In grade school, I had to memorize a poem. I don’t remember much of it but this one line, “As gardens grow with flowers English grows with words.” In Singapore, its diverse and multi-lingual population has made its own contributions to the English language. Thus, creating “ Singlish.”
In my previous blog posts, I have talked a lot about the prevalence of Singaporean English or “Singlish” amongst the local population. While exposure to Singlish has allowed me to learn some Malay, Tamil and Mandarin words, Singlish has also thrown some curveballs at me. As such, I have misunderstood a lot of people, which in turn has led to some rather unexpected outcomes!
MISUNDERSTANDING NUMBER 1: It’s not all about ME.
For the longest time, whenever someone said, “I like me” or “me good lah” I thought that people were talking about themselves. While I was really excited about the self-love and positivity that some of my local friends displayed, I couldn’t understand the context in which they used the sentence.
A few weeks ago, I found myself eating home-cooked noodles prepared by my family friends’ elderly mother. As aunty (the term by which older ladies are often referred to in Singapore) served us the dinner, she pointed at her granddaughter and said, “She like me.”
I didn’t know how to respond. So, I responded by saying, “Yes, does look like you!” Aunty just looked confused and repeated, “She like me.” At this point, I became even more confused and tried to interpret this sentence with my common sense understanding. I replied, “I am sure she likes you! I like you too!”
Poor aunty gave up after that, but her 9-year-old granddaughter almost choked on the noodles we were eating. After her grandmother went to the kitchen, the 9-year-old started giggling and whispered, “Tanvi, Mee means noodles!”
Yikes. Lesson 1, it’s not all about the English “Me”. MEE is a common Chinese term for noodles.
MISUNDERSTANDING NUMBER 2 - The Assam question.
If you are familiar with India’s geography and politics, you will probably associate “Assam” with the Northeastern Indian state, famous for its Assam Tea. To my surprise, Assam Laksa not Assam Tea is a household name in Singapore.
Laksa is a Peranakan noodles dish, that is generally served with a sweet and sour, seafood-based broth. The sweet and sour flavor of the broth is known by the Malay adjective “Assam”.
I decided to try some Assam Laksa with some local friends. Completely ignorant of what Assam meant, I commented: “This tastes great, but I don’t think we have this in Assam.” My local friends were rightfully confused and I was informed that Assam Laksa is famous in Penang, Malaysia. That is when I knew that I was probably misunderstanding something. What was the most embarrassing bit of this entire misunderstanding though? It was the fact that I told some of my fellow exchangers, that Laksa was actually an Indian dish that came from the state of Assam. Yikes, x2.
Lesson 2: Always clarify what they mean, NEVER assume!
SOME COMMON SINGLISH TERMS I HAVE LEARNED
- Ah boy/ Ah girl - A way of referring to a younger child. Used by older people.
- Shiok! - Cool! Or Great!
- Angbao - A packet with some money it
- Lai - A mandarin term, come
- Sabo - Verb, used to describe a betrayal - “Don’t sabo me by reminding the prof about the homework!”
WISE WORDS TO REMEMBER
"Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language." — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.