Media Division, Ministry of Information and The Arts,

36th Storey, PSA Building, 460 Alexandra Road, Singapore 119963.

Tel: 3757794/5

___________________________________________________________

TRANSLATION OF PRIME MINISTER’S MANDARIN SPEECH AT THE MARINE PARADE NATIONAL DAY DINNER ON SUNDAY, 29 AUGUST 1999, AT SIN LEONG RESTAURANT, MARINE PARADE
 
 

We are meeting in happier time this National Day. The stormy clouds caused by the regional financial crisis have blown over and the sky is now clear and bright once more.
 
 

By working together as one people, we have overcome the economic crisis. We should now prepare ourselves for the next challenge, that is, to increase our standard of living by becoming a first-world economy and world-class home.
 
 

In my National Day Rally last Sunday, I spoke on what we should do in order to attain this new goal. A key strategy is to raise the standard of our English. English is the language of commerce, science and technology. It enables us to communicate with the rest of the world. Our proficiency in English gives us a big advantage over our non-English speaking competitors.
 
 

Whatever language we use, it is important to stick to what is standard. For example, in using Hokkien, we must use standard Hokkien to be understood in Taiwan and Fujian.
 
 

The problem is that Singapore Hokkien is not totally understood by the Taiwanese and Hokkiens in China. For example, we use words like mata, roti, pasar, buay tahan and go stan. So the Hokkiens outside Singapore do not understand us readily. This indeed is the kind of problems that will arise if we use Singlish rather than standard English when talking to English speakers from other countries.
 
 

Fortunately, in the case of the Malay language, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Singapore agreed some years ago to standardise the language. We now teach standard or baku Malay in our schools. This will facilitate communication between us and our Malay speaking ASEAN neighbours.
 
 

I must clarify that when I encourage Singaporeans to speak standard English, it is not to speak English with a British accent. It is English that is understood by people around the world, with proper pronunciation, sentence structure, idioms and grammar. A Singaporean accent is perfectly fine. There is nothing wrong with it.
 
 

Let me also emphasise that my message that we must speak standard English is targeted primarily at the younger generation, especially those who have studied in English schools or are in school now. It is not my intention to discourage adults from non-English speaking background from learning and speaking English. They may still speak broken English or Singlish, and it cannot be helped. For them, learning some English words is already difficult enough. To pronounce words accurately and speak the language grammatically may well be impossible. But we should ensure that the next generation does not speak Singlish.
 
 

We have succeeded in promoting the use of Mandarin with our Speak Mandarin Campaign. We shall launch a Speak Good English Campaign next year to raise the standard of spoken English in Singapore.
 
 

Let us do it slowly, word by word, and sentence by sentence. It will help if we listen and speak English more often. Let us discourage the younger generation from using Singlish. Encourage them to use standard English. And let the Singlish-speaking adults not be shy about learning standard English from their children.
 
 

By encouraging each other, we can help each other improve the standard of English. If we are patient and are willing to try hard, we will succeed in 10 to 15 years to raise the level of English in Singapore.