How to write in good English

[This is my 88th post!]

How does one write good English? For a long time til now, I've always believed that one does not need to speak good, strong English in order to write well. After all, as a proud Singaporean, Singlish is so central to our culture and national identity so therefore to unnaturally cultivate the habit to speak articulately and with good vocabulary seems a pungent idea to me..

That is, until I read a few blogs while blog trawling at my friend's place today. She showed me some blogs of Singaporeans my age, 19 by the way, who wrote good, provoking entries in strong English. By good english, I mean well-structured sentences that contain good phrases of vocabulary, such language convey greater depth of the same message. Plus, good english is more fun to read, at least to me.

On the way home, I was just pondering how does one improve his English? If reading is all that is needed, then I would be OK since I read relatively a lot. [Granted though that I'm reading a Chinese book now] I write in blogging and in my diaries, so there is the practice of language. What really is lacking, I believe, is the discipline to speak well. Think about it, Singlish is actually English for the lazy, the refusal to omit familiar phrases of foreign languages from English. It pained me to say all that cos I love Singlish and I'll never change the way I speak. But for students out there, JC and below, if you wanna score for English, and if you're already a reader and amateur writer and still not up to that high mark, maybe it's time you make the effort to speak well.