hulllllo everyone!
hows exams prep so far? time seems to passsss so fassssst. gosh!
anyway, these past few weeks i seem to come into contact with singaporean malays who a)have been living abroad for as long as i have been in singapore or, b)have been working in professions that require profound english-speaking.
and boy am i surprised at how fluent their malay language is! my cousin for instance, came to visit last week. she’s married to a non-malay and has been away from singapore for ages. so we had a mini gathering for her and we made her make an impromptu speech. and since most of them there were makciks and pakciks i speculated that i would be the only one who’d have to do some serious translation (cheh) for them. truth be told! she spoke malay so bloody fluent siah. wahh. shame on me! thank god my mum or dad didnt quite notice it or i’d be made fun of.
then i remember going for a kenduri and i was eavesdropping (i am not going to use the word “overheard” here, cos i really was eavesdropping. haha) a conversation between my uncle and other uncles. this uncle is a lawyer, and of course, in singapore, if u do law, u do it in english. and i was impressed at how he managed to explain english laws to the other uncles in malay! well, not like formal malay, but “normal” malay. still?! wow. hahah ask me to translate “tort of negligence”, haha see what u’ll get. kesalahan disebabkan kelalaian?
and then i watched a suria program where an NUS lecturer was being interviewed. i cant remember her name, but she’s the one who’s married to a german and speaks with a slaaaang. yes, the first time i attended her lecture (i crashed it btw), i was like..ohh ni (the lecturer) mesti westernized habis. and guess what? she spoke soooo fluent in malay in the interview. doesnt matter if she wrote out a script, point is, she didnt even talk berangkak-rangkak. NUS arts lecturer u know.
now that im typing this out, i suddenly thought of fizah! haha. do u all know, back in sec sch, i think she never used a single malay word to me! hahha. maybe because all her friends are chinese or that she speaks english at hm. oh and she’d spell out every single word properly in her smses and thus, her sms were always at least 3pgs long. (updating message…..) and now, her malay is getting better! haha i wonder where she learns from.
anyway, my point is, im always very impressed with malays who speak fluent malay although it is not so expected of them because of their preconditions.
anw, i have related stories. maybe i’ll share some other time.
for now, i smell phaaaaaarmaaaaa~~~~cologeeeee.
