State of English in Hong Kong -- A student's essay

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  1. #31

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    I believe this is what Fennimore (and his contemporaries Wilson and Brimshore) refer to as "Kun Chow" or more commonly referred to in its street jargon form "el nino" whereby the user of the English language has learnt to speak it as a second language and often becomes confused with pronouns.

    This phenomenon is almost exclusively attributed to the former rural (Shen Dong Tao province) education minister Li Kwong Faan who refused to push literacy.

    Thoughts?

    Last edited by Ruprekt; 02-12-2005 at 12:00 PM.

  2. #32

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    My husband also mixes up the kitchen with the bathroom, the fridge with the washing machine. I'm used to it. Whenever he mentions one thing I know he means the other. The English standard of HK has deteriorated thanks to the Chinese radio channels stop playing English songs since the 90's and Mr Tung changing many English schools to Chinese schools and then back to English again. I was still teaching English and marking essays in 1990-1991. Few of my students mixed up the pronouns then. But in spoken English people get nervous and tend to blunder more.


  3. #33

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    Y iz evry1 picking on this kids english? I grew up in Canada, got me a edgeyoucayshun and went Koledge and we expect better from a locall?

    However, given that this was a british colony for 150 years, I would have thought the English standards would be a wee bit higher. That said, I am studying Chinese and it makes my head hurt.


  4. #34

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    Quote Originally Posted by WhenPigFlys:
    dear all. It is very unfair in my opinion. Can anyone here write an essay in Chinese so that we can all laugh at? It reminded me of some U.S. tourists I saw in Spain kept saying 'Why don't they speak english here'. Correct me if I were wrong, is it some sorts of 'North American / U.S.' egocentric mentality here? Hello, you are in Hong Kong, CHINA
    i totally agree with you.

  5. #35

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    >> which denounce the growth of the English language and it's finer grammatical points in favour of what he refers to as 'literacy anarchy' or lesser known as 'el nino'?

    Chinese ebonics? Chibonics?


  6. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ruprekt:
    Haha, that's pretty funny tvrlover. A suggestion tho, maybe your wife should not talk and be quiet. That might help you.
    no at all, my wife is a VERY smart lady, but the he/she mixup just drives me nuts. I can imagine how she feels when I practise my "ng goi", so I'm sure it's mutual. I would take my wife talking over any person, any day, as she's not only bright and intelligent, she's also fun to talk to.

    Take it with stride my man, life is all about the little joys Enjoy the people in your life while you still can.

  7. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by KnowItAll:
    Chibonics?
    Chibonics, OMG! that's priceless

  8. #38

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    Let's turn the table.....

    Aside from this kid’s poor English, there is more than meeting the eyes that is worrisome to me. Obviously, his state of mind is violently immature. If the words in his essay are the clues of his inner world, this kid is heading for trouble. I’ve been tutoring some Form level students on a HK website and from my experience with HK kids’ English, I would say he may be around 12-14 years old and probably come from a middle-upper class family. Most HK students have a hard time with English. Even if they got the grammar correct, their Eng. typically has a local tone to it because of misusing words in the context. Speaking from my own learning experience, English is difficult; period and I have to agree that it’s not fair to make fun of them. Although this kid’s Eng. has problems in many ways, at least he got his feeling coming across. I don’t now how many of you are of Chinese origin and how many of you know how to read and write Chinese, try to imagine English is not spoken in HK and the only communication tool is Chinese. Can you still survive ?


  9. #39

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    Speaking from my past experience as an English Teacher, I can say that I've seen worse. Though, what really takes the cake is the teacher's comment at the end of the passage which includes "This should be a descriptive piece of writing".

    As if that wasn't "descriptive" enough?

    And besides, why re-hash a two-year old thread?? I've remember receiving that letter in my email nearly two years ago from friend.

    We all know the standard of English in Hong Kong is on a steady decline. What we tend to ignore (rather conveniently) is the effort that some students still try to put in, even in a losing situation. Let's commend them for that at least!

    The point? We've seen this before, had our laughs, now it's time to move on!...

    Last edited by Max; 02-12-2005 at 12:59 PM.

  10. #40

    It's not the kids' English that worries me but the subject of his story; from the teacher's note at the bottom, it seems he missed the point of the assignment. Would be interested to know what he is up to these days (two years later). Do kids like that turn out to be violent or is it just the video game mentality talking?

    Re: 'standard of language': it is actually quite easy to understand his writing if one imagines him doing a translation from Chinese in his head; for example, since there are no tenses in the Chinese language it makes sense to me that he has difficulty applying the correct tenses or conjugation of verbs.