THESE days, social media is a crucial platform for us to express our thoughts, share knowledge and build up our social network. It is inseparable from our daily life.

I have noticed that a lot of people tend to use broken language, especially broken English, to write their posts and comments on Facebook.

Whether this means the language skills of social media users are below par or not, we should know that mastering English is singularly important for us as it is the international language.

I understand that not all can be proficient in English and I would like to suggest that users brush up on their language skills through extensive reading in order to avoid making glaring grammatical errors when communicating on the Internet.

We should also try to avoid using rojak language, for example, “You eat liao ma?” (“have you had your meal?”). Two different languages should not be combined to construct a sentence because it does not follow the fundamental linguistic rule.

If we regularly compose our messages in rojak language, it could become a habit that would affect us negatively when we need to apply formal language in our daily tasks especially at work.

Next, try not to use spelling shortcuts in texts unless you are in a hurry. For example, it is common to see the word “before” being substituted with “b4”, and “you are” becomes “u r”. No doubt it is a faster and more convenient way for us to convey our message but it will eventually lead to deterioration of language proficiency.

In a nutshell, we should consistently practise using proper language on social media.