I once bang a china auntie damm hard at seng siong until she nearly fall. She stared me and I stared back at her. In the end, she do nothing... LOL..
Good job.
Dumb asians killing one another. No wonder you people are pissed.
Suck it up, Sillyporeans
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Originally posted by jhston:
china chinese or singapore chinese all originate from china. and if u go to europe, everyone start to call you china people. they speak with that accent because that is what mandarin is suppose to be. ours is not mandarin. but a mixture of half mandarin mixed with hokkien/teochew/cantonese/malay/indian... therefore, the prc should be the ones laughing at us & joking abt our rojak language.
there are 100 over languages/dialects in china. and when china unified. they were suppose to choose a 'national language' 'guo yu'. si chuan, hainan, cantonese, min nan, peking etc were all considered. and finally they decide to use a northern chinese language as the national language. and thus, today's mandarin. china's langauges were so magnificant because all of them sounded different. but all have only got 1 written form.
decided to share my humble knowledge abt china here because i hope my fellow singaporean don't make a fool of themself anymore by condemning the prcs.
they speak with that accent because that is what mandarin is suppose to be ?
do you mean to tell me, that mandarin sounds the same in all the four corners of china ? That a dong bei qiang is the same from a beijing qiang or a guandong qiang ? ... have you been to china ?
and you're also another cute one ...... so you think the PRC's accent is an "acrolectal" form of mandarin ? We should aspire to speak like them ? ape their accent ? so how different are you from those bananas and kantangs who affect a fake ang moh accent ? But of course, since there are people out there faking an ang moh accent, you're free to fake an alien mandarin accent as well.
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The phrase of "When in Rome, do as Romans do" has to apply here. Try talking loudly on Japan Metro or see how long u can seat on 'priority seats' on Taiwan trains.
Some of the commuters (be it SG, PRC or some other bangala) clearly thinks that their $1 ++ fare is bigger than others. We still have a long long way to go in terms of graciousness and etiquette.
What i seriously detest about them is their dumb attitude thinking that they are big f and everything here is a joke. Doesn't these people know that they are slapping themselves by 'living in this joke' ?? -
Originally posted by Fatum:
they speak with that accent because that is what mandarin is suppose to be ?
do you mean to tell me, that mandarin sounds the same in all the four corners of china ? That a dong bei qiang is the same from a beijing qiang or a guandong qiang ? ... have you been to china ?
and you're also another cute one ...... so you think the PRC's accent is an "acrolectal" form of mandarin ? We should aspire to speak like them ? ape their accent ? so how different are you from those bananas and kantangs who affect a fake ang moh accent ? But of course, since there are people out there faking an ang moh accent, you're free to fake an alien mandarin accent as well.
Well the standard accent is Beijing's accent, which is why they call Mandarin there 普通�
Anything else, is considered a deviation.
Our Mandarin is even worse, LKY admitted as much. We try to do both (English and Mandarin), and end up, we are not good with both.
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Let's just say that the definition of rude means the difference of two cultures or the misunderstanding of two cultures.
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Originally posted by Bane:
Let's just say that the definition of rude means the difference of two cultures or the misunderstanding of two cultures.
That's true.
Probably the only one that is universally recognized, is the middle finger.
Anything else, even raising your hand to say thanks when you are driving, might be misinterpreted by others
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Originally posted by soul_rage:
Well the standard accent is Beijing's accent, which is why they call Mandarin there 普通�
Anything else, is considered a deviation.
Our Mandarin is even worse, LKY admitted as much. We try to do both (English and Mandarin), and end up, we are not good with both.
wrong ... the standard accent is NOT beijing's accent .... that's only beijinger's egos speaking, and other people's inferiority complex submitting.
I agree with you, a large segment of the population have a problem with both languages, but the problem does NOT lie with the accent ....
speaking good english doesn't mean having an alien accent, look at our local thespians for example, many of the older ones speak a very proper form of english without a fake ang moh accent, people like lim kay tong etc, they speak a much more correct form of english than some of those misguided youth who thinks speaking good english is aping the black ghetto slang and bimbo speak they've picked up on TV. do you think "oh ! I'm like ... I'm like" is good english ? ... *snorts ...
So, similarly, why won't you find aping an alien mandarin accent funny ? Are Singaporeans so spineless, and have such an inferiority complex, that we are ashamed to speak english and mandarin in our native accent ? ...
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PRC and ah neh have 入乡�俗, they know how to be kiasu if not more kiasu than aunties when they fight for seats in the mrt.
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Originally posted by Fatum:
wrong ... the standard accent is NOT beijing's accent .... that's only beijinger's egos speaking, and other people's inferiority complex submitting.
I agree with you, a large segment of the population have a problem with both languages, but the problem does NOT lie with the accent ....
speaking good english doesn't mean having an alien accent, look at our local thespians for example, many of the older ones speak a very proper form of english without a fake ang moh accent, people like lim kay tong etc, they speak a much more correct form of english than some of those misguided youth who thinks speaking good english is aping the black ghetto slang and bimbo speak they've picked up on TV. do you think "oh ! I'm like ... I'm like" is good english ? ... *snorts ...
So, similarly, why won't you find aping an alien mandarin accent funny ? Are Singaporeans so spineless, and have such an inferiority complex, that we are ashamed to speak english and mandarin in our native accent ? ...
Not too sure about your first statement. From what I understand from my chinese friends, the term 普通� is meant to signify that Mandarin is the de-facto standard in Beijing. But then again, I could be wrong :)
Also I wasn't talking about us aping an alien mandarin accent. I just meant to say that our standards aren't also up-to-par, what gives us the right to laugh at other people's accents?
Coming back to Singapore accent, it's very interesting, but I find europeans do have difficulty understanding us. I had been to many places for business, research, etc, and when I present to the western audience, even when I use proper Singapore English (without the la, and lor, and slow down my speech to improve pronounciation of words), some of them will still have difficulty understanding me.
Maybe my English is really bad :)
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Originally posted by soul_rage:
Not too sure about your first statement. From what I understand from my chinese friends, the term 普通� is meant to signify that Mandarin is the de-facto standard in Beijing. But then again, I could be wrong :)
Also I wasn't talking about us aping an alien mandarin accent. I just meant to say that our standards aren't also up-to-par, what gives us the right to laugh at other people's accents?
Coming back to Singapore accent, it's very interesting, but I find europeans do have difficulty understanding us. I had been to many places for business, research, etc, and when I present to the western audience, even when I use proper Singapore English (without the la, and lor, and slow down my speech to improve pronounciation of words), some of them will still have difficulty understanding me.
Maybe my English is really bad :)
Have you ever heard a thick german accent ? ..... a german trying to speak english for example ? .....
have you noticed how some of the ang mohs would never have a problem understanding another ang moh speaking english, no matter how thick the accent, but would have a problem hearing good english from an asian ? ....
well, you can't make someone understand something they've made up in their minds not to, so fark em ... but to ape an alien accent, then you'd be laughed upon by both sides, no ? ....
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Originally posted by Fatum:
Have you ever heard a thick german accent ? ..... a german trying to speak english for example ? .....
have you noticed how some of the ang mohs would never have a problem understanding another ang moh speaking english, no matter how thick the accent, but would have a problem hearing good english from an asian ? ....
well, you can't make someone understand something they've made up in their minds not to, so fark em ... but to ape an alien accent, then you'd be laughed upon by both sides, no ? ....
That's again besides the point. I did not challenge your issue about aping an accent.
I am just saying that, our English and Mandarin aren't of the highest standards (let's just face this, shall we? We REALLY have a problem with pronounciation in English coz we are too lazy to articulate the "r" and "l" of words and in Mandarin, where we don't have the depth to speak better mandarin, but only functional mandarin), laughing or making fun of others' accent is uncalled for.
Simple as that. You can shout all you want about how good we are. The fact remains that we don't pronounce well
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Nobody can be more rude than me, not even them.
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And Fatam, to dispute your statement, about Europeans not criticizing another European's English, you are wrong about that.
I hear very often criticisms of other nationalities during my experience working with different europeans. So I think you are stereotyping this aspect of your argument.
And if you think German speaking English is tough to understand, that you haven't faced even tougher ones, such as Italians.
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so fierce for what.
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Originally posted by soul_rage:
And Fatam, to dispute your statement, about Europeans not criticizing another European's English, you are wrong about that.
I hear very often criticisms of other nationalities during my experience working with different europeans. So I think you are stereotyping this aspect of your argument.
And if you think German speaking English is tough to understand, that you haven't faced even tougher ones, such as Italians.
yeah, of course they do ... like the standing joke about english and germans at european summer resorts ...
but that's not my point, my point, is that, have you noticed, how one sub-species of ang moh would make the effort to listen and decipher another ang moh subspecies' english, be they krauts, frogs, pizza eaters or slavs ? ... but when an asian comes along .....
during my time living overseas, most of my profs, schoolmates, and later on colleagues and friends had no problems at all understanding my Singaporean accented English ... trust me, speak clearly, and cut away the lors and lahs, and you should be understood anywhere where english is spoken ...don't let other people pretend not to understand your english and make you feel bad about yourself .... screw them ! ... you speak well ! ....
but of course ... there were the more redneck, trashier segment of the population still stuck in the image of their superiority ... store clerks, bank tellers, goverment officers, people you met in the pub etc, who'd talk down to you, speaking louder and more slowly than usual, cos they think it'll make their english easier to understand for you ... "Oh ! they speak English in Singapore too ?! ... wow !"
why must we belittle ourselves ? why must we think it's always the other people that speaks a better, more correct form of whatever language ? ...Are we so unsure of ourselves, that we should subconsiously try to take on the accent of whoever we are talking to at the moment, be they ang moh or PRCs ? ....
you want to see an example ? ....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vEtfakmiik&feature=channel_page
go count how many chaps in there you think fakes a funny quasi ang moh twang when speaking to anthony bourdain ...
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Originally posted by soul_rage:
That's again besides the point. I did not challenge your issue about aping an accent.
I am just saying that, our English and Mandarin aren't of the highest standards (let's just face this, shall we? We REALLY have a problem with pronounciation in English coz we are too lazy to articulate the "r" and "l" of words and in Mandarin, where we don't have the depth to speak better mandarin, but only functional mandarin), laughing or making fun of others' accent is uncalled for.
Simple as that. You can shout all you want about how good we are. The fact remains that we don't pronounce well
do you do that ? ... I mean, laugh at other's accents ? ... I don't do that .... to me, that's one of the beauty of diversity .....
and because of that view ... I take offense at people who think that my accent, the way I speak, is of a lower standard than their own ....
I think that's rubbish ....
and we should not mistake everyday speech to be our english or mandarin standard ....because for sure ! when you're talking to your friends, all the lors and lahs, the hokkien swear words, the malay slang, all comes together into a warm sublime mishmash only for Singaporeans, no ? ....
But would you speak like that when you have to speak proper english ? ... of course not, no ? ... so you think it's right to say that just because we use lohs and lahs in everyday speech, we don't know how to speak good english ? ....
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Originally posted by Fatum:
do you do that ? ... I mean, laugh at other's accents ? ... I don't do that .... to me, that's one of the beauty of diversity .....
and because of that view ... I take offense at people who think that my accent, the way I speak, is of a lower standard than their own ....
I think that's rubbish ....
and we should not mistake everyday speech to be our english or mandarin standard ....because for sure ! when you're talking to your friends, all the lors and lahs, the hokkien swear words, the malay slang, all comes together into a warm sublime mishmash only for Singaporeans, no ? ....
But would you speak like that when you have to speak proper english ? ... of course not, no ? ... so you think it's right to say that just because we use lohs and lahs in everyday speech, we don't know how to speak good english ? ....
no no no I am not talking about you.
Actually I was referring to the threadstarter and subsequent posters on how stupid those PRC's accents are.
Unfortunately, I see the lors and lahs coming out even at formal meetings, even in multinational discussions. Many of our fellow Singaporeans speak street English even during actual formal discussions in the office. That was what I meant.
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Originally posted by Fatum:
yeah, of course they do ... like the standing joke about english and germans at european summer resorts ...
but that's not my point, my point, is that, have you noticed, how one sub-species of ang moh would make the effort to listen and decipher another ang moh subspecies' english, be they krauts, frogs, pizza eaters or slavs ? ... but when an asian comes along .....
during my time living overseas, most of my profs, schoolmates, and later on colleagues and friends had no problems at all understanding my Singaporean accented English ... trust me, speak clearly, and cut away the lors and lahs, and you should be understood anywhere where english is spoken ...don't let other people pretend not to understand your english and make you feel bad about yourself .... screw them ! ... you speak well ! ....
but of course ... there were the more redneck, trashier segment of the population still stuck in the image of their superiority ... store clerks, bank tellers, goverment officers, people you met in the pub etc, who'd talk down to you, speaking louder and more slowly than usual, cos they think it'll make their english easier to understand for you ... "Oh ! they speak English in Singapore too ?! ... wow !"
why must we belittle ourselves ? why must we think it's always the other people that speaks a better, more correct form of whatever language ? ...Are we so unsure of ourselves, that we should subconsiously try to take on the accent of whoever we are talking to at the moment, be they ang moh or PRCs ? ....
you want to see an example ? ....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vEtfakmiik&feature=channel_page
go count how many chaps in there you think fakes a funny quasi ang moh twang when speaking to anthony bourdain ...
Well, if you are talking about the West belittling the East, of course I agree with you. Some people in the West even think Singapore is part of China.
But why don't you see it as us subconsciously adapting to the situation, instead of thinking that we fake an accent? Sometimes I feel that we are smarter than them, in that we adapt faster, and we get ourselves understood. After all, language is but only a tool. We adapt in order to ensure that we get our message across.
of course, faking an accent for the sake of pretending to be a Westerner is similar to youths who dye their hair golden in an imbecile bid to make themselves look Western, is something that I feel it is unacceptable too. So I am with you on that.
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Originally posted by soul_rage:
Well, if you are talking about the West belittling the East, of course I agree with you. Some people in the West even think Singapore is part of China.
But why don't you see it as us subconsciously adapting to the situation, instead of thinking that we fake an accent? Sometimes I feel that we are smarter than them, in that we adapt faster, and we get ourselves understood. After all, language is but only a tool. We adapt in order to ensure that we get our message across.
of course, faking an accent for the sake of pretending to be a Westerner is similar to youths who dye their hair golden in an imbecile bid to make themselves look Western, is something that I feel it is unacceptable too. So I am with you on that.
well, I don't see it that way because Singaporeans seem to bend to the wind all too easily ... and the "adaptation", only comes out wrong, most of the time ...
a little while back, I was at a 24 hour prata place, and there's this local lass with this beefy black guy .... when the black guy speaks, you know he's straight from africa (some african english accents are a lot like ours btw) ... but this girl was so cute, hamming it up with a funny, very unnatural ang moh accent ... I'd never know if she was trying to sound african or not ... :lol: ... then there are a lot of singaporeans down under who tries to "adapt", by speaking with an accent, but can only manage an "american" accent too ....
so there ! ... most comically of all, .... this adaptation often leads to unintended effects ....
There are a lot of different ang moh regional accents, we can never "adapt" to them all .... a canadian priarie farmboy would speak very differently from a newfie from a vancouverite, a brit would speak differently from an aussie or a kiwi or a south african ... If we were to adapt to them all, then many Singaporeans can have second careers as ventriloquists, no ? ...
so, this "adaptation", most often comes out as a rojak of confused twangs picked up from cable TV ...
instead of being a laughing stock ... why even bother faking it ? ... it'll definitely comes out unnatural, no ? ... what's wrong with simply speaking clearly ? ....
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Originally posted by Fatum:
well, I don't see it that way because Singaporeans seem to bend to the wind all too easily ... and the "adaptation", only comes out wrong, most of the time ...
a little while back, I was at a 24 hour prata place, and there's this local lass with this beefy black guy .... when the black guy speaks, you know he's straight from africa (some african english accents are a lot like ours btw) ... but this girl was so cute, hamming it up with a funny, very unnatural ang moh accent ... I'd never know if she was trying to sound african or not ... :lol: ... then there are a lot of singaporeans down under who tries to "adapt", by speaking with an accent, but can only manage an "american" accent too ....
so there ! ... most comically of all, .... this adaptation often leads to unintended effects ....
There are a lot of different ang moh regional accents, we can never "adapt" to them all .... a canadian priarie farmboy would speak very differently from a newfie from a vancouverite, a brit would speak differently from an aussie or a kiwi or a south african ... If we were to adapt to them all, then many Singaporeans can have second careers as ventriloquists, no ? ...
so, this "adaptation", most often comes out as a rojak of confused twangs picked up from cable TV ...
instead of being a laughing stock ... why even bother faking it ? ... it'll definitely comes out unnatural, no ? ... what's wrong with simply speaking clearly ? ....
Again, I refer you to my previous posting. As I mentioned, faking an accent just for the sake of faking it is silly. And faking it, vs adapting it in order to improve communications, is also very different.
In my field of job, I only care about the end result. I don't give a hoot to the tool. If I need to adapt my pronounciation to improve communications in order to achieve results, so be it. At the end of the day, it's results that count. And so far, I think I am considered to be doing really well, since I have been successful in my interactions with many nationalities from US to Europe to Japan to Asia Pacific, and I have been commended on my ability to gel everyone together to common objectives.
It's really up to you. I don't give a hoot to the tool. I am only concerned with achieving the results I need.
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Originally posted by soul_rage:
Again, I refer you to my previous posting. As I mentioned, faking an accent just for the sake of faking it is silly.
In my field of job, I only care about the end result. I don't give a hoot to the tool. If I need to adapt my pronounciation to improve communications in order to achieve results, so be it. At the end of the day, it's results that counts. And so far, I think I am considered to be doing really well, since I have been successful in my interactions with many nationalities from US to Europe to Japan to Asia Pacific, and I have been commended on my ability to gel everyone together to common objectives.
It's really up to you. I don't give a hoot to the tool. I am only concerned with achieving the results I need.
good for you dude ... Singlish or fake ang moh accent, as long as it floats the boats, neh ? ...
but of course, it all boils down to how secure you are in your own skin ...
I don't need anyone to tell me how I should speak, be they ang mohs, PRCs, and certainly not other singaporeans with a closet inferiority complex, and I don't think anyone can be truly proud and confident of who he or she is, if the person is not even confident of how he sounds like when he opens his mouth ... but if you think affecting a "singaporean ang moh" accent is a good way to bridge bridges between everyone from kiwis, aussies, brits, canadians, americans, south africans, or any other sort of different ang mohs all with widely different accents ........ whatever works mate ! ...
and back to topic ... I don't laugh at the way those fellows speak ... be they ah tiongs, ah nehs or the lesser sort of ang mohs, but I certainly take offense when they do ... this is singapore ... this is how we are, who we are ... they don't like it ? don't like any of our values ? kindly fark off back to where they come from ... there are plenty waiting in line to take their place while the grass is still green .....
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Please la, since when Mandarin got "Biao Zhun" one?
ä¸æ–‡æ²¡æœ‰æ ‡å‡†æ€§ï¼Œå�ªæ˜¯åœ°æ–¹åŒ–。Same goes for all common languages, American English, British English, Southern American English so many.
There is no "Standard".
Same goes for people, people in Korea and Thailand dont even blink an eye when people bump onto them.
India's train people even sit on top of the train to travel around.
Conclusion: Those who think they are always correct and behaving correctly needs to rethink. -
get a life.