is sometimes used to refer to the Accent and characteristics of English spoken by some of the ethnic Chinese residents of Hong Kong . It is not a Mixed , Creole or Pidgin language, nor a Dialect of English. It is only a variant of English with some local influence. In some aspects it may be related to Chinglish . It should be noted that Hong Kong English is regarded as a low standard of English even among the local populace. The more educated people in the city generally speak standard British or sometimes American English.
English is an Official Language in Hong Kong but for most of the population who are ethnic Chinese, it is a second language acquired from school education. It is taught from Kindergarten , and depending on the geographical location, English is most likely to be deferred over Chinese. English is the Medium Of Instruction for only a handful of Primary Schools , some Secondary Schools (termed ''EMI (English as Medium of Instruction) schools'') and most courses in the local Universit ies. It is widely used in Business Activities . Its official status is the same as Chinese .
Proficiency in the language depends on the education level and exposure of the speakers and the following only characterizes some common features and mistakes of "Hong Kong English". Such Characteristics have usually been found among Speakers who have some Secondary Education . People with Higher Education or those who have Graduated from élite Secondary Schools basically speak an acquired form of English modeled on British English , with some possible American influences. And the mispronunciations of English are mostly found in the less-than-well-educated local people, among them even including some white-collars and university students. Some school teachers at primary schools may not be able to recognise the differences in pronunciation.
The accent of spoken English in Hong Kong, perhaps, originates from the "tung sheng" (通勝), in which it is possible to find one or two pages containing lots of direct transliteration of English into Cantonese words, for example, "dinner" would be transliterated into the Chinese words "甸那", pronounced "din na". In fact, the fluency of spoken English in Hong Kong depends on the speakers' occupation somtimes. For example, many engineers in Hong Kong are speaking in a very heavy Hong Kong accent, even if they are highly educated. This made some non-local students very frustrated, as they have difficulty to understand their accent.
- Like English English , Hong Kong English is Non-rhotic , which means 'r' is not pronounced except before a vowel.
- 'wh' read as 'w', as in English English.
- beginning 'r' read as 'w' sound. (the word 'read' is a good example.)
- 'r' in other positions may be read as 'w' or 'l' . (eg. 'error' as E-WA, the famous 'flied lice' and 'frame', respectively.)
- beginning 'v' read as 'w' sound. (eg. 'Vector' and 'Aston Villa')
- other 'v' becomes 'w' or 'f' mostly with a consensus yet no obvious pattern. (eg. 'f' in 'favour', second 'v' in 'Volvo' and either 'f' or 'w' in 'develop' depending on the speaker.)
- beginning 'ch' read as 'ts' (i.e. German 'z').
- beginning 'j' and soft 'g' read as 'dz' (e.g., Gigi pronounced as "zhi-zhi").
- ending 'ge' read as 'ch'.
- 'th' read as 'd' (as in ''th''em) or 'f' (as in ''th''ick) sound. ('th' sound is not used in Cantonese)
- beginning 'n' and 'l' often confused (these two sounds are becoming Allophone s for younger speakers of Cantonese )
- 'r' and 'l' in positions other than the beginning are also often confused. (Breakfast becomes BLEG-FUSS for some, 'bleach' and 'breach' both become 'beach')
- , e.g. "bell" --> /bew/, "milk" --> /mjwk/. This is sometimes strengthened and becomes like (e.g., sale becomes SAY-o)
- ending 't' pronounced as 'ts' (i.e. German 'z')
- Differences or omission in ending sounds. (as the ending Consonants are always Voiceless and unreleased ( Glotallized ) in Cantonese with the exception of 'm', 'n' and 'ng', similar to Basel German )
- Exaggeration of certain final consonants, for example 's' (to /si/) and 'd' sounds of past-tense form of verbs (to {Link without Title} ).
- multi- Syllable Words might sometimes be wrongly stressed, since Chinese is Tonal and largely Monosyllabic .
- producing the 'w', 'h' or 'l' sounds in words like Greenwich, Bonham, Beckham, Salisbury. This is reflected in the transliteration of the words, for example, Beckham is transliterated as 碧咸 (pronounced as /bik-ha:m/).
- producing the "ces" sound in Leicester or Gloucester.
- some letters are spoken with phonemes used in Cantonese, such as 'e' as 'YEE', 'f' becomes 'E-fu', 'h' becomes 'IG-chue', 'l' becomes 'E-lo', 'q' becomes 'KIU', 'r' becomes 'AA-lo', 's' becomes 'ES-si', 'w' becomes 'DUB-bee-you', 'x' becomes 'IG-si'. Most confusingly the letter 'z' is read as 'EE-zed' which is parsed by native English speakers as 'ez'.
- The same is true for some for 'g' becoming 'DZEE', 'j' becoming 'DZAY' and 'v' becoming 'WEE'. (The reasons were mentioned above.)
- Merging of and to . eg. 'bad' and 'bed', 'mass' and 'mess'.
- Omission of entire syllables in longer words. ('Difference' become DIFF-ENS, 'temperature' becomes TEM-PI-CHUR.)
- Difficulties in pronouncing certain syllables: 'salesman' become 'sellsman', 'round' becomes 'WAANG'. (Without the ending consonant pronounced and occasionally with an ending 'd'.)
- Merging the contrast of Voiceless / Voiced consonants with Aspirated / Unaspirated if there is any contrast exists in Cantonese. The stop becomes [pʰ and becomes [p ; becomes [tʰ and becomes [t ; becomes [kʰ and becomes [k .
- Merging voiceless / voiced consonants into voiceless if no contrast in aspirated / unaspirated in Cantonese. Both and [v become both [z and become [s ; both and [dʒ become ; both [ʃ and become [ʃ ; both and [ð become ( difficulty in pronouncing [θ too).
- The letter “z” is generally pronounced as , a corrupted version (due to various of the above-mentioned reasons) of a very archaic pronunciation ; the correct pronunciations, and , are not understood by some.
- Confuse or drop articles like "the" and "a"
- Confusion with verb tenses and agreement of singular or plural nouns, as they have no direct equivalence in Cantonese grammar (by extension, the correct use of "is" and "are").
- Difficulties with numbers larger than ten thousand. In Chinese, 10 thousand is read as one Myriad , 100 thousand as 10 myriad, one million as 100 myriad, etc. Chinese speakers often pause before saying big numbers in English because of the need for mental conversion (English speakers of Chinese often experience similar problems when saying large numbers in Chinese).
- Difficulties with fractions. eg. "three over four" becomes "four over three" and "nine times out of ten" becomes "ten times out of nine". This occurs primarily because the equivalent of the word "of" in Chinese functions more like "'s" in English (such that the words before and after the word "of" swap places). Eg: "Chairman of the board" becomes "Board's chairman", "nine out of ten" becomes "ten times's nine" (sic), "three out of four" becomes "four parts's three" (sic). Because of this the values of the numbers are often confused.
- A similar error results in descriptions of degree of discount often being confused. Instead of a "twenty percent discount", the Chinese way of saying the same thing is roughly translated as an "eight tenths discount" (A discount where you pay eight tenths). As such, it is common place for a "10% discount" to be mistakenly described as a "90% discount". Thankfully, this happens in speech far more often than in shops, primarily because the double-conversion happens very quickly.
- Difficulties with correct usage of personal pronouns as their Cantonese equivalents are genderless (common to speakers of other Chinese dialects as well for the same reason).
- Difficulties in distinguishing the use of prepositions. For example, when describing time, there is some confusion of the prepositions "on", "in" and "at", like "on Monday", "in February" and "at 12 o'clock".
- Difficulties in distinguishing the gender of animals. For example, cow is used exclusively to refer all form of cattle, even ox is more appropriate.
" in Hong Kong. Note the spelling of the word "Centre" (instead of "Center").]]
. Note the American spelling of the word "center" in the name of the complex.]]
British English is taught in primary and secondary schools, but American English spellings (e.g. verbs ending in -ise/-ize, nouns ending in -er/-re, -our/-or) are also commonly used due to influence from, for example, English-language television programs from the United States. However, the norm is to use the suffixes -our and -re, but -ize.
In some informal situations, notably in Internet usage among locals, Final Particle s or Interjections of Cantonese Origin such as ''ar'', ''la'', ''lu'', ''ma'' and ''wor'''—many of these being “ Flavouring Particle s”—are used at the ends of English Sentence s. The use of these interjections is often referred locally as “IM English”; examples of such:
- "u doing wt ar/ah?" (”What are you doing?”— “u doing wt” is a direct word-for-word translation of the Cantonese Statement corresponding to “you are doing”, and “ar” is the Cantonese question marker to convert the statement into a question)
- "I've eaten dinner lu" (“I've had dinner”—“lu” indicates a Perfect Aspect and makes the sentence more informal)
- "I go la/lah, bye" (“I'm leaving, bye!”—“la” indicates intent and makes the sentence more informal)
The use of “IM English” has long been considered a serious problem by local English teachers, as it is quite common to find students writing sentences like "me too woh" for students of lower English standards. It should be noted, however, that the use of such “IM English” is quite common even among individuals who are well educated in English in informal occasions, to express some kind of regional intimacy and show their Cantonese-speaking identity.
In addition to the desire to express intimacy and identity, there are a number of other reasons for the existence of “IM” English:
- It is often easier to type English words than to , British And American Keyboards and Technical Standards In Colonial Hong Kong ) Hong Kong people then make sentences of spoken Cantonese syntax with English words, or create new words that sound like spoken Cantonese.-->
- Some computers (or particular pieces of software) might not be able to display Chinese characters.
Some people criticise the language proficiency of some local non-native English teachers. In response, the local Education Bureau required English teachers without English-language undergraduate degrees to pass an assessment called the " LPAT ", to ensure the quality of their English standard, and those who did not pass the assessment would not be able to teach English any more. This included native speaking Enlgish teachers, except for those hired by the government. High numbers of native English speakers have failed the test. Such assessment screened quite a number of in-service English teachers, and some of them decided to retire instead.
Some words are found in Hong Kong which are not well used in the rest of the English-speaking world.
- A ' Chop ' is a seal or stamp; again of Indian origin; also used in Singapore English , and a standard, if technical, word in mainstream American and Commonwealth English
- A ' Garoupa ' is a Grouper , a group of ocean fish such as the '' Epinephelus Spp.,'' common in Hong Kong (from Portuguese )
- A 'godown' is a warehouse (from India n) also used in Singapore English .
- 'Hong Kong foot' (not considered correct English even in Hong Kong) refers to Athlete's Foot ; it is a literal translation of the Chinese term '香港腳' (Xianggang jiao or Heunggong geuk)
- 'inch'（寸） means arrogant.
- A ' Nullah ' is a concrete-lined channel designed to allow rapid run off of storm water from high ground (from India n)
- A 'praya' is seashore or seafront (from Portuguese ) '' Praia ''.
- ' Punti ' has become a commonly-used word in the law courts of Hong Kong; it is a transliteration of Cantonese 'Boon Dei' meaning 'local'. When a defendant is using 'Punti' in court, he is electing to use Cantonese, instead of English, as the language of trial. The reason for not referring directly to "Cantonese" is that the word "Cantonese" can mean any dialect spoken in the Guangdong (Canton) province; also, the Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou (Canton) is actually a bit different both in accent and vocabulary from that spoken in Hong Kong.
- A 'shroff' is a payment kiosk, like those found in Multi-storey Car Park s, again of Indian origin. ''Shroffs'' are also commonly seen in Mainland China , especially in buildings financed by Hong Kong companies.
- A ' Tai-Pan ' (or 'taipan') is a business executive of a large corporation
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