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
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
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

KaHoongChais last blog post..Nuffnang Advertising Company
far… king…. beach
lol
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
Nay! Got thousands of local university degree holders cannot speaking the london. MALAYsia Boleh!!!
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?
terence – Yalah, not like your Klangbridge lah.
let’s try this in hokkien… 26889… kakaka…
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…?
Thank God I have Google Toolbar to spell check and translate for me. Hehe…
This doesn’t make me lazy to learn though, in fact it helps me to learn more!
Bryans last blog post..How To Disable Firefox 3.0 Smart Location Bar
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
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
pls ppl… keep it clean!
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
we used to use that jauh raja pantai in school so that teacher cannot catch us saying bad words. XD
Ping Pings last blog post..Why you all like that one?
Far King Beach (Remind me of pronunciation like that Latino in that 70’s show- you beeetch!!)
🙂 i have problem in the English pronunciation as well. By the way, can i have the website for the English on line pronunciation…thks
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)
Try this in Hokkien:-
Smelly
Seed
Singh
AnakPenangs last blog post..Tiga Suku Cheng Hoo
lol now i got what u mean by “jauh raja pantai”. I’m so slow!
kyhs last blog post..Pearls of the Nanyang Dragons
Negeri Sembilan in hokkien? Simitlan – jio.. 😉
My uni lecturer said elephant is elefont wor.. neh the usm in ur penang jio..
Kis last blog post..Very Lonely Planet Thailand
Far King Beach
(Farking bitch)
winnie – if you know chinese, this website may be useful to you, can check both English & Chinese word, with pronunciation.
http://tw.dictionary.yahoo.com/
fucking bitch?