Books in Bahasa Melayu (or BM, for short)
Knowing how my children need to improve their Malay, I’ve been taking small steps lately to help them build up their vocabulary.
Like this morning, for instance. I turned on the radio, picking out a talk show in Malay. Then I highlighted certain words to them.
“Banduan,” I said. “Do you know what that means?”
Blank stares.
“It means ‘prisoner’,” I explained. “Banduan is different from panduan. Banduan is ‘prisoner’, panduan means ‘guide’.”
Silence. (DH is overseas, so I was the one driving. With me driving, I couldn’t see their faces to figure out what the silence meant.)
Then I heard the voice on the radio mention the word bekas.
I nudged RoundBoy,”Do you know bekas?”
He nodded. But I knew that the bekas that he knows (bekas = container) is different from the bekas that the radio announcer was talking about.
“I don’t mean bekas, as in bekas where you can put in your food or drink,” I clarified.
I then explained that if you take a noun and placed bekas in front of it, the meaning of bekas becomes ‘ex’, as in bekas pelajar = ex-student.
The opposite of bekas, I continued, is bakal which, when placed in front of a noun, means ‘future’, e.g. bakal suami = ‘future husband’.
And so concluded our Malay language lesson for this morning. They may be small steps but as an old Malay saying goes, “Sikit-sikit, lama-lama, jadi bukit.” (Literally: ‘Little by little, over time, becomes a mountain’. You get the drift.)
Talk about irony — the Filipina mother teaching her Malaysian children Bahasa Melayu!
Can you teach me too? My pronunciation is really bad:-) :-)
“the Filipina mother teaching her Malaysian children Bahasa Melayu”
This is what’s in my mind while reading your post! : D
Who knows, your kids may become linguists in the future. ;) My girls love watching Dora the Explorer so I find myself teaching them Filipino, English and Spanish.
Btw, got something for you in my latest post. ;)
Teaching my kids Malay is one thing. Teaching them Jawi — Malay language in modified Arabic script — is another! I’ve started drafting my post on this but haven’t finished it yet because I needed a lot of text as samples. Will finish it soon…promise!
Mimi, you are doing so well in your BM with your kids. I can’t even remember the meaning of “bekal” and “bekas” till I saw your explaination! :) Keep up the good work!
dawn: psst…. that must have been a typo. you mean ‘bakal’ right? ‘bekal’ means ‘tapau’ hehehe ;)
Hehehe, yes, you are right….see what I mean? I’m learning from you. :D
I am looking forward to reading the post about Jawi. You’re a supermom, Mimi!
A post in Jawi – you are incredible!
my grade one daughter is learning her arabic and soon she will start french, she learns spanish from dora and chinese from another cartoon character which I forgot the title, tell it to you next time. as for me 7 years in the middle east palipit pa rin ang dila sa arabic.
good stuff in here. be back again.
Children learn new languages like a sponge sucks up water, that’s why the earlier we expose them, the better for them. Us, adults, are an entirely different matter :P Hope to see you again soon, Yellow Bells. Thanks for your comments :)