Singlish is a truly unique part of the Singaporean identity. We grew up hearing and speaking it so much that it’s second nature, but a British tourist found understanding the accent a tall task instead.
The tourist, standing across the road from Bugis+, claimed to be able to understand English around the world despite the different accents.
However, he found the ‘modified’ grammar of Singlish confusing. The tourist related how he couldn’t comprehend what his taxi driver was saying.
Singaporeans in the comments extended sympathy, but also explained that Singlish was quick, casual, and efficient.
British tourist ‘Jack the Backpacker’ arrived in Singapore recently. His first video about the country on TikTok on 21 Nov, however, wasn’t quite as positive as we would have hoped.
No, it wasn’t about the strict laws or the heat, as most visitors may complain about. Apparently, Jack had issues with understanding our English.
Standing across the road from Bugis+ shopping mall, the cap-wearing Brit explained that as a native English speaker, that usually wasn’t a problem for him.
Source: @morejackthebackpacker on TikTok
He could even understand various accented English, but for some reason, he found that Singaporeans speak with a very strong accent.
Beyond the accent, he picked up on what sounded like a foreign language to him. “They also seem to speak a thing called Singlish,” Jack said.
“They heavily modify and adjust the sentence structure to something that’s almost unrecognisable.”
Source: @morejackthebackpacker on TikTok
He went on to relate the previous day’s experience, where a taxi driver spoke to him in incomprehensible Singlish.
Singaporeans naturally flocked to the comments section. One TikTok viewer explained that Singlish was a multicultural mix of the various local languages like Malay, Mandarin, the Chinese dialects, and more mixed in with English.
Source: TikTok
Another described Singlish as “quick, fast, and easy” for chit-chatting like the taxi driver was doing.
Source: TikTok
A commenter explained that “you have to [get] used to it”, which Jack agreed with.
Source: TikTok
Certainly, we probably have a biased view on the ease of understanding our ‘local language’ considering we had our entire lives to get used to it.
Jack did find one Singlish-hater in the comments however, who said that it was confusing. The commenter then mocked Singaporeans for thinking “English is their native language”.
Source: TikTok
Jack also found other interesting details about Singapore in his other videos.
In one of them, he noted that the jewellery shops in Singapore lack theft prevention features.
“It shows you how safe this place is,” he remarked, “they don’t need to have any type of security whatsoever.”
Source: @morejackthebackpacker on TikTok
In his most recent video, it seemed that he had departed Singapore for Malaysia.
We certainly hope he can understand their English better.
Earlier this year, a local woman’s Korean boyfriend ordered drinks in Singlish after lots of practice.
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Featured image adapted from @morejackthebackpacker on TikTok and TikTok.
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