dunmovin

How do you think they coped with my Cantonese with a Scots accent I can tell you it produced quite a few laughs

Inselaffen

I didnt pick u any arabic during my 18 months in Dubai. And don't have any real intention learning mandarin now I'm in Singapore

I do need to start learing Russian though as thats my wife's language. If we have kids it will certainly be useful for them to be bi-lingual Russian and English.

fionamw

And on a global scale? In Dubai was the main language Arabic or English in the groups you mixed in? Ditto Singapore? Add-on question: How many Russian languages are there? Is it like 'Chinese' - many types?

Kooky.

How's the thesis going, fiona?

In Singapore it is definitely handy to speak or at least understand some Mandarin. 2 circumstances I can think of:

1. Your colleagues break into Mandarin in a meeting - which they invariably will even though it's incredibly rude.
2. Your colleagues/hair stylist/bikini waxer/kopitiam uncle bitch about you right in front of you - which they invariably will even though it's incredibly rude.

In Singapore the main/official languages are English, Mandarin, Bahasa Melayu (sp?) and Tamil. As well as all the visible expats (Caucasian English, Australian, American, all the Europeans, etc.) there are also a lot of Mainland Chinese, Indonesians, Filipinos, Indians, Sri Lankans...so you'll hear a wide variety of languages and dialects spoken.

And then of course there's Singlish.

fionamw

Er, well I've been up a ladder, down a ladder, painting this, painting that.....but I'd say at the moment it goes thus:
Teach your child its parents' languages, followed by (in this order) English, Spanish (simply for ease of access to learning & ease of learning) & Mandarin. Could change, though!
(what exactly, apart from what it sounds like, is Singlish?)

Kooky.

Very useful, sort of a patois, mixing up English with local languages - mainly Malay, I think. Hard to lose when you leave Singapore and wonder why Chinese people in Sydney don't understand it - probably because they're Australian, duh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish

http://www.talkingcock.com/html/lexe...icon&op=LexPKL

Father Jack

IMHO Mandarin is the spoken version of Chinese to learn - became very popular in Hong Kong too in the run-up to 1997. Other than gweilo Hong Kong police, I have never met anyone who learnt Cantonese but not Mandarin, but I have heard of people learning Canto years ago in Hong Kong. Years ago meaning the 70s and 80s.

I've used my Mandarin in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Yunan, Shanghai, Taiwan, and Beijing. Nowadays it can even be used in Canto restaurants in London as all the staff seem to be from the Mainland. It's astonishing where you can use Chinese these days.

A big Chinese diaspora of course which means Mandarin is likely to supplant Canto as the lingua franca of overseas Chinese. It's the version of Chinese that I would recommend. If you have three lifetimes, adding in Hokkien and Canto should mean there are very few Chinese people you can't talk to.

If you have English and Mandarin in Asia that's going to cover most eventualities (except Japan, although written Chinese helps with the Kanji). French is handy for Indochina, but most of the youngsters nowadays speak excellent English. The old timers will still chat to you in French though. If I had kids it would be English and Mandarin, and possibly French too but more for cultural reasons than utility.

Have met quite a few Aussies in their 30s and 40s who did Chinese at ANU. (I did Chinese at Leeds.) Someone was lamenting in another thread about the lack of Chinese spoken by Aussies, but half the Aussies I know have degrees in Chinese.

Kooky.

I'd forgotten all about Hokkien! In Singapore it's sort of the language of the street, the gangsters, ah bengs, etc. My fifty-something Chinese-Singaporean cleaner's first language is Hokkien. I know a few swear words.

Kudos to you, Father Jack. (I went to Leeds too but all I graduated in was Bacardi consumption.)

Father Jack

Same in Taiwan.... Funny enough, an Aussie mate of mine who grew up in Malaysia (father in the RAAF) swears his first language was Hokkien 'cause his Amah used to speak to him in it.


But you did come away a member of the Leeds Mafia - a useful door opener in Asia... (er, "bottle opener" more like)

Kooky.

I reckon there must be many thousands of ageing expat kids with that great Filipino singsong accent and a smattering of Tagalog.

Inselaffen

the people I mixed with socially generally spoke English. in work my colleagues in my first company spoke Hindi and the second company Arabic (Egyptian)

as far as I know there is only 1 Russian language. She speaks Russian even though she is not from Russia. She never really learned what should be her native language.

fionamw

I wonder if this is the same reason as mine.... it's just that my mother, bilingual in Spanish having been born & brought up in Argentina, didn't speak more than a few words to me in Spanish when I was a child hence although my pronunciation is reasonable, some kind Spaniards say good, I've had to learn what little I do speak as an adult. If it had been used conversationally at home I'm sure my situation would be quite different. I'm hoping to find a Spanish babysitter for our 6 year old for just this reason. The more language washing round you when you're as young as possible, the better.

ps fascinating stuff, everyone.....I (predictably) didn't know a sausage about all the languages, dialects, etc., you're all mentioning. Thanks

Kooky.

You'd probably find your mother's pronunciation very different from that in mainland Spain, fiona. When I went to Nicaragua, armed with my holiday Spanish, the cook almost wet herself at my pronunciation of "pollo".

I've just written an essay here about some Singaporean kids I did voluntary work with but it was all getting a bit too personal. I'll just say that it amazes me, in this day and age and in a country where education is seen as SOOOO important, that there can be children growing up not speaking English because their parents can sign them out of school (boys I worked with left at 9 and 10).

It's so important; I know their mother tongue is important too but English is the business language, and any children not speaking it are so disadvantaged.

katongkaren

Aw come on, what about "Salami Layer Can" or "Keef n Alec"??

fionamw

Andaluz is actually quite similar to Arga., though I know Castilliano is not just a different pronunciation from, for example, Argentine Spanish, words - more than you'd think - vary too. On moving to Spain I confidently asked a waiter for some manteca (butter in Argentina) only to find great confusion/hilarity was the response because in Spain it's lard. Butter is mantequilla. The Spanish tend, in my opinion, to ignore the niceties like please & thankyou on a grand scale. That would never be done in Arga, least not when I was last there. Pollo - well did you ever find out why?!!! I suspect you mispronounced the ending somewhat!!