新加破加拿大的选择, 以及新加坡社会的英语环境怎么样，

marcuz1977 · 发表于 9-2-2005 10:54:06|来自：加拿大

<DIV class=quote>以下是引用biby在2005-2-9 6:13:05的发言：


this is so so so so so not true...
It's for sure that S'pore is a better place than China to get familiarize with English.
But, there are some points I have to raise here:
First of all, there are Chinese people all over the world, you can get help if you are in trouble from them no matter whether you are in New York, LA, Toronto, Honolulu, London or even Sydney.
Second, it is pretty simple to differentiate a PRC Chinese from other Chinese people, such as people from Hong Kong, Taiwan(ROC) and Singapore. Most people can tell whether you are a Chinese or a Singaporean at the first glance.
Futuremore, in places like Canada, racism just hardly exist, but in Singapore, there are a lot of racist or I'll rather say nationalists around. 
And for phone calls, somehow calling from here in Toronto to China is much cheaper than calling from Singapore. You can find even lower rates using phone cards in California, USA. And by using O2 in UK, you have even free minutes for IDD, isn't that better?</DIV>
If you need to ask a question in a departmental store and you are in a hurry to explain something to the white cashier, it is rather inconvenient to take a trip back to Chinatown or make a phonecall to ask your chinese friends right? In Singapore, you just have to queue up at a chinese cashier and she will most probably answer your question there and then in mandarin.
If you are saying a China chinese from the rural areas, yes it is easy to differentiate him from Singaporeans. But if its a China chinese from the urban area and he/she dress modernly, then it is hard to differentiate.
Not sure how many minutes are the free IDD calls. But in Singapore, if you use a calling card, you can be calling back to China at about 15 cents RMB a minute. What is the cheapest IDD rates in UK and Canada?

山鹰 · 发表于 8-2-2005 14:23:57|来自：加拿大

加拿大好，新加坡别来！！！

marcuz1977 · 发表于 9-2-2005 00:21:56|来自：加拿大

Come on... Although Singaporeans' English are not of the same standard as the British or Americans, Singapore is still a better place for China Chinese to learn English.
Most Singaporean Chinese do understand mandarin and can teach you English through direct translation of chinese words to english words. I doubt if you ask a white Canadian in mandarin the meaning of a word, he can translate for you. Also, if you run into problems any where in Singapore, you can ask for help in mandarin and most Singapore chinese should be able to understand and reply you. In Canada or any other western countries, you are a goner if you don't speak good English.
Also in Singapore, as long as you don't open your mouth, few can differentiate you from the local chinese. The case is different in Canada or US or UK. You will be subjected to much more racism in those western countries than in Singapore.
The other advantage that Singapore has over the western countries is that Singapore is in the same time zone as coastal part of China. This means you don't have to wake up early in the morning to make the "night" call to your parents in China. It's also lots cheaper to call China from Singapore.

biby · 发表于 18-2-2005 06:10:56|来自：加拿大

<DIV class=quote>以下是引用marcuz1977在2005-2-9 10:54:06的发言：

If you need to ask a question in a departmental store and you are in a hurry to explain something to the white cashier, it is rather inconvenient to take a trip back to Chinatown or make a phonecall to ask your chinese friends right? In Singapore, you just have to queue up at a chinese cashier and she will most probably answer your question there and then in mandarin.

If you are saying a China chinese from the rural areas, yes it is easy to differentiate him from Singaporeans. But if its a China chinese from the urban area and he/she dress modernly, then it is hard to differentiate.

Not sure how many minutes are the free IDD calls. But in Singapore, if you use a calling card, you can be calling back to China at about 15 cents RMB a minute. What is the cheapest IDD rates in UK and Canada?</DIV>
in major cities, it's easy to find chinese people everywhere, you don't have to go back to chinatown or anywhere.
I don't how urbanized the place you are from but it is, intuitively, easy to tell 99% of Chinese from Singaporeans on street, if not say 100%.
for Canada, for the card i always use, I buy them for around 4.25 or 4.5 bucks and i can call for around 5 to 6 hours, so that's like less than 1 CAD per hour, so it's around 0.10 to 0.15 rmb per minute, about the same. and from what i know if you use O2 in UK, you can make free IDD calls in certain time period.