The deteriorating quality of English among bloggers

Lately I’ve been surfing through a couple of local web blogs and I’ve noticed something… the quality of English in these blogs is poor. Now I’m not stereotyping or anything, but at least 6 out 10 blogs I visit have poor to medicore English standards. I’m trying to find out the reasons behind this, and I've come up with a few possible explainations.

While some people may blame the education system for the lack of the quality of English being taught in schools, I personally think it lies more with society. You see I kinda get the feeling that Malaysians feel to talk Singlish and Manglish is the norm. If anyone tries to talk differently, they will be viewed as an outcast and will be stigmatized and be ridiculed. (I know this because this happened to me a few times when I went back last summer). And because society doesn’t try to correct itself…we become complacent and just continue speaking like this. Heck I even know some Malaysians in my university who speak Manglish with their caucasian peers! In fact I once remember a Malaysian giving a class presentation in one of my courses and he was talking in a pure 100% Manglish way. It was jarring to the ear because it wasn't proper English at all. I still remember he was trying to stress a point and he kept on saying “aiyah how can, I tell you like that cannot wan!!”

Even though they can’t speak fluently, I've noticed the Chinese students who come from China do at least try to speak proper English. Their tenses may be messed up, and it’s sometimes difficult to understand the words or ideas they’re trying to convey, but at least it’s much better than Manglish!

This goes back to my earlier point; I feel that Malaysians have learnt to accept Manglish to be their “English”. No one bothers to correct, and if anyone does, they’ll be ridiculed and be mocked. Most parents also don’t really bother to teach their kids to speak properly. I guess their common argument is “aiyah nevermind lah, as long as he can talk and can write, that’s enough lah!”

Because of all this, bloggers have started using Manglish in their web blogs and sites like KennySia’s Benglish further encourages the young to speak more deteriorating English; and I’m not looking for spelling errors or anything, rather I’m looking at their sentence structures and tenses and at times it can be really deplorable and poor and the worst part is, there is no one to correct them about these things. Other bloggser will in fact encourage and comment in a Manglish way by praising the blogger’s entry post! As a result the youths today especially those who aren’t given the opportunity to study abroad will never learn to speak English the proper way.

Yes many people may think that this is all just a joke and it’s all just for laughs. Afterall isn't Phua Chu Kang's way of talking hillarious? But it’s inevitable and it goes beyond laughing matter. We start to accept that this is the proper way of talking! The more we become complacent about our English standards, the more deteriorating our English will be. I remember a couple of years ago the Star Newspaper launched a campaign “Let’s speak proper English” to get people to speak and learn the proper way of speaking good English.

Perhaps what we really need is for society to come with terms and accept that Manglish is not English and that is not the proper way to speak.

Now I’m not saying we should follow the western way of speaking. Even though it’s their mother tongue and so on, we need not put on phoney British or American accents just to speak English “the right way”. I know of a malaysian who returned from the states just after barely 8 months of being there and he began to speak with a funny accent that everyone knew he was just faking it! In fact, I think putting on a phoney accent when speaking is even cheaper than talking Manglish!

We can still be proud Malaysians by speaking English PROPERLY; and how do we do that? Well for starters by not mixing English with other languages or adding unnecessary lahs or wans or mehs. You may think it’s impossible, but trust me anything is possible if you want to learn and are willing to put in the effort. When I came here, I made an effort to avoid using those unnecessary words, and after sometime I got used to it. It’s tough though I have to admit, being in a society where everyone around you speaks Manglish, but let them be that way as you can always make a conscious effort to speak properly. Apart from that, another way to speak properly is by correcting your peers whenever they use the unnecessary Malaysian phrases and vice versa. By correcting them you are making both yourself and the other person aware of the improper way that the person is speaking and vice versa, and with time and practice, you will eventually learn to speak properly.

It’s a long ambition and goal I do realize, and some of you may think it’s not feasible, but I believe people can change and we have the capacity to learn new things…the question is do we want to and is it worth doing it?

Well what do you think about this? Do you think Malaysians can and will actually learn to speak good proper English in the near future?

Additional tags related to this topic:

English
National Language vs. English Language