- Outlook - Why the hell does almost every single HKer say outlook when they really mean appearance??!! Is Microsoft so powerful that they've brainwashed all the HKers? I remember when I was learning English as a kid, I learned the word appearance way, way earlier than I did outlook. Please, fellow HKers... "Outlook" has a completely different meaning from "appearance"!!!
- Worths - Please!! "Worth" can be an adjective, a noun, but never a verb!!! Contrary to Chinese grammar, you always say "a picture is worth a thousand words", not "a picture worths a thousand words"!!!
- Below - Again, please note the usage of below!! I don't recall myself having any problem with the usage of "below" as a kid. Now I just keep seeing things like "please refer to the below email".
- Bored/boring - Well, I've gotten so used to it now that I don't even get frustrated anymore. I actually get impressed when people know when to use which.
- Access - Access. 'Ack-cess. A noun. Assess. A-'sess. A verb. Access is always pronounced as assess, at least in the IT industry. People don't seem to have the word assess in their vocabulary.
- Purchase - Similarly, it's 'pur-chus, not per-'chase. I don't know how the Singaporeans say this word, but at least I know the Brits, Americans, and Canadians pronounce it as 'pur-chus.
- s - And why the hell do HKers love to make every word plural? Informations? My reasoning to this is that as kids, we were always told by our English teachers that there's singulars and plurals in English. Since Chinese doesn't have plurals, it was an "advanced" knowledge to be able to understand plurals in English. And from then on, people just feel more civilized when they add an "s" to every noun because they can tell what a plural is.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Chinglish
What is some of the Chinglish that I see a lot and that really bothers me a lot??
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2 comments:
Hahhahhhahaaha. Such a funny post. May be it's funny since I only need to read it once instead of dealing with it everyday.
When I saw your blog subject "Chinglish", I originally thought you meant you can't stand ppl who say "aiya" and "la" --> and I was so ready to defend myself.
But have to give HK ppl some creditsss. If you ask me to communicate in French, I probably won't be able to do it..
Funny enough, most of what u mentioned didn't quite bother me, except with the access/assess one.
Unfortunately, 2 of my teammates got even more serious English probs than these, some I just hv to get used to, others (spelling problems in programming code) I just hv to keep reminding them.
I'm even playing with the idea of suggesting them to do some English pronounciation/spelling courses. But it might be insulting to ppl.
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