Marhaini is our teacher in the Malay class. She is a very nice lady. We called her Mar. I was always late for the class, so I got to know her name until yesterday.

Mar always smiles. But once in a while during the class, she gave us problems.

“Please tell me how to say 6875908 in Malay.” She put a random number on the white board, and smiled.
We were all stunned, for 5 seconds, staring at the number, and broke into big noise simultaneity.

“Brrrr, brrrr. kkzzzz, ssssaaa, rrriii,…” counting the figure, searching on the cross table, reading loud in Malay/English/Chinese. Noisy indeed, we were really concentrated on this big challenge.

After 1 hour (I felt), we started giving the result, “Enum Juta Lapan Tujuh…”

I was very happy when I got my answer correct.

A primary 1 student got an big arithmetic problem solved.

But life became more difficult as we came to time expression yesterday.

We learnt how to say a time in Malay yesterday. That’s not that difficult actually, except we have to know how to express “pm” and “am” in Malay.

But Mar gave no simple problem. She asked us to do the whole time and date together in Malay!

“1.56pm Wednesday, 10th May, 2006″

We fainted this time. That included number, time, day, month, year… all we learnt in previous classes!
I substantially, concretely felt I needed some lubricating oil for my brain. I could feel it was rusted at that moment.

Anyway, here are the class notes for yesterday. Going to Indonesia tomorrow, hope I can use something I learnt from the class.
Duduk – sit
Tutup – close

Hari ini hari Rabu
Today is Wednesday.

Bulan ini bulan Mei
This month is May.

Marhani

Tahun Year

Year 1963
Tahun Sembilan belas enam puluh tiga

2006
Tahun Dua ribu enam

Today is Thursday, 26th July 2046
Hari ini Hari Khamis, Dua Puluh enam, Julai Tahun Dua ribu Empant puluh Enam

Today is Saturday, 15 October 1802
Hari ini Sabtu Lima belas Oktober Tahun Seribu Lapan ratus dua

Pukul – beat, hit

Pukul satu – 1 o’clock

Jam – Hours/clock

24 Jam – 24 Hours

Suku – quarter(15 mins)

2.15pm – Pukul dua suku tenghari (petang)

Setengah – Half (30 mins)

1.45pm – pukul satu empat puluh lima tengahari

4.05pm – pukul empat lima minit petang

Minutes below(include) ten, we use minit

Hadapan – ahead

Lepas – over

Musim – Season

Hujan – Rain

Sejuk – cold

Gugur – something which is attached and fall, such fruits.

Bunga – flower

Panas – hot

Hari cudi – Holiday

I am seriously thinking of starting a systematic on-line Malay course now, because there are not many on the net. I just found one entry for Malay course in the Omniglot on-line language course list. Though I still have not had a schedule, I have a good name for it.

As for now, I continue post my class notes here.

We learnt days of the week yesterday. Here is the cross table:

hari Ahad / hari Minggu	Sunday
hari Isnin	Monday
hari Selasa	Tuesday
hari Rabu	Wednesday
hari Khamis	Thursday
hari Jumaat	Friday
hari Sabtu	Saturday

Don’t be surprised that you find a people named Selasa in Malasia. Most possibly, she was born on Tuesday.

We learnt the months also. They are very similar to those in English. But some of them, such as April and Januari, have different pronunciations in Malay.

Januari	January
Februari	February
Mac	March
April	April
Mei	May
Jun	June
Julai	July
Ogos	August
September	September
Oktober	October
November	November
Disember	December

Other things we learnt:

Sudah makan?
Have you eaten?

5112
Lima ribu satu ratus sebelas

312968
Tiga ratus dua belas ribu semilan ratus enum puluh lapan

9432801
Semilan juta  empt ratus tiga puluh dua ribu lapant ratus satu
 
Kuah lebih
More soup

Umur
Age

Datuk
Grandfather

Tepat
Exactly

Tahun
Year

Hari ini
Today

Anak
Child

Dalam
In

Kereta
Car

Ini
This / These

Hari ini
Today

Itu
That /Those

Ibu/ama
Mother

Membeli
Buy

Berat
Heavy

Berat badannya
Weight

Dia
He/She

Memandu
drive

Sejauh
Distance of

Rumah
House

Tingkak
Level/Floor

Terakhir
Last

Bapa
Father

Beri
Give

Hari
Day

Isnin
Monday

Hari ini hari apt?
What is the day today?

Hari ini hari Jumaat
Today is Friday.

Ialah
Is

Semalah
Yesterday

Semalah hari apa?
What is the day yesterday?

Esok
Tomorrow

Esok hari apa?
What is the day of tomorrow?

Nama
Name

I officially name my Malay class notes as Jili-guru today.

Jili is a name; guru means teacher in Malay. Jili-guru means teacher Jili. Just one extra, small thing. Jili-guru is 叽里咕噜 in Chinese. We Chinese use this term to describe a language which is hard to understand. For example, “他在说啥呀？叽里咕噜的.” That is, “What the hell is he talking? I get no clue!” Well, I hope my notes can help people understand Malay better, not to take it as 叽里咕噜 when listening to Malay.

We continued on number yesterday. One step further, we learnt ordinal numbers/postions. The rules for ordinal numbers in Malay is simple. Just add a “Ke” before the number, except the number 1. 1st in Malay is Pertama.
For example, 2 in Malay is “Dua.” So 2nd in Malay is “Kedua.” 8 in Malay is “Lapan.” So 8th in Malay is “Kelapan.”

I will make the matching table when I have time.

Other things I have learnt in this class:

Malay: Lihat muka surat 2
English: Look at page 2 (muka – face; surat-letter; muka surat – page)

tempat pertama – 1st place
tempat kedua -2nd place

Soalan – Question
Jawapan – Answer

Malay: Sila baca ayat ketiga
English: please read sentence number3

Baca – read

Malay: Pilih pasangan
English: Choose a partner

Buah is always sit before fruit in Malay. It is kind of modifier for fruit. If you want to say Fruit in general, that is Buah-buahan

Buah durian – Durian

Buah epal – Apple

Buah tembikai – Watermelon

Buah mangga – Mango

 

Awak – You

Berapa – How many/much

Harga – price

Ialah – it/they

Gula – sugar

Gula-gula – sweet (Noun)

Manis – sweet (adjective)

Ada – have

Pasang – pair

Pasang – to fix

Tangan – hand

Duit/wang – money

Malay: Berapa biji buah epal awak ada?

English: How many apples do you have?

Learnt Malay number today.

Today’s class was about pronunciation in Malay.