South-Eastern Asia
Video Chat with People from Singapore
Singapore is a city and a country at once, so the people you meet come from neighborhoods rather than far-flung regions: Tampines or Jurong, Tiong Bahru's art deco blocks, the colorful shophouses of Katong and Joo Chiat, or the bustle around Little India and Kampong Glam. There are four official languages. English is the common language of work and daily life, Malay is the national language, and Mandarin and Tamil are widely spoken at home, alongside Hokkien, Cantonese and other Chinese languages. Many people also slip into Singlish, a lively local English full of borrowed words.
Singapore is eight hours ahead of GMT all year, and its evenings overlap nicely with South Asia and Australia: 9 PM there is 6:30 PM in Mumbai and 11 PM in Sydney, or midnight during Sydney's summer. Food is a favorite topic, so ask which hawker center makes the best chicken rice, laksa or char kway teow, or how they take their kopi. Gardens by the Bay, weekend trips across the causeway and National Day celebrations are other easy openers. Curious about the languages? See our Malay page and Tamil page.
Singapore at a glance
How to say hello
A friendly local greeting makes a great first impression.
| Language | Phrase | Say it | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Malay | Apa khabar? | AH-pah kah-BAR | How are you? |
| Chinese (Mandarin) | 你好！ | nee HOW | Hello! |
| Tamil | வணக்கம் | VAH-nuk-kum | Hello (respectful) |
| Singlish | Makan already? | MAH-kahn ol-REH-dee | Have you eaten? (a friendly hello) |
Tips for chatting with people from Singapore
- Short forms are everywhere: "can" and "cannot" often stand in for whole sentences, and "Can or not?" simply means "Is that possible?"
- Ask what languages they grew up with. Many Singaporeans speak two or three, and the answer usually leads to stories about family and heritage.
- Be specific about food: their go-to hawker stall or favorite late-night supper spot is a far better question than "What's Singaporean food like?"
- Weather talk doesn't last long in a place that's warm all year, so ask about weekend plans, travel or what they're watching instead.
Only meet people from Singapore
Omlet matches you Worldwide by default. To meet only people from Singapore, use the country filter, the only filter Omlet has:
- Open Omlet and press Country on the control panel.
- Search for Singapore and select it.
- Press Start. Press Next to meet someone else from Singapore, or switch back to Worldwide any time.
Your first day is free: you add a card through Stripe to start it, and nothing is charged that day. When the 24 hours end, the country filter costs $3 one time, charged to that card, unless you cancel before then in Settings (if you cancel, you can still pick a country until the day ends). It's not a subscription, and it stays unlocked on that device and browser. It doesn't carry over to other devices or browsers, and clearing your browser data removes it. There's one free day per device, home network and card. Payment goes through Stripe, so Omlet never sees your card number.
The filter works both ways, and matching can be slower when fewer people from Singapore are online. Chatting itself is free, and Worldwide matching never costs anything.
Your own country is detected automatically and shown to the people you meet as a flag.
Nearby countries
Other countries in South-Eastern Asia: