Chinese face does not speak Chinese

I met a Swiss young man the other day when I joined a group walk around Singapore. He had signed up for the walk through the Chinese Meetup group he was part of. That group consists of a bunch of people who want to speak Mandarin. I had signed up through the Singapore Cantonese Meetup group that I am part of.

Many in the group had already asked him why he had chosen to live in Singapore for now. He said he wanted to practice speaking Mandarin. My remark to him was, "Singaporeans' Chinese is 'broken'." He retorted immediately, "Nonsense." He was completely convinced that all Chinese Singaporeans speak Mandarin fluently.

I beg to differ.

I have said before that Singaporeans like me who went to English-medium schools learned Mandarin in order to pass exams. Once in the working world of English (unless we have to use Mandarin regularly), everything we had learned in 10 years of basic schooling had long been returned to the teacher. I have too many friends who cannot function in Mandarin at all.

I am far from fluent, but I try.

To me, that's all that matters in language learning. It's a lifelong process.

Here's to learning a new language in your lifetime!