Do you speak Singlish?

No, typically not. But very occasionally I do, I have a few local friends that I sometimes speak singlish with but they sometimes find it funny because Im a white boy trying to speak their dialect or thier ‘slang’. I also sometimes speak singlish when I’m at the hawker center and I’m speaking to locals. Although I may sound quite accurate to how a Singporean person ay talk I just feel out of place sometimes. I think its because I’m not a local like them, I haven’t grown up in this environment my entire life and I don’t surround myself with Singaporean people so it just doest feel right to me and more importantly for them it feels weird or unnatural to hear me speak their dialect.

When you do your language B, do you try to imitate the accent and gestures, too, or do you feel self-conscious about that? Should you?

Not the gestures but the accents yes. I try and speak with the accent because I think it helps my learning. When learning a new language I want to be able to pronounce words as accurately as possible so I do try and use the accent especially when talking to my teacher. Do I feel self conscious? …. Well In class I don’t because everyone in my class is a beginner and spanish and we are all learning the language so I don’t feel left out and I don’t feel judged. But I feel like if I was put in a environment with all native speaking spanish people I may feel out of place trying to use the right accent or gestures. Should I feel out of place? I don’t think so but I do understand it, its not my native speaking language and Im far from fluent from it so If I were to try and speak with a accent it may come off ass being impolite or maybe even racist.