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Teddy and I tried baking some cookies today. After an hour of hard work, the cookies finally came out of the oven however they did not smell right. Teddy tried one small piece after letting them cooled for 30 mins, his verdict was : The cookies tasted like bread.
About an hour later, I asked him to try again. When asked, his verdict was : Its an epic failure.
Both of us were tired after our adventure and we sat on the sofa to rest.
A while later, he told me he would like to bring a DVD to his grandmother’s home to watch.
I asked him to sms his Uncle Steven (the owner of the DVDs) to ask for permission and he did. Uncle Steven replied ok and asked him which DVD did he take. His reply was : Let’s just say that it is a show which I have watched before and I am going to watch it again.
Steven thought I was the one who sent that reply via sms to disturb him so he called me. As I read the reply, I could not help laughing.
Teddy is definitely one grown up boy now and he is making good progress in speaking and writing in English (instead of Singlish). I bet in no time his English will be better than mine.
A British friend asked me today how many years do I think Singaporean needs in order to speak English like the English and Chinese like the Chinese. I told them I don’t know the answer and I think we will never change as probably no one sees a need to.
Why did I make such remarks?
Just look at Teddy as an example, when he talked to his classmates over the phone, he spoke Singlish to them. I guess that’s because they spoke Singlish to him as well. But when he speaks to Steven or I, he automatically uses English because he knows that we will correct him if he had used Singlish. So for him, he picked the appropriate langauge depending on the circumstances.
Does he see the need to always speak English and discard Singlish completely, probably not!