Engrish?

With the recent influx of Ms Ris Low's interview splashed over facebook and other channels, I thought since I'm so butt free today, why not enter a post?

Firstly, I must admit, I did laugh out loud when I first watched her video online, so did my younger brother, my cereal crunched, really hard (he was wincing the moment she opend her mouth to speak, and I left it playing while I left to use the bathroom). That aside, I was laughing till I was almost forming abs, my brother was literally rolling on the bed laughing. I mean 'booms'? 'rat'? and you're not sure what you're studying?

However, the truth is, I wasn't surprised. I mean seriously, were you like lightning struck surprised? Honestly, how many people you know who CAN speak proper english would want to take part in a peagent?My friends, NONE. So I was feeling a tad guilty for laughing at someone's inability to pronounce and speak properly, I decided to read what other people had to say, and I came across this blog, where the blogger tried to provide a different perspective. He mentioned that not everyone in singapore speaks english for starters, that maybe at home, mandarin was her first language. That like some of us, we can't speak mandarin to save our sorry asses, and if she were to be allowed to speak and convey her ideas and thoughts in mandarin, she would have put it across beautifully. For a moment (less than a split second) I actually felt really bad for laughing, but after I thought, we were all taught in english in school weren't we? I'm not saying you have to use flowery words and brain picking quotes, all we ask for are proper sentences, correct pronunciations. NO?

I mean I understand if you say that your parents speak mandarin to you at home, my parents speak to me in teochew and sometimes poorly pronounced english, but it isn't anyone's fault but your's if you choose to speak terrible english. Schools conduct lessons in english for a reason, I'd rather we speak proper english and mandarin then broken english mixed with mandarin, its a lethal hair-raising concoction. I hope you don't get me wrong, I'm a victim of singlish and poor articulation too, however, I'm aware of it and constantly try to correct myself.

So with regards to Ris Low, I DON'T feel bad for laughing at her, AT ALL. If people say that if she was allowed to speak mandarin for the interview she would have aced it, I'd say go be a citizen of the PRC.

Really, imagine if I were from the US or Europe and was watching the interview, my god, I'd think the entire nations speaks this way.

Well, this debate could go on forever I suppose. This is just my 2 cents worth. Everyone's entitled to proper english!

Cherrios!