Tagged: Singaporean Mandarin

What Time Is It Now? 现在几个字?

I was asked by someone from Beijing about the meaning of ‘几个字儿’ that Singaporeans so often use. To begin with, Singaporeans don’t say ‘几个字儿’. It should be ‘几个字jǐ gè zì*’. There’s no retroflex ending ‘儿’ since it...

Paper or Plastic? 我不要纸袋

As many would probably know, Singaporean Mandarin is quite distinct from its counterparts in Mainland China and Taiwan. This is not anything surprising. Language is something created collectively, so it naturally takes on distinct flavours of different...