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Kenji Lui
Director , Producer , Screenwriter
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Can you decipher this complaint letter?

Someone sent the below text to me, it is said to be written by a miss hk contestant this year, supposedly a complaint letter to the public... from the paragraph, the writer states that she is a form 7 student....

a form 7 student (that is equivalent to grade 12 or so)!!! can you believe that? hk is always known as an international city, even though most people don't speak english frequently, at least most can read and write simple english... seeing this letter below, it just makes me wonder, what is the root of the problem? the system, the students or the society? i really don't know....

for you guys who don't speak Cantonese, see if you understand what she wrote!

"我是 Lucy, I went to Miss Hong Kong first interview. Wah d judges very not polite and not nice law. Today I see a megazine saying this year's Girls so ugly. I saw many good and pretty girls there but they didn't choose ja ma. Don't choose mei suen law but the judge in first interview-- most very not polite to many young girls and to to me law. I only 18 the judges ask me to"why join Miss HK go and why not study la u only F7 ja wor how can fright with other wor." Also say my English bad… hurt die me.

Ho La, other girl tell me la, she study in University ok ga dou but little fat or short then the judge(woman) said " why you look fat or so short!" wah ho hurt ga ma.

One girl is a博士 student ar very high level and very nice ga dou cant get in second interview la. We think she will be in ga but she said no law. You can search her pic and my pic to see la. She gum high level duo ng dak, gum me ng duk duo rite gei but i think the whole choosing is not fair law, choose model mei? young yao inch', high study level yao inch, short yao inch… They onky choose rich girl law so bad.

We don't go and let them inch ga law if they need tall or high level people then why not put in the application form lei.

Waste time!

dou ng fair gei!

u can email me if u want.

Lucy"

over 15 years ago 0 likes  5 comments  0 shares
Mariejost 26 dsc00460
Waaaaaah! (take that in English or Canto, or both). I guess no one ever told her we don't use tag words, like "la", in English. :-) I find this hysterical to read because I'm learning Cantonese and I can understand some of what she is doing from the Cantonese perspective, even if I don't exactly recognize the words (unless you're going to use a recognized romanization in Canto, ain't no non-native speaker going to be able to follow some of it). Actually, I wonder if the Mandarinization of HK has something to do with the slipping English language skills? I think for many professions Mandarin is more important than English if you are going to be doing business with or posted by your company to the mainland. Also, I think I see some slippage of her English into IM text-ese. Even in English, by native speakers, it is fast becoming a foreign language for us old fogies who are uninitiated into the lingo. All in all, I can only say--what a mess. It is so bad that, if she didn't have all the canto sprinkled in the text, I'd think it was the work of Babblefish!
over 15 years ago
45862083 0af2fd4d5d
bad english is common here. its a fact of life.
over 15 years ago

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Languages Spoken
english, cantonese, mandarin
Location (City, Country)
San francisco, United States
Gender
Male
Member Since
May 14, 2007