Singaporean salespeople are being encouraged to drop local slang and speak proper English to their customers.
Expressions such as “Can fit or not?” and “No more this color” -- part of the local way of speaking known as Singlish -- should be dropped and replaced with complete grammatical sentences.
The effort is part of the city-state's yearly Speak Good English Movement, under which sales clerks will be given information on commonly misused phrases.
PHOTO: AFP
“On many occasions, they don't even realize that the Singlish phrases they use may sound rude and abrupt,” Lau Chuen Wei of the Singapore Retailers Association was quoted as saying.
Cambridge-educated Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said last year that Singaporeans should strive to speak correct English to help the city-state keep its competitive edge.
He went on to say that since three-quarters of Singapore's population are literate in English, the republic has significant competitive advantages over other Asian nations.
Singaporeans speaking colloquial English will often end sentences with “lah,” “lor” or “mah” -- endings that come from the local Singaporean Chinese.
They may also literally translate sentences from Mandarin to English, which makes odd and grammatically incorrect phrases such as “I go toilet” and “You go where, ah?”
Most people who live in Singapore, which used to be a British colony, are ethnic Chinese but there are significant ethnic Malay and Indian communities in the regional business hub, which is home to thousands of multinational corporations.(AFP)
新加坡銷售人員被鼓勵放棄當地俚語,改以標準的英語與顧客交談。
像是「Can fit or not? 」(大小適不適合)和「No more this color」(別再看這種顏色)等星式英語應該被摒棄,改以符合文法的完整句子代替。
這項努力是這個城市國家的年度「說好英語運動」之一,銷售員會被告知普遍被誤用的片語訊息。
新加坡零售商協會的劉佳慧說︰「在許多情況下,他們不明白自己使用的星式用語聽起來既唐突又無禮。」
劍橋大學出身的新加坡總理李顯龍去年說過,新加坡人民應該努力說出正確的英語,幫助這個城市國家保持競爭力。
他也說,既然新加坡有四分之三的人口懂得英語,這個共和國有優於其他亞洲國家的明顯競爭優勢。
說英語的新加坡人通常會以「lah」、「lor」或「mah」做為句子結尾,這些結尾起源於當地的星式中文。
他們也可能將中文逐字翻譯成英語,造成了像是「I go toilet」和「You go where, ah?」等怪異又不符合文法的語句。
住在新加坡這個昔日英國殖民地的民眾大多為華人,不過當地數千家跨國企業所在地的商業中心,也有不少馬來與印度裔社群。
(法新社╱翻譯︰賴美君)
The strongest earthquake to hit Taiwan in 25 years killed at least 16 people and damaged dozens of buildings, but the destruction was largely contained thanks to decades of preparedness work. Taiwan sits on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic activity along the Pacific Rim, and — much like neighboring Japan — has a long history of catastrophic quakes. How does April 3 compare with other recent quakes? The April 3 earthquake, which measured 7.4 on the moment magnitude scale, was felt across Taiwan. It was the most severe since a 7.6 magnitude quake in 1999 killed
A: Artificial intelligence technology has been causing controversy lately: a student was caught cheating with AI to win the grand prize in an art contest. B: That’s so absurd. Does this mean that AI paints better than humans? A: Maybe. Luckily, the student was later disqualified. B: And more absurdly, it’s becoming more and more popular to use AI technology to “resurrect” people. A: Yeah, some netizens even posted videos featuring the late singer CoCo Lee, who was “resurrected” by them with AI software. A: 人工智慧的爭議不斷,有學生違規使用AI參加美術展,甚至贏得首獎。 B: 真誇張,這是不是代表AI比人類還強大? A: 或許吧,幸好得獎資格被取消。 B: 還有更誇張的︰讓死者重現的「AI復活」技術越來越熱門。 A: 對啊,還有網友製作已故歌后李玟「復活」的影片呢! (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張聖恩)
Around the time of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, the streets of Taiwan are filled with the delightful aroma of zongzi, a traditional snack made of sticky rice wrapped in leaves. The leaves are folded into a cone and then filled with sticky rice and other ingredients such as braised pork belly, peanuts and salted duck egg yolks. The filled leaves are then tightly tied with kitchen twine and ready for cooking. 每到六月端午時節,街頭巷尾就會飄出粽子的香氣。粽子是將糯米包進粽葉的傳統美食,先將粽葉折成圓錐狀塞入糯米,以及紅燒肉、花生、鹹鴨蛋黃等配料,用棉線綁緊後即可烹煮。 Dragon Boat Festival (n. phr.) 端午節 aroma
Everyone has seen a piece of fruit turn brown after being cut. Have you ever wondered why that happens? It is a common phenomenon that occurs due to a chemical reaction called enzymatic browning. The appearance, flavor and nutritional value of the fruit are all affected by this reaction. Some fruits, such as apples, pears, bananas, avocados and peaches, are more prone to enzymatic browning than others. These fruits contain high levels of an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase, or PPO for short. __1__ This causes a chain of chemical reactions that ultimately transforms the phenolic compounds into