Confused about language

I have been in contact with a lot of people lately. The latest one was with an American Korean. He has a localised American accent and when speaking with him, I discovered that I’m able to speak good English too. It also always amazes me whenever I hear Chinese/Asian children speak English in perfect American accent. This is the same for K and B. Whenever I talk to them, it sometimes makes me sad that they speak American accented English effortlessly but struggle with their Mandarin, which is their roots.

In my previous post, I mentioned that S came to S’pore recently. Whenever I talk to her, I struggle whether I should switch to my American accent English or just be myself and speak in my Singapore accented English. It was no problem when we were in USA, because everyone around us are having the same accent. In S’pore, I always feel so phony if I try to speak American English.

Now, I realise that I can speak English in three ways. One, I can be super Singlish. Most of the time, I do that when I talk to my very close friends, i.e, my best friends and friends from church and their children, especially to the children. Those children, influenced by their parents, speak very Singaporean English. If I try to speak good English to them, I don’t think they would understand me.

Second, I speak better English. This is when I try to leave out the ‘lah’s, ‘loh’s, ‘leh’s. I also try not to have a flat tone to my speaking. I heard from a friend while in USA that the reason why people can’t understand Singlish is because we speak too fast and we speak with a flat tone. This second type of better English is when I talk to my English-speaking friends, i.e, people from work or friends from JC. These people are all still Singaporeans but they don’t like or don’t speak Mandarin well.

The third kind would be too try to speak in American accented English. I speak this when I talk to my host family, to my overseas friends or to people from Western countries. I enjoyed watching American shows partly because I like how natural to them that they can pronounce their words correctly with all the ‘th’s and ‘r’s. When I try to speak American English, I do get my tongue tied sometimes and even misplaced my ‘r’s in some words but you can make up for it by highlighting the tone of your sentences. Just be more animated and not have a flat tone, then the words would come out right.

A friend recently told me that when I first came back from the States, I had a bit of American accent when I speak English. I didn’t realised that myself. I did struggle with myself whether I would want to speak proper English when I came back but it’s very hard to do that without sounding totally phony and being fake. I also didn’t want my friends to think I was being snobbish too.

Anyway, after my travels abroad, I really dislike people who can’t speak good English. Not that I look down on them, but the biggest turn off to me in a guy has become that he speaks in Singlish. I have always been the quiet sort who doesn’t speak much but I’ve always known that I can write better. But a guy who can’t speak good English when the occasion calls for it, needs to brush up on himself. That being said, I’m not saying that I’m far superior in my language skills. Just that I’m proud to know the difference between good bad ones.