Is English still the medium of instruction in Singapore schools?

[Lone Wolf]

Just curious. It seems that the majority of Chinese in Singapore chose to speak in Mandarin, both at work and merely socialising. Many can't understand their mother tongue either but that's another story.
To me what is surprising, considering that the medium of instruction in almost all schools and tertiary institutions in Singapore is English, why do people not communicate in the language which they studied. What happened between school and when school's out? Why can't they understand and speak proper English?

[leekch]

People use mandarin to communicate because the opposite party does not understand english. Some may feel more 'at home' when mandarin is use for communication.

In english, it is easy to detect when someone speaks 'broken' english. In mandarin, it is not easily so by an average person.

The 'broken english' some spoke came from sequential direct word to word translation from mandarin to english in a sentence, hence improper english.

[Lone Wolf]

So your opinion is that people use Mandarin because they are not fluent in English and converse better in Mandarin. It is interesting that you brought up people’s difficulties with grammar and the habit of literary translations. I would assume that this means those people think in Mandarin and would translate in their minds before they speak in English – hence the problem with grammar and translation. As this would be cumbersome, I can understand they would then rather speak Mandarin. This is all fine and well for socializing. Otoh, in the workplace where documents and correspondence are all in English, why would they want to translate into Mandarin in discussion then back into English. However, it still does not explain the preference of Mandarin over a common dialect.
Afaik, Mandarin is only studied as a 2nd language up to secondary level whereas English is used for everything else. Statistics on our population show that the majority of the resident population have undergone at least ten years education. That should be more than sufficient to be proficient in any language. How is it that they still don’t think and speak in English but in the second language? This is what I find really confusing.

[Joel]

Very interesting topic, but I think the case most of the time is not that more (chinese) people choose to speak mandarin to one and other. I think it's how we're conditioned to communicate. For example, I would never speak mandarin to my (chinese) english teachers back in school. It's not that they don't speak mandarin, it just felt weird. Like I mostly speak in hokkien to Stanley and mostly in english to uncle Jacky ;) I guess its down to who we are speaking with and trying to be sociable and make each other comfortable.

About thinking, I think in english when I'm working but think and talk in Hokkien when I'm in a meeting with my boss. Weird huh?

But I guess this is quite common to every multicultural nation, not just us.

[Lone Wolf]

Very interesting topic, but I think the case most of the time is not that more (chinese) people choose to speak mandarin to one and other. I think it's how we're conditioned to communicate. For example, I would never speak mandarin to my (chinese) english teachers back in school. It's not that they don't speak mandarin, it just felt weird. Like I mostly speak in hokkien to Stanley and mostly in english to uncle Jacky ;) I guess its down to who we are speaking with and trying to be sociable and make each other comfortable.

About thinking, I think in english when I'm working but think and talk in Hokkien when I'm in a meeting with my boss. Weird huh?

But I guess this is quite common to every multicultural nation, not just us. You certainly are more flexible than I am. What about when you are with strangers? Or when you are alone? Take for instance, when you are appraising a photograph alone, what language do you think in?

[Joel]

You certainly are more flexible than I am. What about when you are with strangers? Or when you are alone? Take for instance, when you are appraising a photograph alone, what language do you think in?

Well with strangers it depends. At work I would always think and speak in english when I meet people for the first time. Of course unless they spoke in mandarin or hokkien to me first.

When i'm appraising a photograph alone I mostly think in Hokkien because it just feels more shiok :p Like :' Wah, Sibeh Swee Arhhhh!!! '

[EFG]

Its called acculturation.