Oriental Speech Deficiencies

I've discovered that throught my time as a pseudo-working class citizen, I've become a morning radio talkshow junkie. I'm typically on the road from around 7.45am to 8.45am and during that time I just cannot sit in my car encapsulated in silence. I'm sure many of you can relate to this.

So yeah I flip between Red 104FM and Hitz FM as those are the only two radio stations that serve cuisine palatable to my auditory fancy. Some of the things they say or do on radio are downright dumb, but hey...it's ok to take in a little junk before immersing yourself in the mundane 9-5 routine.

Today's topic was about the issue of some chinese people substituting their "R's" for "L's" and vice versa. I've had more than my fair share of encounters with such people. All I can say is, it's downright hilarous. Some can take it, while others retaliate with colorful profanities. Oh well....

The interesting thing was, there is actually a couple of mandarin words that start with the letter "R". So why should there be a problem with pronouncing the words with the letter "R" in it? We have "Ri Ben (Japan)", "Ri (Hot)", "Rong Yi (Easy)", "Ru Kuo (then?)", "Ran Hou (?)", "Ren (person)" and a couple more which I cant remember.

Ah...then they went on to look for "R" words in Cantonese and Hokkien. Guess what... they couldnt find a single word. Hmmmmm....

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Just for old times sake, let me bring back this interesting simulated conversation with an old friend of mine from Seremban.... ;)

"Oik, my computeh got wireless aleady!!"

"Yeah, so what? Some laptops have Centrino chips inside mah. Got wireless la."
"No no! Not that wireless. My computeh is INFECTED with WIRELESS!!"

*grin