mtbc | (Reply)

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Interesting, thanks for sharing. I knew some of this already from people who traveled over there prior to the pandemic.

I have mentioned how I often don't recognize the English spoken at me here in Metro Manila. Singaporeans imagine that they speak good British English but, in various regards, it's challenging to an outsider.

I suspect they are speaking "text book" British English - which is not the same as American, Australian, Canadian or British English on the street. I ran into the same problem when I went to France - I learned textbook French, but outside of Parisian schools, most people don't speak or know textbook French, the speak variations on it littered with slang.

And people who have learned more than one language, without quite realizing it, have a tendency to mix up the languages at times. Using a Polish, Russian, French, Spanish etc word for an English one.
They also don't always understand the contextual uses of words in another language well nor the subtextual ones.

Some are better than others. But when people learn another language they tend to blend it into their own, and their accent which was developed to speak their own, doesn't tend to shift much when speaking another language that much. I work with a lawyer who speaks English with a British/Polish accent, and tends to speak British and think British. I catch it and just automatically translate it back to American English, often without thinking. Also living in NY for as long as I have - has resulted in picking up certain Britishisms with language, because I've worked with a lot of Brits, on and offline.

For light rail or subway, an annoyance in Singapore was that they've ended whatever those tickets were one could buy at the machines, instead one swipes a payment card at the barrier, on entry and exit, quite a fuss when one has children in tow and must use a separate card for each passenger, also for tourists the question of per-transaction fees; it also doesn't accept AmEx.

They are attempting to do the same thing in NYC, but you just explained rather well, I might add, on why they can't quite do it. They want to, it would do away with the expense and waste of the "Metro Cards" and "Rail Passes" but alas, they can't due to the reason you mentioned.