English in Hong Kong may be getting better, so forget the nitpicking

Paul Stapleton says there may be signs of an actual improvement in how the locals are speaking English, and that most of the complaints are coming from native speakers who can’t be bothered to learn any Cantonese

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A teacher welcomes his students on the first day of school at Hing Tak School in Tuen Mun. Some recent test results may be an indicator of improving English standards among Hong Kong’s youth. Photo: Edward Wong

Published: 12:11pm, 13 Mar 2018Updated: 7:02pm, 13 Mar 2018

Almost like clockwork, the quality of spoken English among locals raises its head periodically in the media, as it has for the last generation or more, and as it did in these pages recently. Invariably, whenever this topic is brought up in Hong Kong, it is to lament declining standards, which apparently were much higher in the good old days. Most often, front and centre in this collective moan are native speakers of English who seem to be able to instantly cherry-pick a recent instance of miscommunication by locals speaking English.

Perhaps it was when a local waiter got the native speakers’ order wrong in a restaurant, or maybe when the waiter responded with, “it doesn’t matter”, after spilling soup on them. Little language faux pas like these stand out in the native speakers’ collective consciousness, and are quickly used as evidence to affirm that the English language ability of local Cantonese speakers is in precipitous decline.

Anyone who has lived here long enough will have heard the same lament numerous times. But if, in fact, this continuous decline were really true, at this stage virtually none of the local population would be able to mutter more than a few words of English.

What is curious is that native English speakers are usually the ones to promote this narrative of decline. You know the type. They feel enormously proud when they manage to utter jo sun (good morning) when entering their workplace in the morning. However, putting together even a three-word sentence in Cantonese is far beyond them.

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Somehow, they have forgotten that although Hong Kong has two official languages – Chinese and English – for all intents and purposes, we live in a Chinese city. And just like in the English native speakers’ hometown abroad, shouldn’t the maxim be: if you don’t speak the native tongue, you’d better learn it quickly? But somehow, that rule doesn’t seem to apply to them in Hong Kong. And moreover, they feel privileged to such a degree that they can criticise the locals’ struggles with English.