Singapore's Mother Tongue Struggle: How Bilingual Are We? | Talking Point | Full Episode 

I scored As for Malay and Higher Malay, even took Malay Lit for O level. But right after sec school, I had no Malay lessons, no Malay classmates in JC and uni, no Malay colleagues. So over the years i’ve definitely lost my fluency in writing and flowery language. But I can still speak conversational Malay no problem. And most of the time, that is enough, unless i suddenly decide to go into Malay journalism.

I ❤️ CNA documentaries!

Chinese Singaporeans speak both mandarin and English poorly :(((( can barely understand their accents

I didn't do that well for higher chinese (C grade) and express chinese (B grade) but because of my home environment (Parents don't speak much english and mother is a chinese teacher), I end up being more fluent in mandarin in adulthood compared to my peers who got As for their chinese exams. My mom is always baffled why I can speak mandarin so fluently but not be able to score well XD Also chinese translated manga and light novels are cheaper.

And no exposure to business or industry related mother tongue words. That’s why they now have to come and learn business Chinese + the skill of translation after they graduate. It’s not an easy process due to the large linguistic difference between English and Chinese.

Hmm... the thing is Hong Kong uses Traditional Chinese in writing. Maybe the Hong Konger child may not know certain simplied words. I think the test is an unfair evaluation of one's mother tongue.

Anyone knows where I can find Steven's interview with Love 97.2 FM???

The kids score better than I will ever score in my Psle

Isn’t Hong Konger’s mother tongue Cantonese?

could anyone tlel me what the first song is?

What colour is your Bugatti?

Tbh, a chinese that cannot speak their own mother tongue is just plainly disgraceful.

I attended Nanyang thru my primary school years. I was made to feel absolutely inadequate. In fact teacher said “I didn’t deserve to be a Chinese” as I could not read nor speak Chinese. I therefore rebelliously chose NOT to learn the language. It wasn’t till I was away in Canada that I ever attempted to pick it up again. No bad superior teacher, no negative feedback. Just acceptance.

Funny story.. I actually learned Mandarin speaking in the US working together with a bunch of Taiwanese. Since then, I am always mindful to talk to my kids using mother tongue while being mindful that they will always converse in English in their school and work life. So, letting English run it's own course was a no brainer. Reading and writing Mandarin was the hardest part and they required extensive tuition classes for that. Of course the key is constant conversations. I only speak Hainanese with the kids, my wife only in Cantonese. Their cousins only converse in Mandarin. I always told the kids that their mother tongue languages and dialects are their secret language when they don't want anyone eaveasdropping into their conversation. Now, my kids are in their late 20's, speak fluent English, Mandarin, Hainanese, Cantonese, Hokkien and Malay. Just make sure they have constant contact with family members who speak their mother tongues, and if you have an Indonesian maid, converse in Malay.

The so-called English schools in SG does nto help either, because people are shamed for performing well in MT. As a person who grew up in a Chinese speaking family (Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien) i have no issue with speaking, but just could not score in tests. I genuinely love the subject but was always average on mandarin exams with an average of Bs despite fluency in the language. When i look around at my fellow peers, many struggle with even the basics of ordering food, and some of them even outperformed me in exams!

Unfortunately my parents were strongly discouraged to speak to my siblings and me with their true mother tongues (or dialects).

In my opinion for Mother Tongue, emphasis has to be put away from grades and more to practical usage. Singaporeans generally don't write academic papers in their mother tongue so why should we learn it in a heavily academic manner? Still being bilingual is very important in raising open minded children

The phrase "mother tongue" is wrong. What has the languages imposed on us have anything to do with us. My Mother spoke to me in English. Her mother spoke to her in Teochew, and so on. Mandarin is just a foreign language imposed. Similarly Malay is an imposition on all the malay community. The bulk are Javanese, some are Bugis. Only Tamil people are learning their own language. Do we need to learn, yes. The best way to learn, used to be Channel 8 7pm Drama, the 8pm show and the 9pm drama. However I feel if we are going to use such a false term like mother tongue instead of second language, or Mandarin, we do not have the full picture and the basic honesty in accepting why we learn this. Not for an imposed culture, rather because we use it as a lingua franca.

I find it so weird that now chinese sg people call mandarin they “mother tongue” but they ancestry never speak that language, (but other Chinese languages like hokkien teochew cantonese hakka hainanese…). The correct term for mandarin/huayu must be just “2nd language” as a lingua franca. LKY chose mandarin for being closer to China and the result now is just struggle to speak their true mother tongue and not fluent mandarin…

Unfortunately, many of them don't speak good english either.

Dear Cikgu Dr Elmi Zulkarnain Osman, my husband and I are really grateful to you for teaching our child. Thanks to you, he got an AL1 for Malay. Your lessons are always so lively, energetic, humorous, fun and EFFECTIVE. Terima kasih.

I thought you were brave with all your food challenges Steve… but I really take my hat off to you here! To read to a group of kids and their parents for this programme… wow! RESPECT!!!

For majority of ethic Chinese people in Singapore - mandarin isn't the mother tongue. It's a dialect from Northern China which has been adopted as the national language of China. Our Mother tongue would actually be the Min nan language or other languages from the south of China.

being bilingual is a skill and a treasure we should cherish and preserve

My children speak Mandarin fluently. My daughter went as far telling her interviewers that she is one of the very few in Singapore who command both Chinese and English very well. How did they do it?. When they were borne my wife spoke with them in Mandarin from day 1 whereas I spoke with in English. That would help them create interest in reading Chinese. English is never an issue as they will learn fast because all subjects are taught in English. Many children have difficulty with Mandarin because the parents make the fundamental mistake thinking that knowing English will move them ahead of the pack. How wrong. Even my 3 year old grandchild is fluent in both languages. Her father, maternal grandpa & paternal grandma speak to her only in Mandarin & the rest of us in English. So no problem for her. If there is an Indonesian maid, ask her to speak to her in Bahasa. In their adult years Chinese and Indonesian will also become important languages.

The speak Mandarin campaign is a victim of its own success. Singapore Chinese Mother Tongue should be the dialect. With the banning of the dialect. Instead of speaking Mandarin… People choose to speak English instead.

🇲🇽 👶💬 🇺🇸 My cousins are Mexican and American, raised in the US in Illinois. Their parents, my aunt & uncle, instituted a policy in the home of speaking English in some rooms and Spanish in others. They grew up speaking both languages fluently but my grandfather (who was not familiar with their bilingual tradition at home) had a difficult time while babysitting them as toddlers one day when my cousin was in the kitchen in his highchair, crying for "platanos" (bananas). In the days before cell phones, there was no way to simply call my aunt and learn that you just need to take him in the living room and he would speak English. Needless to say, my grandfather was very flustered. 😅

There's actually benefits in knowing more than one language 🤔

Why would you ask a native Hong Konger to take a mandarin language exam in simplified chinese? This is so cringefully wrong

People can just take their own initiative to play a game like VRchat The funniest part is that I've met Singaporean Malays learning and practicing Malay language in Kampung Melayu world as well as Singaporean Chinese going to the Chinese bar to practice Chinese People have to take the initiative, effort, and time to properly learn to converse in multiple languages

I grew up in an English speaking household & w/o being able to hear authentic mandarin conversations, it was tough to figure the grammar out or build up a varied vocabulary. Coupled with possible ADHD (I’ve never been officially tested, but noticed I’ve similar traits as my son who has been diagnosed with it), learning Mandarin has been an epic struggle. Ironically, it was briefly dating a more Mandarin speaking person who loved Jackie Cheung in my early teens, and then growing to follow the popular Taiwanese singers like Jeff Chang, Panda Xiong, Valen Hsu, Faye Wong that started my foray into picking up the language. I chased Qiong Yao dramas like 青青河边草 too and started to try to read their novels to my MT teacher’s delight. Sadly, Taiwanese dramas aren’t the flavour of the month now. The Hallyu wave means parents are mostly watching Korean dramas. That means kids have even lesser opportunities to listen to Mandarin at home (when the telly is on or the music is playing). The only person who somewhat spoke Mandarin to me as a kid was my Mama when I stayed at her place for school hols, but even then, she spoke more Teochew (so I can speak a smattering of the dialect) than Mandarin. However, my kids have grandparents who are English speaking too, meaning my kids have had zero chance of utilising Mandarin at home. Supplementary classes barely help as they are only once or twice a week. My question is why have we dialled up the level of difficulty of Mandarin in our syllabus so intensely when more kids are coming from English speaking homes than ever before? By setting the bar so high, a huge group of students have a hard time playing catch up and eventually just grow disheartened and give up on the language. In fact, the piling pressure turns an initial curiosity and desire to pick it up into a deep seated resentment and phobia for others. Then we need to ask ourselves, what are the Caucasians doing right that their kids are picking up reading & speaking Mandarin faster than some of our kids? Could we merge their teaching style with ours to find a new way to teach Mandarin?

For me, it's the opposite, I grew up in a mandarin speaking household, so I think I am quite accustomed to the Chinese language. Also, I like watching Chinese content and listening to Chinese songs. These definitely helped me improve a lot.....but only for the speaking component. I can't write for nuts since we are so used to typing characters using our keyboards....

The problem with Singaporeans parents (those born in the 1980s) are fearful or have misconceptions that kids could not cope with more than 1 language. Those of us I the Pioneer Generation or Merdeka Generation could easily manage formal languages, English and Chinese / Malay / Tamil and our own dialect mother tongue plus other dialect mother tongue. It’s a matter of exposure and practice. Let the kids go to school to speak their formal education languages and at home speak in your own mother tongue dialect (Teochew / Hokkien/ Cantonese / Hainan / Hakka etc)and also English plus 2nd language. The brain will know how to manage without getting confused.

2/3 of our public school students in my town in Minnesota USA start elementary school in an immersion program - either Spanish or Mandarin. They don’t start studying in English until 4th grade. Many are fully proficient with native accents in the foreign language when graduating from high school. What an advantage for them!

My mother tongue is malay and omg the disadvantage in most childcares is lack of malay kids so some schools dont have a malay teacher Kids learn chinese from infant to K2 then go to p1 not very equipped to have the basis for malay, simple things like table and numbers would make a diff

seems like students are learning just to score good grades rather than having fun or trying to be fluent in the language. that could be why youngsters hate 'mother tongue' so much, coz when they think of MT, they think of exams. I have an idea.. students can probably have regular online language exchange class with students from a country who can speak the language fluently. For example chinese session with a taiwanese student. It will be more engaging and meaningful for students to understand the power of language. A taiwanese student would love to learn english from a native speaker as well

A HKer do not have a strong proficiency in pinyin or Simplified Chinese. Isn’t it better to compare them with mainlanders or Malaysians?

"Mother tongue" sure ain't Mandarin for most.

Children can learn their mother tongue quite late and be fluent at it..... Last time I only spoke English and hated speaking Mandarin, but later on my parents bought a TV box from China for me and forced me to watch cartoons from China. That was when my Mandarin exponentially improved. Now I am so good that I can write essays and even write lyrics in Mandarin. After my Mandarin has been settled, I had to settle my Cantonese. My family occasionally spoke a little bit of Cantonese to me, but I refused to speak Cantonese although I knew a little bit. Then one day I made an effort to speak Cantonese and my cantonese has exponentially improved too.... Btw I'm from Malaysia and therefore I have a Cantonese or Mandarin speaking environment to some extent, which is a privilege most Singaporeans don't have

Mandarin is not mother tongue to 99.99% of Sgearn Chinese here, unless your ancestor originated from Beijing , a northerner dialect. Please stop this BS.

Testing mandarin in simplified Chinese and you found a kid from Hong Kong 🤷🏻‍♂️

I think the key issues for learning a Mother Tongue language is that, it is taught in an environment where you have to memorize to score and get good grades out of it. I think what can be changed is that they can learn mother tongue but in a way where they learn the basic formalities of speaking the languages as well as the vocabularies. On top of that, students/kids are already coping with many other subjects in school so being able to learn another language is really a talent. At the same time, mother tongue exams will induce stress onto the kids and they will not like the language. Some of the parents are rather harsh on their kids when learning another language because it is their family's local language and they are forced to learn it. While some say it may work wonders by forcing your kid to study everyday and going for tuitions every week, it will seem like a torment to the kids and they will not have fun learning it. In summary, they should change how the education revolves the kids' life and create a more conducive and fun environment so that at the end of the day, they will feel accomplished about learning something new.

If you don’t speak that language at home, how can you call it a mother tongue? As a Cantonese Chinese, I will never say Mandarin is my mother tongue, which is, though, not as foreign as English.

The actual mother tongue of most Singaporean Chinese was actually Hokkien for those whose ancestors from Fujian. Mandarin is the mother tongue of Beijing Chinese.

If u can't speak Chinese, Malay, or Tamil, maybe ur mother tongue is Singlish.. don't worry, u have mother tongue.. heuheu 🤣

I'm very interested in where to watch the video of the 97.2 interview! The four of them are hilarious and with Steve I think the dynamics of the interview would have been amazing!

what is relevancy in emphasising so-called "Mother" tongue? don't tell me is for the root.

In my opinion, films/movies are a good way of learning a mother tongue language too. One of the movies that came out, Encanto which was a magical-surrealism musical had many versions of their songs published. When I first found out that there was a malay version of the songs from Encanto I was ecstatic cause the film really was such an incredible one as it presented a contemporary issue in today's world and to be able to listen to the songs in Malay was cool so I had a listen and surprisingly I found myself learning words that I never thought I would have till I heard the songs in Malay. Thus, I think good movies that portray contemporary issues and have versatility with a good plot and melodic songs are able to help kids to learn words from their mother tounge.

In Singapore, English is a working language. Our native language depends whether you are Chinese,Indian or Malay. Yet some Singaporean Chinese can’t speak proper mandarin. Is there something wrong with our education, society or Singaporean perspective about his/her ethnicity? Is Singaporean still having the post colonial mindset/syndrome? Can someone please explains.

11:27 That is also most Indonesian Chinese feel. Most Chindo that born between 1960s to 1998 cant speak Mandarin or Hokkien or any Chinese language. And learning it in our adulthood is not an easy feat

Great story. Steve has to be one of the best presenters for CNA.

Apart from mother tongue, the general observation I have made is our younger generation no longer know much about dialects let alone speak them on a daily basis.

Mother Tongue is a misnomer, at home my Mother and Father spoke CANTONESE, and not mandarin. So what is my Mother's Tongue ??. I know of a Neighbour, they are both Eurasians, both spoke English at home, the poor children left with no choice and struggled to learn Mandarin in school.

Most of them can't speak their mother tongue language but the most ironic part is their English still sound terrible.

Good to know the basic of Bahasa and mandarin but best to focus on mastering English or you will face limitation in career and business opportunity

Many Singaporeans speak half mandarin and half English, if they can't speak a full sentence in one language, I won't call them bilingual at all.

CNA insider is my favourite youtuber

Where can i find the language aptitude test? Looks fun

got A for a level h1 mother tounge but i’m not even fluent in speaking it compared to many many others

I used to work for a Chinese enrichment school. Sadly, now a lot of parents want their children to learn Chinese because it will be beneficial to them in the future rather than because it’s their mother tongue.

It is always good know the mother tounge and local laungage first and then master the other laungages. However, it is always best to know more than two laungages.

Malaysians be like: I can't relate to this.

I am from Egypt and most people here speak arabic and english cuz we study both languages in school since elementary school , so we study both languages , arabic as first language and english as second , so in Singapore they can do that teach both offical and native language in schools

Er…. My mother tongue is Teochew, not mandarin…

If most kids are now speaking English at home, how do you explain the general standard of English amongst Singaporeans?

Cool car.

I am an American. I live in Arizona USA. I was born in Chicago IL USA. I was raised by my immigrant parents from India. My parents grew up speaking a number of languages each. The only common one they spoke fluently in standard form was English. My father's mother tongue is Tamil. My mother's mother tongue is Kannada. They still spoken other languages, besides English or their mother tongues. Mom spoke Tamil and Hindi in addition to English and Kannada. Dad spoke Marathi, Malayalam, Hindi, French, and Gujarati, in addition to Tamil and English. My parents used to 'argue' in Tamil or Hindi. Mother studied in Delhi and spoke Hindi (Kari Bholi), the leading dialect. She always was correcting my father on his Hindi usage (Dad spoke Bombay Hindi). Dad spoke Travancori Tamil, and was forever correcting Mom on her Tamil usage. As a result I often got confusing messages whenever I spoke anything in a South Asian language at home. No one agreed on what I was saying was correct. As a result, I never became 'functional' in any mother tongue.. outside of English. My younger sister did study Tamil as an elective in university in Chicago, but I never had that luxury. Where I studied, Tamil was not offered. My younger sister studied French also, and she speaks it like a Bretonese. Father's French skills are awful. For me, what languages I learned beyond English were Castilian (Spanish)-I speak like an Argentinian, Russian-I speak it like a Moscovite, and Vietnamese-I speak it like a Saigonese. I learned Castilian because it was available, and I needed a language elective in high school. Also went to Latin America many times (1 year in Cordoba Argentina). I continued using Spanish in my adult life, as is is spoken along with English in Arizona. I learned Russian in university, Engineering School. Many of my professors were from Eastern Europe. My Vietnamese is as an adult. I am married to a woman from Vietnam (18 years and counting). I learned it to communicate with my in-laws. So there you have it...I speak nothing from South Asia as far as language.

The team at Elemantra are all so proud of you, Dr Elmi! You really are a gem in the Malay Language community. #arifbudiman #elmizulkarnain #elemantracademy

Kudos to steven chia for putting himself out there.. haha! I laughed too much and can relate alot to this struggle with my son in mastering the mother tongue.. i supppse i shall just make it daily and fun.. journey rather than destination 😊

I got my mt exam paper back and I got 16/200 the rest of my grades were good

Poor in English and poor in mother tongue : Singapore

to master a language, not just write / read / listen to a language, really need to communicate in that language everyday if possible.

I enjoy learning European languages, like French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Italian. What about you?

I used to think it is mostly only Singaporean Chinese that are forgetting their roots and not speaking their mother tongue at home. Well this video proved me wrong

There's some problems with the way they tested language proficiency. Firstly, it's very insufficient to use three Singaporean kids as representative of a country of 5.5 million. To collect more accurate results, you need to test Singapore's entire population. Also, there was apparently no speaking or listening comprehension on the exam since it was paper only. Proficiency in a language reflects reading, writing listening, and speaking. As far as we saw, the exam only had reading comprehension.

Losing your own language can mean losing your own culture and way of life.

There’s a group of seniors raised in English speaking households and at that time the 2nd language policy wasn’t even in the syllabus until I got to secondary sch. , and I was from a mission sch. I passed Mandarin . Today I can only get by in ordering food in Mandarin. I will not be able to hold a sentence long conversation in Mandarin.

Living in Malay land Respect Malay language . So learn Malay First language

Super interesting! Singapore's power to speak to powers like China and USA makes it amazing!

While saying that Mandarin is not a "mother tongue" does have some merit, I wonder how many Singaporeans are actually even aware of the modern history of Chinese language and how Mandarin was the outcome of the May 4th movement, an important historical period when Chinese intelligensia led a vigorous movement to modernise Chinese culture. Since then, each Chinese community (Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore) has continued evolving from this movement in order to bring forward and reinterpret Chinese culture in the modern era. However, before this fully came to maturity in Singapore, the Chinese intelligensia consciousness was abruptly stamped out when Chinese schools and Nantah were forced to close and convert to English schools in the 70s and 80s in Singapore; this is why Singaporean Chinese are so detached from their cultural roots. They were denied the chance to continue the movement to re-interpret Chinese culture in modern society. That said, rejecting Mandarin entirely only goes further to drive a wedge between modern culture and traditional Chinese culture, in the process hollowing out the ethnic identity, losing its means to connect tradition and modern society.

7:01 well... then schools are failing, cause most kids hate Mother Tongue

DR ELMI!!! YOU ARE ROCKING IT! YOU ARE THE COOLEST MALAY TEACHER IN SINGAPORE! YOU ARE THE BEST!

Kids should aim for trilingual now to be relevant with the leading global economy. Chinese, Hindi and English.

Might be good to consider, teaching the weaker language subject as a second language not as a first language. There is a difference in teaching approach.

I would looove for Singapore to ban plastic cups

Did the parents attending the toddler class get a discount?

Each and every language is beautiful and if given the opportunity and time to appreciate the language, one should give his or her all to learn it with no regrets...the deeper you study, the more you would be in awe by its beauty

I think it's unfair to compare Chinese test with a Hong KOng-er...if the HK-er is assumed to be taking the same paper as the Singaporean. We all know HK-er's mother tounge is Cantonese, not putonghua or mandarin.

Singapore Chinese are already losing their original mother tongue which were Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hailam, Hakka after the launch of Speak Mandarin Campaign in 1979.

Don't understand a thing you speak

Just play maybe 15min of Yanxi Palace in Chinese class. The kids will get hooked and they'll be motivated to watch more and passively improve their Mandarin. My friend had sh*tty Mandarin, and in the beginning he understood only like 20-30% of the content, but by the end he understood like 80%. Same probably goes for Malay and Tamil - get the kids hooked with cool dramas and stuff.

I would say most are byelingual, considering that to be fluent, we need to be able to speak, listen, and write them (3 parts). Formal education and exposure is important, but also should be over a long period of time. Formal education might be the initial exposure and teach us about the rules of the language, and also how to read and write them. But long term exposure in those 3 parts, I would say, is the one that determines at which level of fluency we are at, or how multilingual we are. Written below are my experiences with languages so you can skip those if uninterested. For example, I scored B3 for English O Levels and C for General Paper A Levels. I scored A1 for Chinese O Levels and D7 for Higher Chinese O Levels. Well, it seems that I am average in both for examinations. (By the way, I had an English teacher in Secondary School who was extremely shocked that most of us don't know how to read this - ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ (I have no idea what they are called but they are used for pronunciation) - and it was never taught in my younger years or with my parents, and I felt that I wasn't able to speak proper English when my teacher said that.) But I do feel more confident in speaking English than Chinese, especially for technical terms like names of animals, scientific terms etc. If I change my phone language settings from English to Chinese, I will be lost if I look through the settings menu. I find myself unable to speak only Chinese to a person who only speaks Chinese, forgetting how to write Chinese characters since I don't need it for university and I use hanyu pinyin for writing in Chinese online. I also consume more English content such as news articles, watching RU-vid, dramas, reading mangas etc. I would choose English subtitles for Japanese anime or Korean drama. However, I can mostly watch Chinese drama with Chinese subtitles and read Chinese novels (小说) normally as well. There are times when I wanted to borrow a book from NLB and only Chinese translated versions were available for loan and I still am able to read it, though English translated names are slightly difficult. So other than English and Chinese, I learnt Malay as third language in Primary School (compulsory) and in Secondary School in Malay Special Programme (voluntary). My father's side is Teochew while my mother's side is Cantonese. Listening-wise, I understand Cantonese > Malay > Teochew. Writing-wise, Malay > Cantonese = Teochew (basically non-existent for both). Conversational speaking-wise, Cantonese > Malay > Teochew. So I am definitely not fluent in any but enough to get by at times but not enough to understand content like Cantonese dramas or live in a place that only speaks those languages. Furthermore, I self-learned Korean and Japanese. So I can listen, speak, and write them to a certain extent. And I took a Korean, Italian, and German class in university. Again, not fluent in any but also enough to get by. Now, I am more fluent in Korean and Japanese despite learning Italian and German in classroom settings as I expose myself more to those two languages via drama, music etc but I am still unable to read novels or fully understand lyrics etc.

Don't give excuses. Malaysian Chinese and Singaporean Chinese shared the same nanyang background, same history, same ancestry, same culture, same cuisine and same religion. Malaysian Chinese can speak a variety of dialects and Mandarin , on top of English and Malay. I don't see why Singaporeans are struggling. Many malaysian celebrities , whether famous globally or in chinese world such as Michelle Yeoh, Jimmy Choo, Fish Leong, etc are conpetitive simply because of their multi-lingual and multi dialectic proficiency. In the recent michelle yeoh hollywood movie, only Yeoh can speak all the languages. All are limited. Btw, name me a SG international celeb. Some are ashamed of speaking dialects, when dialect proficiency gives you an edge whether to hire you or a malaysian who can communicate easily with ppl in HK, Taipei, Beijing and rich indon uncles in medan and jakarta who prefer to speak hokkien . LKY was terribly wrong on this field. English is important only back in his pre war and baby boomer days. His way of thinking is stagnant. The world is changing now. China is the second going to be the top global economy. Soon, India will be the top. Time for indians to embrace hindi!

I am lost. What is mother’s tongue to Singaporean Chinese? Unless you’re from Peking or Beijing. Mandarin is their mother’s tongue dialect. Because the Chinese court was in Peking and to unify the court, the local “dialect “ was adopted as the official language. I noticed that the Chinese teacher is from China, and the second Interview who spoken English is also from China. There accents give them away. Sorry, Singaporean mother’s tongue is not Mandarin, unless your root is from Peking or modern day Beijing.

I learn how to speak proper mandarin when I start working

many foreigners are very envoius of us malaysian chinese to be able to know more than one langauge/dialects, it shows that being multilingual is very benficial!

I completed my primary six and secondary 2, in Vietnam 48 years ago. I can read novels and write simple chinese . Chinese characters required learning from young, writing is the hardest part, every writing stroke has its own sequence of writing.

If you learn Chinese Mandarin there is also different types of Chinese Mandarin for each region around expressing and speaking example; Good Morning my name is. China Mainland 早上好我的名字叫 ， Taiwan : 早安好我的名字？ Also Movies and City names are slightly different example: San Francisco 三藩市 舊金山 etc. Is like American English and British English .

Using games to learn is a great idea. I learnt my maths from Microsoft games CD when I was a kid. Thus, I grew up loving Maths and had always scored well on that subject at school.

As long as you are highly self motivated and self disciplined, you can master anything you want. Age is really just a number.