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Hong Kong English 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.

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 the medium of instruction for a few primary schools, many secondary schools and most courses in the local universities.

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".

1 Accent of spoken English

beginning 'r' read as 'w' sound.

beginning 'v' read as 'w' sound.

'wh' read as 'w' sound.

'th' read as 'd' (as in them) or 'f' (as in thick) sound.

beginning 'n' and 'l' often confused (these two sounds are allophones in Cantonese )

ending 'l' pronounced as 'ou' sound as letter 'o' in 'echo'. (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 in Cantonese, simliar to Basel German)

Exaggeration of ending 'd' sound of past-tense form of verbs.

multi- syllableThis article discusses the unit of speech. For the computer operating system, see Syllable (operating system). A syllable is a unit of speech that is made up of one or more phones (single sounds or "phonetic segments") and in turn makes up words. It influ wordsWords is a 1982 song by F. David, which was a number one hit in 10 countries. Words is also a song by the Bee Gees, and is completely unrelated to the song of the same title by F. words is a standard file on all Unix and Unix-like operating system, and is might sometimes be wrongly stressed as Chinese is a tonal language made up of single- syllableThis article discusses the unit of speech. For the computer operating system, see Syllable (operating system). A syllable is a unit of speech that is made up of one or more phones (single sounds or "phonetic segments") and in turn makes up words. It influ charactersA Chinese character. The ideographic representation of a child beneath a roof which once had the meaning of "to care for", has since changed over the years to a deflective meaning of "character", "word" or more from the point of view of the ideograph as s.

producing the 'w', 'h' or 'l' sounds in words like Greenwich, Bonham, Beckham, Salisbury.

producing the "ces" sound in Leicester or Gloucester.

some alphabets are spoken with phonemes in Cantonese, such as 'e' as 'YEE', 'f' becomes 'E-fu', 'h' becomes 'ICK-chyu', 'l' becomes 'E-lo', 'r' becomes 'AA-lo', 'w' becomes 'DUB-bee-you'.

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.
Difficulties with numbers larger than ten thousand. In Chinese, 10 thousand is read as one myriadMyriad is a classical Greek name for the number 104 10 000, or a group of 10 000 people, etc. In English, the word can either refer to 10 000 or to an unspecified large quantity. There are also words in other languages with the same classic meaning as "my, 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 problem when saying large numbers in Chinese.)

3 Written English

British EnglishBritish English (or UK English (en-GB according to RFC 3066) is a collective term for the forms of English spoken in the British Isles. In particular, when used by other English speakers, it often refers to the written Standard English and the pronunciati is taught in primary and secondary schools, but American EnglishAmerican English or US English (en-US according to RFC 3066) is the diverse form of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. It is the primary language used in the United States. According to the 1990 census, 97 percent of U. spellings (e.g. verbs ending in -ise/-ize) are also commonly used.

In some informal occasions, notably in internet usage among locals, interjections of Cantonese originThe origin of something (from the Latin origo "beginning") is where it came from, in the sense of a physical location or a metaphysical source. In mathematics, the origin of a coordinate system is the point where the axes of the system intersect. The most such as la, loh and ma may be used at the ending of sentences.

1 See also

Education of Hong Kong

Hong Kong

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Topics: Hong Kong English, Accent Of Spoken English, Grammar Of Spoken...

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