Is proper English important ?

I come from a dialect speaking family where my first language is actually cantonese. I had a hard time in school even picking up Mandarin. Instead of calling "school" as 学校 it was known as 书馆 to me. For those of you who did not get it, it's a direct translation from Cantonese. It was a tough trip for me to pick up both English and Mandarin as both my parent does not speak them that often and neither are they able to do it as they were both Chinese educated and their environment did not allow them to do it as well.

It took me more than awhile to be able to speak proper Mandarin and proper English. DANG DANG DANG ! Now here's the question! What is "proper". For you guys who read my blog and twitter should have realize that I am a big time grammar and spelling failure. (To get away with it, I will just declare that I am suffering from dyslexic )And one of you guys actually commented that I talk like an Ah Beng on twitter ! So what makes me think that I am speaking "proper" English? I felt that the key of speaking a language is not just about how much you are able to say but it's also about how much the other party can actually pick up and understand. If you are always speaking in "proper" English but there is no one else who could understand you, there is nothing useful about your skill set. Communication is always a two way thing no ?

That was one of the many topic that caught my attention during the #goodenglishsg event helded by @glishclub yesterday morning at the Garden Slug.

A lot was spoken in the short hour during the event and there are a lot that I agree. The environment of a person who is trying to pick up a language properly is very important. That is why people who are into learning a certain language should always go overseas for an exchange and stay with their native.

That being said, there is 1 of the issues which I do not fully agree. That is actually about "dumb down". It was mentioned that we should not dumb down to people and speak broken English for the sake of convenience and in fact there is no convenience in it cause you will have to waste time correcting it after. No dumb down to broken English, no baby talk.

In my line of work, I have to speak to China workers, Indian workers and many more other workers who can't speak and understand proper English. The best they could do is to capture certain keywords. "Backdrop", "Here", "2pm", "16ft" "OKay ? "

That being an extreme cases, what about in the army ? I am sure most guys been to army and notice the unspoken "class" of English. We have our typical "Hokkien Pek" , "Ah Bang Drivers" and "Old Chinese Encik". They have very bad common of English and you will be surprise how bad it can be. I use to have a buddy who can't spell words like "Lunch Box", "Toilet Roll". So with these "barrier", you will actually have problem blending into their culture and work well with them. They will have this image of you as the "Fake Ang Mo", "That irritating Jiak Kang Tang". Like I mention earlier, communication is a two way affair, so what good is 1 person's effort to 1 organization?

I know it may sound contradicting at this moment. I agree that the importance of language environment plays a very big part in learning a language well but on the other hand I am saying that we should dumb down and blend into other's culture if it's bad language they are speaking. Well, speaking good language is just like any other thing where balance is very important. You have to know where you are standing. If you are in a position of control and change, yes you should encourage the change but if you are in a position where you are junior I suggest you go with the flow until later. Speaking good language is no doubt important but knowing the culture and surviving the world is a little more important I suppose. Never win a battle and lost the war.  I guess I am one of those people who are making glishclub's battle a little tougher to fight. :p

Language leaning is just like any other education, it's a life long learning process and I am still trying very hard to improve myself. Due to work as well as self consciousness I am always trying my best cause it can be very very embarrassing when you are not able to spell or speak properly in my current environment.

I suppose one of our favorite is still when the client reply " Please kindly revert by 3pm". Not too sure what is wrong ? Check out  glishclub's website and find out more !

Mr.Smith, I ish ah beng but I lub Engrish too ! I might be a hooligan but I love English !