What is "singdarin"

Colloquial Singaporean Mandarin, also known as Singdarin is an interlanguage native to Singapore. In Taiwan, this language variety is known as Singnese . It is based on Mandarin but has a large amount of English in its vocabulary. For this reason, Singdarin is sometimes known as "Anglo-Chinese". There are also words from Malay and other Chinese dialects.

In general, well-educated Chinese Singaporeans are able to code-switch between Singdarin and Standard Mandarin.

Singdarin grammar is usually identical to Mandarin. In some circumstances, there is code-switching with English. Singdarin vocabulary consists of a large number of words from English, Hokkien, and Malay, among other languages, often when speakers do not know the Mandarin equivalent of what they wish to express, and instead use English words to convey the meaning.

Native Chinese from China or native Taiwanese from Taiwan generally find it difficult to understand Singdarin due to large number of English or non-Mandarin words used. The Singaporean government currently discourages the use of Singdarin in favour of Standard Singaporean Mandarin as it believes in the need for Singaporeans to be able to communicate effectively with native Chinese from China or Taiwan.