Engrish at Cempaka Square signage
July 17th, 2007Cempaka Square is a well-known nightspot at Towering, Penampang. Unfortunately the recent renovation did not include verifying the message conveyed by this sign prominently displayed at the back. Spotted the afternoon of 23rd June 2007: I believe it should simply read as follows: “To prevent accidents, please follow traffic instructions from our security personnel.”
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tukoi.. tunggang tebalik.. ppl will get into accidents when they’re trying to understand the sign while driving…
Ya bah!
Or maybe they want people to keep their door closed when driving or something?..
sabahan english ba.. what can do..
I think it’s a reflection of the general deterioration the standard of English in the whole country. If you speak to members of the older generation, their English is much better. I thought my English was not bad (getting A2 at SPM, 630 at TOEFL, 254 at CELT and C3 at 1119) but when I went to the UK as a student, I had a hard time with the language for the first few months at least.
Ben, I think, judging from just reading several of your blog entries alone, I can confidently say your english is far better. I never took english language seriously until I started working. My company is a UK based and most of the client is from UK as well. When comes to presentation where lots of technical terms involved, I have difficult moment. My boss will just stare at me makes me wonder whether he wants me to rephrase my early statements or thinking who’s the idiot that hired me in the first place.
I didn’t have a choice - when I was 17 they put me in a 400+ year old private school in England. I was in a 10-man dorm. I was going to take Science-stream A-Levels. I’d only spent a few months in KL. Before that I never even went out of Sabah! So it was learn the language or else…
I think the moment one says one is a master at something, the learning spirit is gone. As a requirement for a scholarship application last year, I had to take the IELTS exam. I thought my English writing is good and will easily get full marks, but boy was I wrong… turned out my writing module was the worst out of the 4 modules I had to take.