Singapore government aims to lift ‘the curse of bad English’ with ‘Queen of grammar’ videos
A campaign has been launched by the Singapore government to improve the way people speak English, the official language of business in the multicultural citystate.
The campaign from the Speak Good English Movement takes the form of a series of four videos fronted by local comedian Kumar.
In the first in the series, a narrator says that a curse of bad English has been cast on Singapore, which can be lifted by the Queen of Grammar at her “Meet the people” sessions.
Subsequent episodes will be released in the coming weeks.
The video series will be used to support the movement for this year and the next.
Impossible…it’s programmed in the breeding cycle now….kids learn from parents.
ReplyGood spoken and written English does take a good right brain as well as intelligence to master and practise. Not everyone can master good English even if they learn it for decades. But for those who had bad English teachers, they can get help from the British Council.
ReplyFrom my experience and observations (in Singapore and in overseas), Singaporeans naturally switched to good standard English when speaking with non-Singaporeans. So I don’t think it’s a matter of them having ‘bad English’, but rather it’s their way of showing kinship with fellow Singaporeans by using ‘Singlish’.
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