in which countries English is almost efficiently used among folk ?

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Re: in which countries English is almost efficiently used among folk ?

Postby Iversen » Tue Mar 21, 2023 11:55 am

allf100 wrote:English is also one of official languages in India, is wildly taught in Indian schools. I wouldn't say their English is very desirable.


According to Worldometer the current population of India is 1,416,681,447 as of Sunday, March 19, 2023. So if the Indians decide that their English should sound in a certain way then that variety of English seems to be sufficiently desirable for hundreds of millions of learners, some of whom will teach it to their kids. The times are achanging...
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Re: in which countries English is almost efficiently used among folk ?

Postby allf100 » Tue Mar 21, 2023 12:31 pm

Iversen wrote:
allf100 wrote:English is also one of official languages in India, is wildly taught in Indian schools. I wouldn't say their English is very desirable.


According to Worldometer the current population of India is 1,416,681,447 as of Sunday, March 19, 2023. So if the Indians decide that their English should sound in a certain way then that variety of English seems to be sufficiently desirable for hundreds of millions of learners, some of whom will teach it to their kids. The times are achanging...


Like the OP, I had a problem to understand their accent. I found there's probably no /t/ /th/ in their native language(s) such as Hindi.

/th/vs /d/
I am thirty.
Indian accent: I am dirty.

/r/ vs /l/
I agree.
Indian accent: I aglee.

/p/ vs /b/
It's time to sleep.
Indian accent: It's dime do sleeb.

Of course, Chinese people have accent too. I don't mean my English accent is good.

I would say most people's second language will be highly influenced by their mother tongue. I do not believe that time can change, at least within decades. In my hometown, many people's Mandarin is often poked fun because of funny accent. This is very difficult to change. Many people actually are unable to distinguish /f/ and /h/.

I still believe that English belongs to the elite in India. If you speak (good)English, you will find a good job.

I also met some Indians on another language forum too.
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Re: in which countries English is almost efficiently used among folk ?

Postby Saim » Tue Mar 21, 2023 12:34 pm

The most common language used at home in Singapore is English, at 48.3% of the population according to the 2020 census (https://www.singstat.gov.sg/-/media/files/publications/cop2020/sr1/cop2020sr1.pdf ; page viii).

Of course, a lot of this "English" is actually Singlish, which is an English-lexified Creole language. But it exists on a continuum with English: English essentially functions as the educated/formal register of Singlish. This makes Singapore more like Jamaica or Trinidad than India.

Indians who went to private schools could perhaps be seen as similar in this sense, with their native language (be it Hindi, Telugu, etc.) being the vernacular form and Indian English being the "high" language. But the majority of India's population is not English-educated.

allf100 wrote:Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, Switzerland, the Philippines, Thailand.


Thailand is definitely the odd one out on your list.

https://www.ef.com/ca/epi/regions/asia/thailand/
Proficiency: Very low

https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opi ... s-raw-deal
Thailand's score at 419 placed the kingdom the lowest in Asean and third lowest among countries in Asia. Laos and Brunei are not included.

allf100 wrote:I assume there's no /t/ in Hindi or other Indian languages.


Indian languages generally[1] have both dental and retroflex stops. For them English alveolar stops map to their retroflex ones, which causes the distinct "Indian t" pronunciation.

[1] Assamese is a notable exception here. There may be some others.
Last edited by Saim on Tue Mar 21, 2023 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: in which countries English is almost efficiently used among folk ?

Postby allf100 » Tue Mar 21, 2023 12:41 pm

Saim wrote:The most common language used at home in Singapore is English, at 48.3% of the population according to the 2020 census.

Of course, a lot of this "English" is actually Singlish, which is an English-lexified Creole language. But it exists on a continuum with English: English essentially functions as the educated/formal register of Singlish. This makes Singapore more like Jamaica or Trinidad than India.

Indians who went to private schools could perhaps be seen as similar in this sense, with their native language (be it Hindi, Telugu, etc.) being the vernacular form and Indian English being the "high" language. But the majority of India's population is not English-educated.

allf100 wrote:Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, Switzerland, the Philippines, Thailand.


Thailand is definitely the odd one out in your list.

https://www.ef.com/ca/epi/regions/asia/thailand/
Proficiency: Very low

https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opi ... s-raw-deal
Thailand's score at 419 placed the kingdom the lowest in Asean and third lowest among countries in Asia. Laos and Brunei are not included.



All right, I stand corrected about Thailand. I asked some Chinese persons who were been there, if I could survive there with English. And they told me yes. Probably in Bangkok that is ckay.
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Re: in which countries English is almost efficiently used among folk ?

Postby anitarrc » Tue Mar 21, 2023 3:10 pm

newyorkeric wrote:Malaysia is a former British colony so most people speak reasonably good English.


In big cities, yes. In Perlis, Kedah or Kelantan you better know some Bahasa, or you might have trouble finding a room or delicious food.
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Re: in which countries English is almost efficiently used among folk ?

Postby newyorkeric » Tue Mar 21, 2023 3:48 pm

yes, you may well be right. i’ve only spent time in Melaka, KL, and Johor Bahru, where most people I interacted with (grab drivers, store clerks, etc.) were able to communicate in English.
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Re: in which countries English is almost efficiently used among folk ?

Postby Saim » Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:27 pm

I've just noticed this part:

allf100 wrote:/th/vs /d/
I am thirty.
Indian accent: I am dirty.


In a typical Indian accident the "th" sound would be pronounced as an aspirated dental stop (like Mandarin "t"!). It's definitely not voiced.

/r/ vs /l/
I agree.
Indian accent: I aglee.


No, Indian languages pretty universally differentiate /r/ and /l/, and sometimes even have retroflex counterparts of one or both. I would associate r/l confusion with Koreans and Japanese people, not South Asians.

/p/ vs /b/
It's time to sleep.
Indian accent: It's dime do sleeb.


Of the major Indian languages, I think only Tamil doesn't differentiate /p/ and /b/. /p/ has [b] as a variant in some positions, and /b/ can also occur in some affected speech in English and Indo-Aryan loanwords. What you're describing sounds more like a typical Arabic-speaker's accent.

The main difference from a typical Anglophone accent here would be that someone from an English-speaking country would probably pronounce the final p as unreleased in normal speech, while an Indian would pronounce it as a released (but still unaspirated) "p" sound.
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Re: in which countries English is almost efficiently used among folk ?

Postby newyorkeric » Mon Apr 03, 2023 2:49 am

Just to follow up regarding the use of English in Singapore... There has been talk about requiring citizenship applicants pass an English test, and a local news network conducted a poll recently that found 80% of people support the idea.
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Re: in which countries English is almost efficiently used among folk ?

Postby Ichiro » Fri Apr 07, 2023 5:27 pm

Saim wrote:Of course, a lot of this "English" is actually Singlish, which is an English-lexified Creole language. But it exists on a continuum with English: English essentially functions as the educated/formal register of Singlish. This makes Singapore more like Jamaica or Trinidad than India.


I live in Singapore. All the Singlish I hear is clearly heavily-accented English. There's some grammatical simplification, but I wouldn't say it's enough to call it a Creole.
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Re: in which countries English is almost efficiently used among folk ?

Postby Ichiro » Fri Apr 07, 2023 5:33 pm

There's no formal standard for writing modern spoken Tamil. I don't have direct knowledge, but I've been told that Tamils communicating with each other with phone texts will use the Latin alphabet to do so, with a variety of different conventions for spelling and abbreviations. I've had Tamil co-workers tell me that they greatly prefer to use English for e-mails. That said, my Tamil co-workers all have a good standard of English to start with.
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