The Filipina And English

[Thomas]

It's cuz you Aussies don't speak proper English mate! hehehe

Accorting to some Englishmen, you Americans don't either, you say potatoe instead of potatoe  :)

Me, I like when you ask some one about something and they say "soon" as in when will you arrive. Could mean an hour or five hours, so now when they ask me I just say soon and they seem to understand. :hystery:

Don't blame the Filipins, they have been to much forced by Spain...  :)

[JJReyes]

In the Philippines, the assumption is you can speak more than one language. It is therefore okay to switch from one language to another in mid-sentence or mix words from different languages. Do that in the United States and they will stare at you. So you try to speak Standard American English. Go back to the Philippines and you revert back to your old habit of mixing languages. It's a form of pidgin similar to Louisiana Creole or Hawaiian Creole. 

[the_whipster]

I would never criticise Filipinos about their ability at languages, including English. It is one of the very strongest suits they have and what they know about learning languages, dwarfs that of 90% of kanos. For me the way they speak English in their dialect of the English language, in Filipino-type English, is just as legitimate as an American or Australian dialect is. Except you have to consider that English is probably at least their third, and maybe fourth or fifth tongue. So give them a break. Also, learn their dialect, just as you would adjust your dialect if you were an American that emigrated to Australia. Never lecture them in this culturally superior way, that your dialect of English is better than theirs. Because it isn't.

[MacBubba]

My wife teases me whenever I use a word out of context, make a grammatical error, or make a spelling mistake.  She is quick to say..."if you can speak only one language, you should speak it perfectly"!

 

She does acknowledge though that while English is very easy to learn, it is difficult to master.

[JJReyes]

I would never criticise Filipinos about their ability at languages, including English. It is one of the very strongest suits they have and what they know about learning languages, dwarfs that of 90% of kanos. For me the way they speak English in their dialect of the English language, in Filipino-type English, is just as legitimate as an American or Australian dialect is.

d

 

They are speaking in Philippine English which is different from Standard American English, Queen's or British English, Australian and New Zealand. Linguists also mention Nigerian, Jamaican, South African, Indian, etc. as distinct variations of English. In addition, there are 10 dialects spoken in the United States. We were recently invited to a crawfish boil at an RV park and my wife could not understand our host. It took us about 30 minutes to realize he was speaking in Louisiana Creole. (He boiled 100 lbs of live crawfish in spicy water. Delicious.)

 

Previous attempts to create common English never succeeded because no one could agree. A good example of the problem in developing a common English is the NATO call sign alphabet for communication (ALPHA, BETA, etc.) to avoid misunderstanding between troops who speak different languages. The French held up final approval for six years because they could not agree on how to pronounce seven words. The French linguists claimed that their troops would encounter difficulty

[Jack Peterson]

Me, I like when you ask some one about something and they say "soon" as in when will you arrive. Could mean an hour or five hours, so now when they ask me I just say soon and they seem to understand.

 

 

To answer a previous post, I don't think anyone is actually criticizing their English, it is just the Funny/cranky things they say.

 

The best, I got from my daughter this week was "But daddy, it is only 500 plus) when Azon and I looked it was 599 peso

 

But don't you just Love them for this cranky way they are. :thumbsup:

 

 

JP :tiphat: :morning1:

Edited May 30, 2014 by Jack Peterson

[scott h]

The French linguists claimed that their troops would encounter difficulty

 

Yeah, I read that report JJ....the French wanted "R" for ROMEO changed to RETREAT :)

[Jack Peterson]

Yeah, I read that report JJ....the French wanted "R" for ROMEO changed to RETREAT

 

 

:rolleyes: How odd, I would have thought "R" for Riviera, would have been more their style, "R" for Retreat I would have thought, the Italians, would have gone for. The french, have always had a problem with English so nothing surprises me. :no:

[Thomas]

In the Philippines, the assumption is you can speak more than one language. It is therefore okay to switch from one language to another in mid-sentence or mix words from different languages.

  Yes. It can be funny when a translator program become confused by such mixes   :lol:    when I use such, when I need to try to "decode" what they say, when to big part is other than English/Spanish for me to understand anyway.

I would never criticise Filipinos about their ability at languages, including English

Good. But you did criticise me for my grammer and spelling, when I don't bother, as most high bosses :mocking:

 

Btw- I can manage in four languages  (Swedish, English, German and Spanish. And I aim at a 5th = the local language when I have decided where I will settle in Phils.)  How many can you better than the level you criticed me for, when I didn't bother?  :dance:

[the_whipster]

In the Philippines, the assumption is you can speak more than one language. I

not every Filipino can speak more than one language. For example i have a friend who works as a prosecutor in mostly Manila, and whose first language is Cebuano. While the language of the law in the Philippines is supposed to be English, in practice it isn't and Filipino languages are always used much more in court than English is, with Tagalog being the main one. Even in courts in Cebu and other provincial cities where she has done trials, and where Cebuano will be spoken in court, she has never attended any court session anywhere in the Philippines, where Tagalog has not been spoken at some point as well.

 

sometimes, just sometimes, not all that often, they have a witness in a Manila trial whose Tagalog is not good enough for them to give evidence in court. They can basically only speak their local dialect fluently. So they have to get an interpreter in, for them.

 

the Philippines is a proper multi-lingual country, but it is not unique even in the ASEAN region. Malaysia is just like it, even to the point where English has a very similar role in the linguistical set up. But with Malay, not English, being the main lingua franca, like Tagalog is, in the Philippines.