第４回目はSAGA子ども英語研究会の会員の中から、SAYAKAさんのエッセイを紹介します。

今回は英文のエッセイです。

So many countries, so many English

Do you know the word Singlish??

It is made of 2 words, “Singapore” and “English”.

There are many Chinese taxi drivers in Singapore and they speak Singlish.

For example, they put “lah” at the end of the sentence, as “You speak English very well, lah.”

Also they use “Can, can” instead of “Yes, you can.”

I was so interested in Singlish before going to Singapore, so I was excited to hear it directly.

At the same time, however, I had a big problem about their English.

Can you guess what it was?

To understand their Singlish? – No.

Actually, I couldn’t understand their English well because of their pronunciation and intonation.

Chinese-Singaporeans spoke English like Chinese, Indian-Singaporeans spoke English like Indians, and Malay-Singaporean spoke English like Malay!

That was very surprising for me.

Moreover, I was very surprised to realize that my English was Japanese-English.

At the hotel, I talked with an Australian. I introduced myself as Japanese before he asked me. Then he said, “I know, because your accent is like my Japanese friends.”

It was my first time to be said that my English was like Japanese.

That made me realize one important thing.

“So many countries, so many English.”

After this experience, I came to like English used by Japanese much better.

And I want to go to more countries to hear other types of English.