![\"mandarin](\"http:\/\/akikolingoland.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/mandarin-thru-singlish-1A-300x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIf you\u2019re living in Singapore, or if you\u2019ve travelled to Singapore before, you must have been puzzled\/ annoyed\/ amused (or all of the above) by the Singlish used here.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Regardless of your attitude toward Singlish, if you know Mandarin, Singlish would definitely make more sense to you. And, not surprisingly, knowing Singlish would also make understanding and learning Mandarin a little more interesting. This is not to say that Singlish comes from Mandarin, but that the Chinese language plays a huge part in shaping Singlish.<\/em>1<\/sup>\u00a0<\/span>Let’s try to decode some Singlish features and reveal the underlying Chinese roots!<\/p>\n There is one word that one often hears in Singlish – \u2018one\u2019. This is one guy that unabashedly allows himself to stand out at the end of sentences.<\/p>\n 1. Nice? I made one.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 2. Wah so clean. You clean one ah?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 3. Who say\u00a0one?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 4. He won\u2019t mind one.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 5. She won\u2019t like one.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 6. He very kiasu one.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 7. Why you like that one?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 8. Like that\u00a0very ugly one.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n So, why do\u00a0we have\u00a0this \u2018one\u2019\u00a0at the end of sentences? You’d have noticed that I have written the example sentences in two different colours. That’s because we are looking at\u00a0two different ‘one’s that\u00a0express different things. Well, to start understanding this, one needs to first look at one particular use of \u2018one\u2019 in English.<\/p>\n a. Give me the red one.<\/em><\/p>\n b. This shirt\u00a0is too small. Get a bigger one.<\/em><\/p>\n c. Can I have the sweeter one?<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018One\u2019 in these sentences is used to refer to something that has already been mentioned or is known about. To be specific:<\/p>\n a. Give me the red one. (Give me the red pen\/ shirt\/ apple.)<\/em><\/p>\n b. This shirt\u00a0is too small. Get a bigger one. (Get a bigger shirt.)<\/em><\/p>\n c. Can I have the sweeter one? (Can I have the sweeter apple\/ orange?)<\/em><\/p>\n In Mandarin, we use \u7684 \u2018de\u2019 for this function of \u2018one\u2019. Let\u2019s see how the above English sentences would look like in Mandarin.<\/p>\n a. Give me the red one. (Give me the red pen\/ shirt\/ apple.)<\/em> b. This shirt\u00a0is too small. Get a bigger one. (Get a bigger shirt.)<\/em> c. Can I have the sweeter one? (Can I have the sweeter apple\/ orange?)<\/em> Now that we have seen that \u7684 \u2018de\u2019 is\u00a0associated with \u2018one\u2019 in English, let\u2019s take a look at how it fits into the Singlish examples I gave above, and how they are expressed in English.<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0Nice? I made one.<\/strong><\/span> 2.\u00a0Wah so clean. You\u00a0clean one ah?<\/strong><\/span> 3.\u00a0Who say one?<\/strong><\/span> 4.\u00a0He won\u2019t mind one.<\/strong><\/span> 5.\u00a0She won\u2019t like one.<\/strong><\/span> 6.\u00a0He very kiasu one.<\/strong><\/span> 7.\u00a0Why you\u00a0like that one?<\/strong><\/span> 8. Like that\u00a0very ugly one.<\/strong><\/span> What we are seeing here is an extension of the use of \u2018one\u2019 for two other\u00a0uses of \u7684 \u2018de\u2019 in Mandarin. (Yeah, this \u2018de\u2019 is used in so many ways it’s a pretty annoying one!) \u7684 \u2018de\u2019 here doesn\u2019t refer to anything that has been mentioned before. In the first set of examples<\/span><\/strong>, \u7684 \u2018de\u2019 is used to identify the doer of an action. These are actions that have already been done, and the statement or question seeks to point out or emphasise\u00a0who<\/em> did it. In the second set<\/span><\/strong>,\u00a0it is used to indicate strong affirmation, to add emphasis. The speaker is most probably saying something to the effect of “I’m pretty sure it is so”, or “it’s often the case that…”, or to highlight some characteristics.<\/p>\n Many years ago, when Singlish was only starting to gain the attention of foreigners, some of them tried to turn their English into Singlish, by simply putting \u2018lah\u2019 at the end of sentences. It didn\u2019t turn out well of course, since even though Singlish is broken English, it has its own rules – it is a language in\u00a0its own right. Similarly, adding \u2018one\u2019 at the end of sentences when you want to add emphasis or show some strong affirmation might not necessarily make legitimate\u00a0Singlish sentences either. Nuances are hard to grasp! Fortunately, as far as nuances go, the function of emphasising who did an action is relatively more straightforward. (Of course,\u00a0you’ve got to get the other grammar parts right.)<\/p>\n I don’t profess to be\u00a0an expert on Singlish. Nevertheless, when you hear someone placing \u2018one\u2019 at the end of sentences that don\u2019t make any English sense, chances are that if you tried to translate the sentences\u00a0back to Mandarin, \u7684 \u2018de\u2019 would\u00a0fit perfectly. And \u7684\u00a0\u2018de\u2019 is pretty hard to fathom for foreigners! So listen out for those weird \u2018one\u2019s, they might score you some breakthroughs in your Mandarin marathon!<\/p>\n 1\u00a0<\/sub><\/span><\/sup>The reason why I am using the terms \u2018Chinese\u2019 and \u2018Mandarin\u2019 with care here is, it is more often than not the Chinese dialects, along with Malay and Tamil, that form part of Singlish, rather than Standard Mandarin. Nevertheless, be it the dialects or Standard Mandarin, they are all Chinese in different forms. Also, there seems to be a heightened\u00a0Mandarin influence in Singlish over the past\u00a0years, now that the younger Chinese population are more familiar with Mandarin rather than their dialects.<\/sub><\/p>\n If you\u2019re living in Singapore, or if you\u2019ve travelled to Singapore before, you must have been puzzled\/ annoyed\/ amused (or all of the above) by the Singlish used here. Regardless of your attitude toward Singlish, if you...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[293,95,82],"tags":[232,242,298,300],"class_list":["post-7986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-grammar","category-mandarin","tag-elementary","tag-pre-intermediate","tag-singlish","tag--de-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t
\nG\u011bi w\u01d2 h\u00f3ngs\u00e8 de. (G\u011bi w\u01d2 h\u00f3ngs\u00e8 de b\u01d0\/ ch\u00e8nsh\u0101n\/ p\u00ednggu\u01d2.)
\n\u7ed9\u6211\u7ea2\u8272\u7684\u3002\uff08\u7ed9\u6211\u7ea2\u8272\u7684\u7b14\/ \u886c\u886b\/ \u82f9\u679c\u3002\uff09<\/span><\/p>\n
\nZh\u00e8 ji\u00e0n ch\u00e8nsh\u0101n t\u00e0i xi\u01ceo, n\u00e1 d\u00e0 y\u00ecdi\u01cen de. (N\u00e1 d\u00e0 y\u00ecdi\u01cen de ch\u00e8nsh\u0101n.)
\n\u8fd9\u4ef6\u886c\u886b\u592a\u5c0f\uff0c\u62ff\u5927\u4e00\u70b9\u7684\u3002\uff08\u62ff\u5927\u4e00\u70b9\u7684\u886c\u886b\u3002\uff09<\/span><\/p>\n
\nG\u011bi w\u01d2 ti\u00e1n de, x\u00edng ma? (G\u011bi w\u01d2 ti\u00e1n de p\u00ednggu\u01d2\/ j\u00fazi)
\n\u7ed9\u6211\u751c\u7684\uff0c\u884c\u5417\uff1f\uff08\u7ed9\u6211\u751c\u7684\u82f9\u679c\/ \u6a58\u5b50\u3002\uff09<\/span><\/p>\n
\nH\u01ceok\u00e0n ma? W\u01d2 zu\u00f2 de.
\n\u597d\u770b\u5417\uff1f\u6211\u505a\u7684\u3002<\/span>
\nEnglish:\u00a0Nice? I made it.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nWa, zh\u00e8me g\u0101nj\u00ecng! N\u01d0 x\u01d0 de a?
\n\u54c7\uff0c\u8fd9\u4e48\u5e72\u51c0\uff01\u4f60\u6d17\u7684\u554a\uff1f<\/span>
\nEnglish:\u00a0Wow, it’s so clean. Did you\u00a0clean it?<\/em>\u00a0(The ‘a’ at the end in this case is a gentle prodding for an answer.)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
\nSh\u00e9i shu\u014d de?
\n\u8c01\u8bf4\u7684\uff1f<\/span>
\nEnglish:\u00a0Who said so?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nT\u0101 b\u00fa hu\u00ec ji\u00e8y\u00ec de.
\n\u4ed6\u4e0d\u4f1a\u4ecb\u610f\u7684\u3002<\/span>
\nEnglish: He won\u2019t mind.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nT\u0101 b\u00fa hu\u00ec x\u01d0huan de.
\n\u5979\u4e0d\u4f1a\u559c\u6b22\u7684\u3002<\/span>
\nEnglish: She won\u2019t like it.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nT\u0101 h\u011bn p\u00e0 sh\u016b de.
\n\u4ed6\u5f88\u6015\u8f93\u7684\u3002<\/span>
\nEnglish: He\u2019s very \u2018kiasu\u2019.<\/em> (A Singlish term from Hokkien, loosely translated as \u2018being afraid to lose out\u2019. Click here<\/a> for more explanation.)<\/p>\n
\nN\u01d0 z\u011bnme zh\u00e8y\u00e0ng de?
\n\u4f60\u600e\u4e48\u8fd9\u6837\u7684\uff1f<\/span>
\nEnglish:\u00a0Why do you act\/ react\/ behave in such an annoying\/ weird way?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nZh\u00e8y\u00e0ng h\u011bn n\u00e1nk\u00e0n de.
\n\u8fd9\u6837\u5f88\u96be\u770b\u7684\u3002<\/span>
\nEnglish:\u00a0If it is done this way it’s going to look real ugly. <\/em>(The first part of this sentence has various possible meanings.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\nIf you’ve enjoyed this, don’t forget to hit one of the sharing buttons below, and do join me on<\/span> Google+<\/span><\/a>\/ Facebook<\/span><\/a>\/\u00a0Youtub<\/span><\/a>e\/\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\/ Pinterest<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"