As some of you know, Japan has a whole 'English' vocabulary, written in a special script called Katakana. Katakana words, however English they might appear at first, must be pronounced and spelt with the Japanese accent, or they are meaningless. For example:
Radio = rajio
Milk = miruku
Culture = karucha
Yesterday I did a tour of Singapore's swanky beauty parlours, asking if they did 'threading' (a form of eyebrow shaping using thread). They all said no. In the end I spoke to the boys in Kelture Aveda who revealed that what I meant was not 'threading' but - cue Singapore accent - 'trid-ding'. And that they did it at the salon next door. Basically once I went around saying 'trid-ding', everyone got the picture.
Several years ago I was staying with friends in Kuala Lumpur's Palm Court. But when I took a cab home, I inavariably ended up at the Concorde Hotel. To a Malaysian, 'Palm Court' meant nothing (or, presumably, 'Concorde') - "Palm Cott" however...
Unlike Japan, both Singapore and Malaysia are English-speaking countries, and on the whole spell nouns as we do in the UK/US. But even here 'native English' has its limitations. Seems I have new vocab to learn!
