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
