Category: Language

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.