SINCE arriving in Singapore two years ago, I have heard many people speak English in different styles; some with an Indian or Chinese or Malay accent. The variety of accents has created a lot of difficulties in communication with people saying such things as ‘...ready finished lah?’ to mean ‘Have you finished it yet’. Such questions can be confusing and require additional explanation from the speaker.

Whilst language confusion is often quite funny, it can also cause occasional distress. The first flat I occupied in Singapore was shared by the Singaporean owner. I remember returning one day to find the owner washing my dishes in the sink. When he saw me he said ‘Hey, you never wash your dishes’, with a large smile on his face. This made me angry because I was always very good about washing the dirty dishes immediately after eating and I was about to explain this to him when his smile gave me reason to pause and consider. When my husband came back from work I told him the story and he laughed, saying ‘He didn’t mean you never washed them, he meant you didn’t do it this one time.”

Such incidents have convinced me to avoid using Singlish (Singapore-English) wherver possible, even though I am not a native English speaker. Singapore is a multicultural country so English is always going to be spoken in a diverse manner, but being from Myanmar, I’m saddened to see compatriots lapse into Singlish.

For example, one day I overheard a phone conversation led by one of my Myanmar colleagues in our apartment, which is shared by six tenants including my family. She kept saying ‘Ya lah. Ya lah...’ At first, I thought she was having a conversation with a Myanmar friend using the Myanmar language since ‘Ya lar, ya lar’ in Myanmar means, ‘Can you get it?’. But later on she also spoke in Singlish and I realised she was actually speaking with her Singaporean friend.

Myanmar nationals living in Singapore have varying levels of proficiency in the English language so it is easy for Singlish to creep into their speech. This is to be expected but what I have found surprising is the enthusiasm with which Myanmar nationals embrace Singlish, lapsing into phrases such as ‘Bye bye lah’.

For the most part though, the mix of accents and styles of speaking English are funny rather than frustrating. One of my Myanmar colleagues was quite angry when she was sent a text message by an engineer and spoken English tutor that read ‘I am so shy to be friends with you, you and your friend are so low profile’. My friend thought that low profile meant low standard and that the guy was being rude.

For parents who don’t want their children raised to speak Singlish, living in Singapore obviously presents problems. The only solution that we can think of is to send our child to an international school to be taught by native English speakers, unfortunately this is very expensive.