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Hi, everyone. I'm Jade. Today, I want to talk to you about Singlish. And that's a variety
of English that people speak in Singapore, in Malaysia. It's like English, but not English,
not the same English that I'm speaking to you now because it has a different grammar;
it has a different accent, and it has different vocabulary and expressions. Similar, but not
the same as the English I'm speaking to you now. And a while ago, somebody who watches
my channel left a comment. And it was really interesting to me because this girl lives
in Singapore, and she's from Singapore. And she said that people judge her as being stuck
up and posh because she wants to speak English correctly, and she doesn't speak the same
Singlish as everyone else. And I could tell she was a bit frustrated, really, with that.
So I wanted to share my opinion about Singlish, but also about what it means to make a decision
for yourself about the kind of English you want to speak or any other language, making
that decision for yourself how you want to communicate. So that's what we're talking
about today. The first thing I want to say is Singlish
is not wrong. It has its own rules of grammar and pronunciation. It's not completely random.
It's not like people didn't get the right English lessons or the right education. It's
a standard dialect of English. It's not supposed to be the same as the English I'm speaking
to you in now. It's not supposed to be the same as an American native speaker speaking
to you. It's different because it evolved in a different place, from a different group
of people. So it has its own rules. And I don't think it's helpful to look at
it as being wrong and the English I'm speaking to you in now as being right. But on a different
level, on a personal level, it might be right for you to speak Singlish; it might be wrong
for you. So in a situation of the girl who left the comment, she said that everybody
thinks she's a posh snob for not speaking in the Singlish accent, for having a British
accent. Well, on the one hand, you can see that people
would think you're a posh snob if you're the only person around who doesn't have the same
accent as them, and you've always lived there. But for some reason, you've got an accent
from a place that you've never even been to. Maybe you've never even been to England, but
you're speaking like an English person. So people are thinking, "Why are you talking
like that? We don't talk like that around here." And they're also thinking, "When you
talk like that, you're saying there's something wrong with the way we speak." And people don't
like that. People don't like it when people try to be different. But what I want to say
here is that just because everybody else speaks Singlish where you're from, it still doesn't
mean that it's right for you. What if you've got really, really big dreams
about doing something, traveling to other countries, or getting really, really high
up in business -- whatever you do, you've got big dreams. Your accent can hold you back.
Singlish can hold you back if you want to work internationally because people who don't
know about accents will just think, "That person can't speak English properly." So Singlish
can hold you back. The same way that your cockney accent can hold you back if you want
to do many things in life. You couldn't be a top barrister in court in England with a
really posh -- really posh cockney accent? Really cockney accent. Maybe you know someone
who has achieved that. I don't personally know anyone who would get to that level in
law without changing the way they speak. These things are possible. There will always
be exceptions for people. But in general, sometimes you need to change the way you speak
so that you can move towards the things you want in life. And other people around you
don't like to see you changing. So it's easy for them to laugh at you, say you're stupid.
They might be partly right; maybe your accent is really strange. They might be partly right.
But in another way, it's not really what they think. If you have decided that having a British
accent reflects your personality, reflects where you want to go with your life, the things
you want to do, stay firm in your decision to have a British accent. Why not? It's what
you want to do. Go for it. So what you need to know is that accent is
important. Sometimes you need to change your accent to achieve the things you want in life.
And you also need to know that not everybody is going to think the way you're changing
is a good thing. So that's all I'm going to talk to you about
today. On my channel, I've got more videos about accent, communication, English, and
being an introvert.