When I speak Mandarin to foreign front-line staff, my experiences have mostly been pleasant. I find these Chinese nationals to be generally courteous.

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The most annoying thing about this kind of situation is when immigrant, Mandarin-speaking staff appear to be completely unfussed about not being able to speak English. It feels rude when Mandarin-speaking staff don't even appear to be trying to speak English and do not seem to think it really matters if they can't.

This is where our government have been trying to defend their "Foreign Talent" scheme, saying that these "FTs" are needed so that we can keep jobs. I don't mind if these so called "foreign talents" are doing jobs where local can't do because there is a lack of skills. But this is actually taking a short cuts ?? Don't tell me that our locals can't even speak basic English !!! I am sure even our senior citizens can fare better !!!

i dun know why the fuss..about service staff must speak English. If consumers are not happy that the service staff cannot speak English, just dun patronise the store again. Then why are they employ...i suspect for every complan King n Queen out there, there are equally 9 other more gracious citizen who dun mind. This is all about market forces. 1 to 2 generation ago, a lot of stores' owner cannot speak English. Most of them speak a mixture of dialects, Chinese, Malay and Tamil....They speak anything, except English...if u are narrow minded in thinking, then we should all speak Malay. Malay is actually Singapore's national language, but i guess most people cannot speak. Why English was used instead then. That was because it was the language for commerce. A international language. Not because we are multi-racial. Please dun mix them together. With the current financial crisis originated from the west, we might see a shift in the language of use in commerce if the west cannot reclaim their leadership in commerce after this whole thing is settle. As a small country with international exposure, dun be surprise if u have to make Hindi, Arabic or Chinese as the language for multi-racial communication if the world suddenly turn upside down in our life time.
Good Luck and stop complaining

English is the most neutral language and, as such, there is no bias towards any racial group and is the language best suited to equality in a multiracial society like Singapore. Using the language of one racial group implies a bias towards that racial group. Ergo, a preference towards using Chinese is insulting towards others.

And yes, while we are on the subject of national language, I do actually think that we should all know something of our national language especially when it is the language of our neighbours.

ah. an interesting problem.

most of the factory workers/technicians come from msia anyway.
most of the f&b and service staff come from some 3rd world country.

where are the singaporeans?
do they work in offices run by ang mohs?
do they sell dresses in boutiques?
are they in the civil service?

and if they do speak mandarin isnt that already fine? its one of our major languages, and not even i know our national language..

if we're serious about raising the quality, then we gotta pay them more. i think. if and when a eatery can discern that having english speaking staff is one of the main reasons for their success, then being able to speak english would be a skill thats in demand and would command better wages. i think most of us rather cheaper chap chye peng than a english speaking tou shou.

in my experience, Singapore national service workers are generally unable to speak international English, only the Singaporean form of English.
They are not able to understand some orders and do not seem to realise that they have a problem communicating in the English language.

Its fine for service staff to speak in Mandarin when serving those who are more comfortable with it. But I certainly don't like it when they start with Mandarin.

This is bad. Mandarin is not our common language. It is not our working language. Service staff should start with English and then if they sense that the customer is more comfortable with mandarin, then switch to it.

Not even all Chinese Singaporeans can speak Mandarin. When we hear Mandarin being prattled all over the place like nowadays, we will start to look and feel like just another city in China. Where would be our distinguishing feature, as possibly the best English speaking city (and environment) in Asia? Do we wnat to lose this distinguishing feature? You heard some of the people being interviewed on TV during the Mumbai disaster? If you take the trouble to overcome the heavy accent, you would realise that they speak very good English.

I agree that most of the Chinese nationals in the service industry here are generally courteous. If you understand Mandarin, you will know that they use quite polite language. Still, if they can't speak our local lingo (Singlish), they should at least learn how to serve customers in simple English.

Whether it's English or Singlish we speak, one principle usually applies: In Rome, do as the Romans do. The problem here is that many PRC nationals can speak neither English nor or our native Singlish.

This is also not about discrimination against PRC Chinese. Just imagine if it were the other way round. If companies in China had all their service staff serving the Chinese nationals in English, how would the Chinese nationals in China feel? My guess is that China would appear foreign to them. This feeling is most probably what Singaporeans of any ethnicity who can't speak Mandarin feel.

In fact, one might want to say that it is forgivable if a Chinese national starts off with Mandarin when serving a customer who looks like a Chinese.

But I once had an even more surprising experience. I called up a Thai restaurant to make a table reservation, and started the conversation in English. A Chinese national ( I guessed it from her accent), speaking in Mandarin, had the audacity to ask me :" Speak Putonghua, please."

I was like, ...'Er, hello? Am I the customer or the service provider? Who is supposed to accomodate whom?'

And, what's puzzling is that the Chinese national did not see me, but was only talking to me through the phone. How did she know that I could speak Mandarin? I could very well have been a non-Chinese Singaporean who couldn't speak Mandarin.

The 2,000 odd people on Facebook should get more support if old people like me know how to navigate the web to find out about them and how to get information. I am one of those who grow-up when 2nd language was not a compulsory subject. Putting this aside, the term “mother’s tongue’ is a subjective especially for Chinese people, what does the dictionary define it as?



Is Mandarin the mother’s tongue of all Chinese, especially Singaporean Chinese, or is it the National or official Language of China? In Singapore there are more than 5 Chinese dialects while there are more than 50 dialects in China, so is Mandarin our mother’s tongue? What happen to those children who are of mix parentage, can we assumed that just because they look Chinese and surname that their mother’s tongue is Mandarin while they are brought-up in English or other language or by grandma in dialects?



The indirect insistences of our Chinese service staff to speak Mandarin with little or no knowledge English or any of our Chinese dialects or knowledge of our National Language irritates even our local Chinese people. What about others in our multi-racial society? Do we need to take up physical actions like banging the table which are wrong, to make the point across?



Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has insisted that Maids must know English for their own safety and others’ interests, but not foreign drivers employed to drive Lorries and heavy trucks. Are they not in the service trade? Traffic Police clarify that they have passed the required tests which I wonder how when they could hardly speak English or any of our official Languages when the rules and regulations are in English. I challenged them to my simple tests to see that they are not a danger to others’ roads users. How many accidents have you seen with foreign drivers without them calling for help to address the issue?



On the Mandarin language issue, The Ministry of Education (MOE) insisted to me that it is their official term of mother’s tongue of the Chinese. I wonder who give them the rights to dictate what our mother’s tongue should be. It is the same arrogance earlier when they insisted that all Chinese surnames should be Hanyu Pinyin written and pronounced during my argument between 1982 and 1988 when the issue was reverted to dialects names. Tamil are the people of Tamil Nadiu, is there such as a language as Tamil just like Singapore’s mother’s tongue? What happen to our basic rights?



MOM has passed their responsibility of languages to that of employers’ duty to ensure that their customers are served. With the shortage of people like the Maids, insistent of language become a hindrance to employments’ agencies and for employers to get the required people, what are we supposed to do? For the interest of all why are MOM not taking action instead of avoiding respomsibility?



In the Maids issue we get so-call better quality people with the extra cost, but with other service staff we are paying indirectly at our cost and inconveniences. Facebook should get together to have a petition to employers and MOM on the current problems before the Chinese service staffs upset us further. Who has the authority to help us? This is one of the biggest failures of our governments’ feedbacks system. We are passed to one another with no solution with avoidance or evade the issue.