Hong Kong English

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For more background on this topic, see languages of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong English refers to the accent and characteristics of English spoken by Hongkongers. Contrary to Indian or Australian, Hong Kong people tend to think that English with local influence is inferior, mistaken, irregular.

[edit] Background

English is one of the official languages in Hong Kong, but most local ethnic Chinese, making up more than 95% of population, speak it as a second language, taught through school education. Cantonese is overwhelmingly the tongue spoken in everyday life.

After the transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong in 1997, although English remains the official language, only a handful of primary schools and secondary schools are allowed to take English as the medium of instruction under new government policy. However, English is widely used in universities, business and courts.

Contrary to Singaporean or Australian, the general public tend to see Hong Kong English as a mistaken variant of language. People with higher education generally speak an acquired form of English modelled on British English, with American influences, but proficiency also depends on the individual language environments.

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 that their English is of a sufficiently high standard, and those who did not pass the assessment would not be able to teach English any more. This included English teachers who are native speakers, except for those hired by the government. A high number 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 officials in Hong Kong are not well-prepared in speaking English as well. One good case to elaborate this is the opening of Ngong Ping 360. The CFS of Hong Kong, Mr Henry Tang, mistakenly, instead of speaking "Ngong Ping Three Sixty", spoke "Ngong Ping Sam Luk Ling" during the opening ceremony, where "Sam Luk Ling" is the pronunciation of 360 in Chinese in a higher tone. It was fortunate that the secretary immediately corrected his speech afterwards.

[edit] Spoken characteristics

[edit] R

• Like British English, Hong Kong English is non-rhotic, which means 'r' is not pronounced except before a vowel.
• 'wh' read as 'w', as in British 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.)
• 'r' and 'l' in positions other than the beginning are also often confused. . .eg. Breakfast becomes BLEG-FUSS for some; 'bleach' and 'breach' both become 'beach'

[edit] V

• 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.)

[edit] th

• 'th' read as 'd' (as in them) or 'f' (as in thick) sound. ('th' sound is not used in Cantonese)

[edit] N/L

• 'n' and 'l' is interchangeable.
• l-vocalization is common: ending 'l' (IPA: [ɫ]) often pronounced as 'w', as in Polish, e.g. "bell" --> /bew/, "milk" --> /mjwk/. This /w/ is sometimes strengthened and becomes like /o/ (e.g., sale becomes SAY-o)

[edit] J/G

• Beginning 'j' and soft 'g' read as 'dz' (e.g., Gigi pronounced as "zhi-zhi").

[edit] æ/ɛ

• Merging of /æ/ and /ɛ/ to /ɛ/. eg. 'bad' and 'bed', 'mass' and 'mess'.

[edit] Z

• The letter “z” is generally pronounced as [jiˈsɛt̚], a corrupted version (due to various of the above-mentioned reasons) of a very archaic pronunciation /ɪˈzæd/; the correct pronunciations, /zɛd/ and /zi:/, are not understood by some.

[edit] Intonation

• Multi-syllable words are often differently stressed. e.g. "Edu'cation" may be pronounced as "'Ed 'cation" since Chinese is tonal and largely monosyllabic.
• Stressed 'I' sounds (ie. pronouncing "impossible" (ehm-pos-ii-bul) as ii-m-pos-ii-bol and "impulsive" (im-pul-si-ff) as 'iim-pul-sii-ff')
• Omission of entire syllables in longer words. ('Difference' become DIFF-ENS, 'temperature' becomes TEM-PI-CHUR.)
• Words beginning with unstressed syllables 'con' are generally pronounced as its stressed form /kawn/ with a lower pitch, e.g. 'connection', 'consent', 'condition'. Words beginning with stressed syllable 'com-' e.g. 'competition', 'common' and 'compromise' are pronounced as /kahm/.

[edit] Others

• Exaggeration of certain final consonants, for example 's' (to /si/) and 'd' sounds of past-tense form of verbs (to [tət̚]).
• 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)
• 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/).
• Merging the contrast of voiceless / voiced consonants with aspirated / unaspirated if there is any contrast exists in Cantonese. The stop [p] becomes [pʰ] and [b] becomes [p]; [t] becomes [tʰ] and [d] becomes [t]; [k] becomes [kʰ] and [g] becomes [k].
• Merging voiceless / voiced consonants into voiceless if no contrast in aspirated / unaspirated in Cantonese. Both [f] and [v] become [f]; both [z] and [s] become [s]; both [tʃ] and [dʒ] become [tʃ] ; both [ʃ] and [ʒ] become [ʃ]; both [θ] and [ð] become [θ] ( difficulty in pronouncing [θ] too).
• Some Hong Kong people just make up the pronunciations randomly of some words and it is somehow hard to understand why they are saying. For example, it is heard that one does not know how to pronounce "resume", and he spoke "RE-SU-MEI" instead.

[edit] Grammar

• omit 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
• use of prepositions: "on", "in" and "at" are often interchangeable.
• Yes/ No confusion: In Cantonese, "yes" represents an agreement, "no" represents a disagreement, whilst in English "yes" represents a positive answer, "no" represents a negative answer.
• "There is/are" becomes "there has/have", a direct translation.
• Often use commas where full stops should be used as sentences could be linked up with commas in Chinese.

[edit] Nouns

• Referring to female as "he" and "him" as their Cantonese equivalents are genderless
• Plural forms: no plural forms in Chinese.

[edit] Numbers

• 10,000: Numbers larger than ten thousand. In Chinese, 10 thousand is read as one myriad, 100 thousand as 10 myriad, one million as 100 myriad.
• Fractions: "three over four" may wrongly be taken as "four over three". Since in Chinese, denominator is read before numerator. For example, "three over four" in Chinese is "四分之三", literally "three portions of four".
• Discount: the Chinese way of saying 10% off is "90% discount".

[edit] American/ British

This is the entrance of the shopping mall "New World Centre" in Hong Kong. Note the spelling of the word "Centre" (instead of "Center").

A screen showing financial news at The Center, an office complex in Central. Note the American spelling of the word "center" in the name of the complex.

• Both British and American spellings are used.
• When referring the same thing, British vocab is more commonly used. E.g. Rubbish Bin, instead of Garbage can.

[edit] Variant

• end-word: In informal conversation like instant messengers, final particles or interjections of Cantonese origin such as ar, la, lu, ma and wor'—many of these being “flavouring particles”—are used at the ends of English sentences.
• "I've eaten dinner lu" (“I've had dinner”—“lu” /lu₃₃/ indicates a perfect aspect and makes the sentence more informal)
• "I go la/lah, bye" (“I'm leaving, bye!”—“la” /la₃₃/ indicates intent and makes the sentence more informal)

[edit] Hong Kong Vocabulary

Parts of Hong Kong English vocab are taken from Anglo-Indian or Portuguese/Macanese.

• A 'chop' is a seal or stamp.
• 'Hong Kong foot' is a literal translation of athlete's foot.
• A 'Tai-Pan' (or 'taipan') is a business executive of a large corporation
• An 'amah' is a live-in servant (from Macanese).

[edit] See also

• Education in Hong Kong
• Chinglish
• Languages of Hong Kong
• phonemic differentiation