What is "la"?
When I was reading an interview of a Singaporean film director, I found him often using "la" in the end of the sentences. What does this "la" mean?
For example:
-he was a crazy guy la.
-So he so called trained you a lot la.
-it’s like army la.
-it is also good la.
Here is the interview.
http://sindieonly.blogspot.com/2009/10/lunchbox-1-han-yew-kwang.html
It's typical of Singlish speakers, and Malaysians are also notorious for adding "lah" at the end of a sentence. It's like a little verbal exclamation mark.
For example, the Singlish "he was a crazy guy la" would be written in standard English as "He was a (really) crazy guy!"
2011年7月9日
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This is the "Singlish",the same as "啦"。
It still has "ah","len","lor","hah","lar"...
For example:
can ah?
can lah!
can leh.
can lor.
can hah?
2011年7月9日
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well...that's not English,it's Singlish...you know,75% people in that country are Chinese and Chinese offsprings..so it's normal to find some Chinese expressions in their English
2011年7月11日
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I've never heard it used like this, but I got this definition from Webster's dictionary.
It is an interjection.
chiefly dialect
—used for emphasis or expressing surprise
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/la
2011年7月9日
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I feel sorry to tell that is no English at all. The writer of that article is using the interjection "啦"(with pronunciation "la") in Chinese only. That is simply mistakes. Such king of English with embedding Chinese interjection is extremely common in Singapore and you can find it easily in films from Singapore. However, the other countries that with Chinese users seldom have such kind of English expression.
He is probably not writing a serious publishing.