Friday, July 31, 2009

Learning Bahasa Malaysia From Friends

I sent my son to the g'ment kindergarten so he could adapt to the language and culture before starting Std.1 next year. Well, let me share with you the Bahasa Malaysia my son is learning... not from school books, but from friends. I thought of calling this "Bahasa Malaysia words and phrases your child should know before they start Std.1 in a kebangsaan school".
  • Tak nak kawan lah
  • Bodoh
  • Padan muka
  • Kau 'pa hal?
  • Jangan kacau
  • Pinjam
I'm sure there is some more. Will add to the list when I hear more. As you can see, most of the words not very nice to hear. I'm sure you already know they pick up bad things faster than they pick up good things. A few days ago, my son asked me "mommy, what is 'toyol'?" It seems his friend told him that he saw a "toyol" before. So there, another word added to his vocabulary. Not something he'll learn from a text book.

Oh, and there is also this game which I'm sure some of you may be familiar with. Amazing, it's still around. My son has been driving me a little insane with his repetitive recitation of it. He's even got babyD to learn some of it:

Assalamualaikum
Kum apa? kombat
Bat apa? batman
Man apa? mentol
Tol apa? tolak
Lak apa? laksa
Sa apa? Sepak
Pak apa? pakcik
Cik apa? cicak
Cak apa? cawan
Wan apa, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (counting in english).

Actually, the one written above is how it is suppose to be. My son's version is a bit different. He gets to "Man apa?", he says "Mentos" instead of "mentol". Then he just makes up the rest of it, even to the point of gibberish.

Well, just thought I'd let you know to get ready for your child's language to be "contaminated" when they start schooling.

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