E ven though the mother's English was not very good, it made me happy to see her coaxing her daughter to speak it. As I have said before, English is evolving (changing, developing, progressing) very fast in the digital age of twitter and WhatsApp. Grammar is important but it should not be considered the most important thing. It is hard for people to have perfect grammar if their first language is not English. Even people whose mother tongue is English make grammatical mistakes. I believe grammatical mistakes are acceptable if people understand what you are saying.
Last week I invited Agnes Chow Ting from the student group Scholarism to my TV show. She is a 16-year-old form six student. Even university students nowadays don't speak good English. But I was astounded (surprised, shocked) when Chow Ting answered my questions in very good English. Her English is not flawless (perfect) but I found it better than even some of our top government officials. For example, after last year's budget, Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah said on English radio: "With the low birth rate, people in HK are diminishing." This is poor English. People do not diminish (shrink or get smaller). He should have said: "The population in Hong Kong is shrinking." I am sure Agnes Chow Ting would not have made a mistake like that.
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數天前我乘港鐵，見到一位年輕媽媽在哄（coaxing）她的女兒說英語。那女孩才六歲，她的母親用簡單英語跟她說話，然後要她逐句重複一遍。起初，那母親重複列車的英語廣播，例如"The next stop is Admiralty"（「下一站是金鐘」），然後叫小女孩說一遍。然後母親跟女兒說"You must speaking English to make good your English."小女孩重複"I must speaking English to make good my English."我咯咯地暗自偷笑（chuckled），因為句子的文法錯了。我多想告訴她那句子應該是"You must speak English to improve your English"，但決定不去介入。
雖然那母親的英語不是很好，但見到她在哄（coaxing）小女孩說英語，教我很高興。我從前說過，在twitter和WhatsApp的數碼時代中，英語正在快速演化（evolving）。文法很重要，但不會被視作最重要的。英語若不是人們的第一語言，很難叫人的文法完美無誤。即使母語為英語人，也難免犯下文法錯誤。我認為只要其他人明白你的意思，文法錯誤是可以接受的。
上星期我邀請了學生組織學民思潮的周庭上來我的電視節目，她是一個十六歲的中六學生。今天，即使大學生也未能說出好的英語，但當周庭以流利英語回答我的問題時，我非常震驚（astounded）。她的英語不是完全精確無誤（flawless），但我認為她甚至比某些政府高官要說得好。譬如，上年的《財政預算案》後，財政司司長曾俊華在英語電台中說過："With the low birth rate, people in HK are diminishing."（「出生率偏低，香港人正在縮小。」）這就是糟糕的英語。人是不會萎縮的（diminish）。他應該說："The population in Hong Kong is shrinking."（「香港的人口正在萎縮中。」）我肯定周庭不會犯上這樣的錯誤。
mickchug@gmail.com
中譯:七刻
Michael Chugani 褚簡寧
Source: http://news.hkheadline.com/dailynews/headline_news_detail_columnist.asp?id=252915§ion_name=wtt&kw=126