Service Staff Who Can Only Speak Chinese
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english is indeed the primary working language in singapore. but i don't think it is wrong to assume chinese can speak chinese. i bet you will assume most indians can speak tamil or most malay can speak malay too.
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Once, I was at Sim Lim Tower, trying to buy some electronic components....
Me: Ten resistors, 1 kiloohms, please.
PRC salesgirl: Har? What?
Me: I want 1 kiloohm resistors, and I want ten of them.
PRC: Huh.... kee-loh-om?
Me: I WANT ONE KILO-OHM RESISTORS!!!!
PRC: One kilogram?
Me: NO! NO! NO! ONE KILO-OHM!!!
PRC: (hands me a piece of paper, and gestures at me to write it down)
Me: (writes down '1k ohm x 10 resistors' in English)
PRC: Uhh..... (goes off to find boss to find out what I just wrote)
Basic English: FAIL. Product Knowledge: SUPER FAIL.
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Originally posted by gasband:
Yeah then those are not language issues, those are attitude issues like I said. And I encounter them everywhere. Asia also have. Australia also kena. Go Europe the Ang Moh also like that haha.
It is an attitude issue linked to language lol.
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Originally posted by fudgester:
Once, I was at Sim Lim Tower, trying to buy some electronic components....
Me: Ten resistors, 1 kiloohms, please.
PRC salesgirl: Har? What?
Me: I want 1 kiloohm resistors, and I want ten of them.
PRC: Huh.... kee-loh-om?
Me: I WANT ONE KILO-OHM RESISTORS!!!!
PRC: One kilogram?
Me: NO! NO! NO! ONE KILO-OHM!!!
PRC: (hands me a piece of paper, and gestures at me to write it down)
Me: (writes down '1k ohm x 10 resistors' in English)
PRC: Uhh..... (goes off to find boss to find out what I just wrote)
Basic English: FAIL. Product Knowledge: SUPER FAIL.
hiring someone who have no product knowledge is fail.
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Originally posted by skythewood:
english is indeed the primary working language in singapore. but i don't think it is wrong to assume chinese can speak chinese. i bet you will assume most indians can speak tamil or most malay can speak malay too.
I have already mentioned, there are too many dialects in Chinese. You can assume that a Chinese speak Chinese in some way or another but not all can speak Mandarin.
Not all Indians can speak Tamil either.
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Originally posted by rainee:
It is an attitude issue linked to language lol.
Ya maybe...just that when I was in Paris restaurant, when i asked the waiter over and order Chicken Chop, he gave me a "you are a 2nd class citizen becos you spoke english look" and pretend not to understand me and replied me in some French words and ask me to point to him in the menu. Yeah so its attitude linked to language haha
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Originally posted by gasband:
Ya maybe...just that when I was in Paris restaurant, when i asked the waiter over and order Chicken Chop, he gave me a "you are a 2nd class citizen becos you spoke english look" and pretend not to understand me and replied me in some French words and ask me to point to him in the menu. Yeah so its attitude linked to language haha
That is expected cos French are very passionate about their own language. And French is the national language there, so it is reasonable to expect people there to converse in it.
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Originally posted by rainee:
I have already mentioned, there are too many dialects in Chinese. You can assume that a Chinese speak Chinese in some way or another but not all can speak Mandarin.
Not all Indians can speak Tamil either.
yup, that's why i say most indians speak tamil, not all indians.
yes, chinese has alot of dialect, but there is the most popular one that is taught in school.
i can't speak dialect, so i can't talk to some of the older singaporeans, but don't think the china people talk in dialect. do they talk to you in a dialect like cantonese or something?
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Originally posted by skythewood:
yup, that's why i say most indians speak tamil, not all indians.
yes, chinese has alot of dialect, but there is the most popular one that is taught in school.
i can't speak dialect, so i can't talk to some of the older singaporeans, but don't think the china people talk in dialect. do they talk to you in a dialect like cantonese or something?
No, they usually speak to me in Mandarin with their heavy China accent which sometimes make it hard for me to understand.
What I mean is, why is it always expected for every chinese to know Mandarin? They are not forgetting their roots if they do know of some of other chinese dialects. It just happens that those dialects are not as popular as Mandarin.
I hate it when people come up to me and say that I am a banana or potato because I can't speak Mandarin that fluently. I happen to speak in English most of the time now because if I speak Hokkien, nobody except the older generation would understand me.
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It's really quite terrible especially for the non-chinese who can't speak mandarin in Singapore and it's not fair to them because the official business language is English
And if the old hokkien speaking uncle at the kopitiam can learn to speak English, I don't see why those young PRCs can't!
Then again I think they think Mandarin is the only language in the world. Just last month I think there was this article about this PRC guy who got beaten up in a PRC resturant in China because he placed an order in English because he had been living in USA for like the past 10 or 20 years and is used to speaking English.
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Originally posted by skythewood:
hiring someone who have no product knowledge is fail.
I want to know.....
What's 'ten resistors, 1 kilo-ohm ' in Mandarin?
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Originally posted by rainee:
No, they usually speak to me in Mandarin with their heavy China accent which sometimes make it hard for me to understand.
What I mean is, why is it always expected for every chinese to know Mandarin? They are not forgetting their roots if they do know of some of other chinese dialects. It just happens that those dialects are not as popular as Mandarin.
I hate it when people come up to me and say that I am a banana or potato because I can't speak Mandarin that fluently. I happen to speak in English most of the time now because if I speak Hokkien, nobody except the older generation would understand me.
Haha you know I met up with my primary school classmates and they were shocked that I conversed with them in Mandarin.
I used to be a 'banana' because my parents were English educated and cannot really speak Mandarin but due to work, I was forced to be able to converse in Mandarin fluently and I think my Mandarin has improved tremendously whereas my English standard dropped like a stone due to lack of use -_-"
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resistor = 电阻
kilo-ohm = �欧 �欧姆 -
Originally posted by elindra:
It's really quite terrible especially for the non-chinese who can't speak mandarin in Singapore and it's not fair to them because the official business language is English
And if the old hokkien speaking uncle at the kopitiam can learn to speak English, I don't see why those young PRCs can't!
Then again I think they think Mandarin is the only language in the world. Just last month I think there was this article about this PRC guy who got beaten up in a PRC resturant in China because he placed an order in English because he had been living in USA for like the past 10 or 20 years and is used to speaking English.
I understand they are proud about their language, but sometimes it is going overboard.
I remember of an incident where I was buying a drink in a neighborhood stall, the drink list was written in English. Since I do not know how to call the drink in Mandarin, I thought it would work if I just point to the one I want in the list. Surprisingly the person who tended the stall told me she could not read the list and repeatedly asked me to tell her in Mandarin. When I tried my best to figure out how to say it in Mandarin, she said,"Wa so slow ah! Want to order a drink also have to think for so long!"
I was like wtf. I was trying to help her ended up got scolded. I have been boycotting the stall ever since.
Another incident happened in IMM, with the dessert stall. I wanted to order peanut soup with the tang yuan balls inside and I saw someone before me ordered that. So I said to the auntie tending the stall in Mandarin, that I wanted the same as the customer before me. She then asked me,"Say out your order." So I said it while pointing to the menu so that there was no mistake. But apparently I must have mispronounced some words because she proceeded to correct me and then added in some snide remarks like "So easy also don't know how to say." And then she told me cannot have tang yuan balls inside the peanut soup. I was too lazy to argue with her so I just had it without.
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Originally posted by rainee:
I understand they are proud about their language, but sometimes it is going overboard.
I remember of an incident where I was buying a drink in a neighborhood stall, the drink list was written in English. Since I do not know how to call the drink in Mandarin, I thought it would work if I just point to the one I want in the list. Surprisingly the person who tended the stall told me she could not read the list and repeatedly asked me to tell her in Mandarin. When I tried my best to figure out how to say it in Mandarin, she said,"Wa so slow ah! Want to order a drink also have to think for so long!"
I was like wtf. I was trying to help her ended up got scolded. I have been boycotting the stall ever since.
Another incident happened in IMM, with the dessert stall. I wanted to order peanut soup with the tang yuan balls inside and I saw someone before me ordered that. So I said to the auntie tending the stall in Mandarin, that I wanted the same as the customer before me. She then asked me,"Say out your order." So I said it while pointing to the menu so that there was no mistake. But apparently I must have mispronounced some words because she proceeded to correct me and then added in some snide remarks like "So easy also don't know how to say." And then she told me cannot have tang yuan balls inside the peanut soup. I was too lazy to argue with her so I just had it without.
Wah liao sibei guai lan -_-"
Oh ya I couldn't speak Hokkien in the past too and I'm kinda forced by circumstances to learn >.<"
Seriously if I were you I'll just give the auntie a piece of my mind and walk off without buying anything
Bloody hell I might as well go to the supermarket to buy peanut soup and tang yuan and prepare it at home >.<
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Originally posted by elindra:
Haha you know I met up with my primary school classmates and they were shocked that I conversed with them in Mandarin.
I used to be a 'banana' because my parents were English educated and cannot really speak Mandarin but due to work, I was forced to be able to converse in Mandarin fluently and I think my Mandarin has improved tremendously whereas my English standard dropped like a stone due to lack of use -_-"
I had this group of classmates last time who would force me to speak Mandarin (I don't speak it during my high school days). They would keep taunting me and calling me names in hope that I will speak the language.
Needless to say, I was traumatized and ended up not speaking it at all for the whole 5 years...I only started speaking after I got out of high school.
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Originally posted by fudgester:
I want to know.....
What's 'ten resistors, 1 kilo-ohm ' in Mandarin?
I think OHMS is pronounced as OU-MU in Mandarin so I think it is quite safe to say KILO-OHMs can be read as QIAN-OU-MU. Resistors can go some translation website i think can easily get haha.
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Originally posted by elindra:
Wah liao sibei guai lan -_-"
Oh ya I couldn't speak Hokkien in the past too and I'm kinda forced by circumstances to learn >.<"
Seriously if I were you I'll just give the auntie a piece of my mind and walk off without buying anything
Bloody hell I might as well go to the supermarket to buy peanut soup and tang yuan and prepare it at home >.<
I would want to give her a piece of my mind too but my level of Mandarin is not advanced enough to be able to scold yet >.<
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Originally posted by rainee:
I had this group of classmates last time who would force me to speak Mandarin (I don't speak it during my high school days). They would keep taunting me and calling me names in hope that I will speak the language.
Needless to say, I was traumatized and ended up not speaking it at all for the whole 5 years...I only started speaking after I got out of high school.
Haha do you know I had a 'convent girl' accent even though I've never studied in a convent school before in the past?I don't have it now. I was teased so badly about the accent that I worked really hard getting rid of it. It was thanks to all the phonetics lessons and what not as a child.
My friends used me to improve their English >.<" which explains why my Mandarin was terrible in school because no one wanted to speak to me in Mandarin
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I was in a Hotel and approach the reception
A PRC girl at the counter and I asked "may I know where is the house phone"?
thw PRC girl keep starting at me and repeated "house phone"? and kept quiet
in her mind, she must be thinking that I am asking for her house phone nos.
hahahaha
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Originally posted by gasband:
I think OHMS is pronounced as OU-MU in Mandarin so I think it is quite safe to say KILO-OHMs can be read as QIAN-OU-MU. Resistors can go some translation website i think can easily get haha.
Fudgey isn't a Chinese Singaporean...
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As a solution...I propose the good old TOEFL as a minimum standard. It works everywhere else in the world, and we're doing them a favour before they decide to jump ship.
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yes, need more stringent QC!
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Originally posted by Kuali Baba:
As a solution...I propose the good old TOEFL as a minimum standard. It works everywhere else in the world, and we're doing them a favour before they decide to jump ship.
I agree!! -
that means they have higher qualification ==> will demand more pay ==> rise in cost.