Why a group chat?

Singlish lives in conversation, and these days a lot of that conversation happens in group chats. So this game is one. You have just moved into Block 88, and your neighbours are garden animals. Auntie Hen loves her kaya toast. Ollie Otter and Mimi Cat go to school together, and Mr Koel sees everything from his tree.

When it is your turn, you finish the message. Usually you pick a word. Sometimes you pick a tiny ending such as lah or lor, and a face shows how your neighbour hears it. Those endings carry a lot of the meaning, so the game spends plenty of time on them.

What Singlish is

Singlish is the informal, everyday English spoken in Singapore. Linguists also call it Colloquial Singapore English. It is English at its core, with grammar, sounds and words shaped by the other languages spoken here. Linguists still disagree about whether to call it a creole. Some do. Others point out that it did not grow out of an earlier pidgin, and prefer to call it a contact variety of English.

Singapore also promotes Standard English. The Speak Good English Movement has run since 2000, and in recent years it has focused on helping people tell the two apart and switch between them. Many Singaporeans do exactly that, using Standard English at work or in class and Singlish with friends and family.

Where the words come from

Most Singlish words are borrowed from languages with a long history in Singapore. Some you will meet in the game:

• Malay: makan (eat), lepak (hang out), sotong (squid, said of someone a bit lost), agak-agak (roughly, by feel) and boleh (can).
• Hokkien: kiasu (afraid to lose), jialat (from words meaning “eat strength”), paiseh (embarrassed) and bo jio (you didn’t invite me).
• Cantonese: tapau (pack food to take away), and most of the sentence-ending particles.
• Tamil: mama shop, the small neighbourhood provision shop. Mama means uncle.
• English, with a local twist: blur, ownself, play play and gostan, which comes from the sailing order “go astern”.

Some origins are not settled. The Oxford English Dictionary traces shiok to Malay, while other sources suggest Punjabi. Chope may come from “chop”, a stamp, or from a call used in children’s games. The dictionary in the game marks these as unsure.

Plenty of these words are now in the Oxford English Dictionary. Shiok, lepak, sotong and blur were added in 2016. Jialat, kaypoh, agak-agak and boleh followed in March 2026.

The particles, explained

Particles are the short words at the end of a sentence. They don’t change what you say. They change how it sounds. The linguist Lisa Lim traced lah and what to an older layer of Singlish, linked to Hokkien and Bazaar Malay, and lor, hor, leh, meh and mah to a later one, mostly from Cantonese.

• lah: friendly force. “Can lah” means sure, no problem.
• leh: a soft request. “Help me leh” is a gentle please.
• lor: a shrug. “Can lor” means fine, I suppose.
• meh: doubt. “Can meh?” means really, are you sure?
• hor: asking you to agree. “You come early hor” means you’ll come early, right?
• mah: an obvious reason. “Raining mah” means because it’s raining, of course.
• what: pushing back. “I told you what” means but I did tell you.

Real speakers also use tone, so one particle can carry more than one mood. In the game, each reply asks for one clear mood, and the face shows the mood your pick gives.

Singlish changes from one neighbourhood to the next. If a word here doesn’t sound like yours, or we’ve got one wrong, tell us on the contact page.

How to play

• Messages pop up one at a time. When it is your turn, tap the word or ending that fits.
• For endings, the face panel shows the mood you want. After you pick, it shows how your neighbour heard you.
• A wrong pick is a slip. You see what that word means, then try again. Every chat can be finished.
• Stars per chat: ★★★ with no slips, ★★ with one or two, ★ for finishing.
• Earn 3 stickers in this game for your QuickBOP sticker book.

Your turn

Auntie Hen has already posted in the Block 88 chat, and Uncle Tortoise is heading to the kopitiam. Open the chat and see if you can reply like a neighbour.