Chinese does not have ‘grammar’ the way European languages do because words are not inflected. There are no plurals, noun cases or past tense. All the memorization of declensions you have to do when you study, say, German
Chinese does not have ‘grammar’ the way European languages do because words are not inflected. There are no plurals, noun cases or past tense. All the memorization of declensions you have to do when you study, say, Germanic, Slavic and Romance languages—that kind of stuff is absent from Chinese entirely (though you would of course be foolish to conclude that Chinese is therefore easy). So how are the relationships between words indicated? Context, adverbs and particles.
Let’s look at verb tense (specifically past tense) and aspect (specifically completed aspect) in Singlish as influenced by Chinese.
In Singlish, ‘last time’ is a past tense marker. It does not necessarily mean “on the occasion of the last instance of the action we’re discussing”, though that is the use to which I’m accustomed.
Last time I went bowling I got the highest score. I don’t know whether I could ever do that again.
‘Last time’ just introduces something that has happened at least once before. It is used contrastively in Singlish as in English.
Last time I donno how to swim; then I go for swimming lesson. Now I know how to swim already.
It would suffice to say “Last time I donno how to swim.” It would be clear that the speaker now knows. It would be like saying “I used to not know how to swim [but now I do].” The phrase ‘last time’ just means ‘previously’ or ‘in the past’.
Note that past tense verbs and plurals are optional, not prohibited, in Singlish. No doubt some speakers would say:
Last time I din know how to swim; then I go for swimming lessons. Now I know how to swim already.
The contraction ‘didn’t’ could also be spoken emphatically with two syllables as ‘deedun’. The final ‘t’ is unlikely to be audible.
The word ‘already’ is not always a past tense signal. In this case, it is emphasizing the contrast between the past and now. It’