Ah, Singlish. The informal, colloquial form of English unique to Singapore has received its fair share of supporters and critics at home and abroad, but you can’t deny its impact on local culture.
So Channel NewsAsia decided to give Elmo — the beloved character from American children’s TV series Sesame Street — a lesson in Singlish during his first visit to Singapore. Learning common phrases like “kaki”, “chope”, “aiyo” and “swee” (you’ll just have to watch the vid to find out what they mean — if you don’t already know), Elmo did a pretty good job of forming sentences using the words.
In case you were wondering, the furry red monster — and his puppeteer Ryan Dillon — is in town as part of a campaign by Sesame Workshop to promote kindness across the globe. He arrived on Friday to hang out with kids and their parents at Universal Studios Singapore over the weekend, and he’ll be dropping by the Singapore Zoo and the National Museum of Singapore before jetting off.
Check out the Singlish session below.
Of course, since this was a slight digression from Sesame Street’s regular educational English tutorials, some no-chill folks weren’t too happy about the “corruption” of Elmo with “improper English”.
But others understood it was all in the name of fun.
In any case, if you do feel some irrational anger over Elmo having a little go at the local lingo, just remember there’s a way to chill your inner monster out.
