Because of Singapore’s cultural and ethnic diversity many languages are used. There are 4 ‘official’ languages in use; English, Mandarin Chinese, Malay and Tamil and beside these many other Chinese and Indian languages are spoken. English however is the ‘common language’ for all Singaporeans, though some of the older generations have never learned it.
For most ‘Westerners’ as well as Indians there should therefore not be too much of a language barrier. Having said that there are (at least) 2 things you will have to get used to: accents and ‘Singlish’ and being a native English speaker may not be an advantage understanding or being understood (probably because you’re less used to hearing and using uhm .. different English).
Though English is the ‘first’ and mandatory language most people grow up in a household where another language is spoken. The English pronunciation is therefore influenced by what was first learned, this influence generally becomes bigger the later in life the language is learned and the farther it is apart in sound. In short, accents are quite diverse and can be heavy.
Listen carefully, ask for something to be repeated and get used to it. In a similar manner people may have a problem with your own accent, no matter how proper the English, speak slow and clear. Listening to a conversation between a newly arrived Scotsman and a Singapore Chinese hawker, for instance, can be quite entertaining.
Singapore English or Singlish is the language on the street, it is not so uncommon for Singapore but it has it’s peculiarities. Singlish stems from 2 sources; use of foreign (non English) words and grammatical build-up.
Singlish boasts a number of Malay and Chinese words and ‘punctuation’, the most common are words like ‘lah’ or ‘meh’ at the end of a sentence or expressions like ‘ahlahma’ which you will learn in time. If it really interests you there are even books on learning Singlish.
The second, more basic, source of Singlish is grammar. The Chinese, Malay and (to a lesser extent) Indian languages are very different in structure from the European ones, including English. Tenses are often not used for verbs and word order differs greatly. We’ll not hold a full discourse on it here but be prepared. A simple example is ‘can cannot’ when asking if something can be done, this is proper Chinese grammar.
If you are interested we have listed some other Singlish resources under the related links.
Again; be patient in trying to understand and also be advised not everybody may understand you (correctly !).
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