It is true Sally Yeh, the singer still cannot read Chinese writing?

[willister]

Originally Posted by payutenyodagimas

that's not surprising. Chinese in the Philippines for years have their own schools and yet could not retain what they learned. its only lately, when China is becoming rich that they are trying to learn harder so that they could speak and write Mandarin. don't know if its effective because, still the most important part of learning is environment. once you go out from your school or home, you still interact with the outside world most of the time.


so how much more if you just go after school? and thats not even everyday?

Same deal as with Vietnam, my parent's generation were all educated in Chinese, Vietnamese was only learnt via social interactions with the wider community. During the early 70s, it was outlawed, similar to Thailand, so people like my aunty (born in 68) pretty much all have no understanding of written Chinese. It is only now that China has morphed into an economic might that people have started to re-learn the language or its basically become more widespread.

[msgsing]

My wife who grew up and was educated in Singapore in the 60's was never taught to read or write in Chinese. She attended a British modeled school and learned to speak,read and write in English. Some of her brothers and sisters went to other schools and spoke only Cantonese and learned Chinese reading and writing. To this day some of them still only speak Cantonese with a little bit of English learned on the street. My wife is fluent in English, Cantonese, Hokkien and also has a more limited command of Mandarin and Malay.

[willister]

Originally Posted by msgsing

My wife who grew up and was educated in Singapore in the 60's was never taught to read or write in Chinese. She attended a British modeled school and learned to speak,read and write in English. Some of her brothers and sisters went to other schools and spoke only Cantonese and learned Chinese reading and writing. To this day some of them still only speak Cantonese with a little bit of English learned on the street. My wife is fluent in English, Cantonese, Hokkien and also has a more limited command of Mandarin and Malay.

Hong Kong and Singapore have always attached English with an elitist society or at least upper class society of respective territories as the British had long ruled over them. Anyone who could afford an English education was truly an elite of society, especially in the 60s!! I guess these days it's replaced with a full overseas education rather than local.


In Korea and to some extent Taiwan, this was the Japanese language. Many older Korean businessman are fluent in Japanese, same with Taiwanese and also some ex-presidents.

[Jacoab l. Brown]

Originally Posted by silverkris

Huh? What's "Folklore"? Do you really mean "dialect"?

There is no correct spelling for the "Folklore", since the people who speak it are in the forever voliatility. It is not even a speech. Stay away from the people who speak that art.

[Tomboy-]

People going to Asia including HK should try to learn the language more to avoid discrimination and have a better cv when applying to jobs. Being only English speaking is becoming less wanted in Asias job markets.

[msgsing]

My wife who is Chinese was born in Malaysia and later moved to Singapore where she obtained the majority of her education in the 1960’s. She attended local schools which followed the then current British curriculum with all reading and writing in English.

She cannot read or write in Chinese. Some of her brothers and sisters went to Chinese schools and only read and wrote in Chinese. In addition to English and Cantonese she can speak Malay, Mandarin, Hakka and Teochew all of which she just picked up on the street interacting with other dialect groups.

[Tomboy-]

I appreciate this singer's effort.

She for sure now has a better understanding of what people are saying and the cultures than those zero Chinese language people. Misunderstanding is not good.