H ave Hong Kong people lost interest in learning English? I don't think so. Many people still want to learn or improve their English. But since most people, including government officials, now speak in Cantonese, there is no motivation to improve the standard of English. Even people who used to speak in English most of the time now prefer speaking in Cantonese instead. For example, legislative councillor Michael Tien Puk-sun, a fluent English-speaker, told me in a radio interview that his English has deteriorated because he mostly uses Cantonese nowadays.
I have said many times that simple grammatical mistakes are no big deal if English is not your first language. But I think Hong Kong people should at least try to get their pronunciations right. I have often heard Food and Health Secretary Ko Wing-man and other government officials mispronounce the word “poultry”. Birds such as chickens, ducks, and geese, which people eat, are called poultry. But Ko Wing-man and other officials always mispronounce it as “powltry”. Last week legislative councillor Frederick Fung Kin-kee used the expression “too many cooks spoil the broth” on English radio? The expression means that if too many people handle the same thing at the same time, they will not do it well. The word “broth” is a kind of soup. But Fung Kin-kee wrongly pronounced it as “broath”. These are just some examples of Hong Kong’s declining standard of English.
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最近我在專欄寫道，香港英語水平惡化（deteriorating），許多讀者傳電郵給我。所有傳電郵來的讀者，包括好幾位英語教師，都同意香港的英語水平近年顯著（markedly）下降。有些人將水平下降歸咎英治到中治的轉變。他們說，人們於英治時代更積極（motivated）說英語，因為公務員大多也是說英語。但現在大部份人不再熱衷（motivated）說英語了。說某人motivated to do something是指他有動機、渴望或積極去做某事。
香港人是否已經失去學習英語的興趣﹖我不這樣認為。許多人仍想學習或改進英語，但由於大部份人，包括政府官員，現在只說廣東話，就讓人沒有動力（motivation）去改善英語水準了。即使那些慣常說英語的人，現在都改說廣東話了。譬如，英語流利的立法會議員田北辰，在電台訪問跟我說，因為他現在大多說廣東話，英語亦隨之退步了。
我曾經說過多遍，如果英語並非你的母語，簡單的文法錯誤是沒有相干的；但我認為香港人至少該正確發音。我常常聽見食物及衞生局局長高永文和其他政府官員讀錯了poultry這個字。Poultry即是家禽。但高永文及其他官員常常讀錯做“powltry”。上星期，立法會議員馮檢基在一個英語電台上用了個習語too many cooks spoil the broth。此習語解作「人多手腳亂」，把事情弄糟。Broth是濃湯。馮檢基卻錯讀成“broath”。這只是香港英語日漸下降的幾個例子而已。mickchug@gmail.com
中譯:七刻
Michael Chugani 褚簡寧
Source: http://news.stheadline.com/dailynews/headline_news_detail_columnist.asp?id=264501§ion_name=wtt&kw=126