The blah of the standard of English

Long time ago, we have English teachers and we have Malaysian teachers who were educated in England. They took a ship to England to study.

Now, there are still many people whom were taught by the nuns from Convent school who are teachers themselves but they are slowly retiring (or dead!).

But I was the ‘lucky’ one who was the first batch of Malaysians who had to study everything in our national language. Fizik, Biologi, Kimia….. So, my English sucks. I probably cannot understand the Physics, Biology and Chemistry textbook my two older sons are using.

I am lucky because I am the daughter of an excellent English teacher (though he died long before he left any legacy to me……maybe the confidence that you have a father who is an English teacher probably gave me a lot of guts…maybe he is my guardian angel, wateva). I grew up with lots and lots of books in a library in our house. Yes, we have a study room with shelves of books.

By 10 years old, I already had the guts to approach my teacher in charge of the library to let me help in the indexing, sticking those little envelopes, arranging the books etc. So, I had privilege to borrow books as soon as they were bought by the school. All the Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Secret Seven…..

I remembered reading books under the blankets with a torch light because my mother forbade me to read too much, especially lying down because she said I can go blind. Doh….Do you know that it is a genetic thing, whether you need a pair of glasses or not? So, that’s how I have a L450-R400 eyesight.

However…..though I am not doing too bad with the written part, I have problems pronouncing a lot of words because I simply have not heard of them or know how English is supposed to be pronounced.

Now, thank God there is online pronunciation. Thank God that I know Job is not pronounced as job but joob. And lucky I never say King Herod, as Heh-rot but Heh-ruhd because the online Bible reading said so. And instead of the embarrassment of having to phone my lector’s head, “Harrow, Pedro ah….I got duty for 7 am Sunday….I want to ask you ah….unleavened bread is pronounced un-leh-ven or un-lee-ven ah?” ………….I can hear listen to how American and British pronounce it.

My point? No one can help you except you yourself. So, there is no excuses to say our Malaysian’s education standard is low. And no excuses to blame others. Of course, our education still sucks but we can at least improve a bit if we try. Still, there are so many people who dare not speako Ingrish bcos they is sked of making mistakes and yet, never try hard enough to learn.

Now, I have to make sure that these words ‘were so certain’ were not jumbled when I get the panicky feelings seeping in.

**My 12 years old just tested my English and BM translation.

Now, you do it.

Translate :

Jauh

Raja

Pantai

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24 thoughts on “The blah of the standard of English”

  1. yay, am i the first?
    the full version goes like this

    (BM to English)
    jauh raja pantai
    ambil ambil pergi muda
    jagung leher pergi muda

  2. Translate to english ? My english is bad.. 🙁

    Jauh – Far

    Raja – King

    Pantai – Seaside

    Translate Suatengboy’s comments too ! 🙄

    Far King Seaside(jauh raja pantai)
    Take Take Go Young(ambil ambil pergi muda)
    Jagung Neck Go Young(jagung leher pergi muda)

    LOL..don scold me :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

    KaHoongChais last blog post..Nuffnang Advertising Company

  4. When my eldest son was in form one, I taught him that the word ‘photographer’ is pronounced as ‘fer-tor-gre-fer’ and not ‘foe-toe-gra-fer’. He went to consult his school teacher the next day and she said,”Tak pernah dengar pun!” LOL!

    9pek9bos last blog post..Photo-shooting on a Sunday

  5. Nay! Got thousands of local university degree holders cannot speaking the london. MALAYsia Boleh!!!

  6. 9pek9bo – Boh pien, blind leading the blind. Some of the teachers now hor…aiyorr…nightmare. My son told me how those maths and other subjects teachers pronounce English. *slaps forehead*

    erin – I kena trick lor, he said ‘Let’s see how fast you can translate’ so I mah wanna show off lor. LOL

    kahoon – You act bodoh or really didn’t get it ah?

    suateng boy : jauh raja pantai (explained above)

    ambil ambil pergi muda

    tektek goyang

    jagung leher pergi muda

    konek goyang

    Did I win a prize or something?

  9. my english…
    my bahasa…
    my hokkien….
    my chinese….
    my cantonese….

    ALL ‘half-bucket-sh i t’….

    this is how i c most malaysians… we may be the envy of most ang mo that we speak more than 1 language…. but do they know we r never really fluent in any1 of them…?

  11. I can pronounce words quite well and my diction is pretty good, or so my teachers told me. I learn the correct pronunciation by referring to dics (Oxford’s my fav) and it may be hard for beginners, you’ll gradually grasp the gist once you’ve come across the same wacky phonetic signs a few times. Still, I’m struggling with my grammar. 😕

    kyhs last blog post..Pearls of the Nanyang Dragons

  12. Err…
    “jauh raja pantai” was translated as Far King Beach”
    shouldn’t the translation be this instead?

    Far King Shore … ah?
    I wonder how many times the school books are now translated. Back in college, I had this one book that went from German -> English -> Malay… and then the lecturer had this bright idea to translate for us back to English; somehow the gist of the matter got lost.

    Geralds last blog post..Den Haag – Madurodam

  14. LOL…. be dirty minded and you’ll get it…is this what we learn in school? We don’t learned that!!!! Sad… Lilian should start a FAR KING BEACH School! hahaha

    Jarods last blog post..NO BALLS

  16. Far King Beach (Remind me of pronunciation like that Latino in that 70’s show- you beeetch!!)

  17. 🙂 i have problem in the English pronunciation as well. By the way, can i have the website for the English on line pronunciation…thks

  18. I thought translating from English to Malay is more interesting. Take this, for example (floating around the internet)

    English:
    That server gives a plug and play service to the clients using either hardware or software joystick. The joystick goes into the port of the client.

    Malay:
    Pelayan itu memberi pelanggannya layanan cucuk dan main dengan menggunakan batang gembira jenis keras atau lembut. Batang gembira itu dimasukkan ke dalam lubang pelanggan.

    Website for english pronunciation:

    http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
    (not all words are available)

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