Event: Very Recent
Location: A mid-east products stall in campus
Scenario: I wanted to buy a bottle of apple juice and ask about the mango juice that looked like concentrated but most likely it might be fresh juice. Hmmm let’s verify wokey?
Excuse me, How much is this? (showing the small apple juice bottle)
~ 2 Ringgit
How about this one, is this concentrated or can we just drink straight away? (showing the mango juice)
~ Yes, straightaway
Ooh… It’s ok, I’ll just take this one (putting back mango juice and holding on tight to the appley bottley)
Then another customer, a mid-east, asked me "are u from here? a local?"
yes... why
" u speak good english" (he sounded surprised)
(Hoho... okay, u should hear me Manglish-ing English…)
Instead of saying that, I said
"what's that suppose to mean? Many malaysian speak good english... " sambil gelak senget-senget hidong…
we were both on a bright mood although I am quite defensive :P Both smiling diplomatically, haha.
" no .. no .. malays dont speak good english..." (I was not sure whether he said Malays or Malaysians, but either one, for me it’s still a fallacy)
"that's an insult, you cannot make..."
He continued "i've been here 3 years... no, no... they don't" He laughed gently not wanting to fire things up kot, then started to walk away.
"come on… that’s insulting" I echoed…. sambil gelak bibir sebelah aja.
3 years here and he didn’t come across malay/Malaysian who speaks English better than me? U gottah be keding me! Lawak sepanjang zaman nih! Huhuhu… I don’t even speak the perfekto English per se. Grammar suka-suka hati jer taruk tau. Then, Manglish some more kan.
Oh ya, but with foreigners I tend/try to be accent-less. Or maybe he come across with too much Manglishness and had hard time decoding, you know, like to filter out all the “lah”, "yek", "kan", “maaaa”, “hoh” “erk” “eh” “aaar". Ok, now it does make sense a lil! But for him to generalize like that, it’s still faulty. His qualitative analysis has insufficient data :D Period!
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Event: Few years back, I had kinda similar scenario.
Location: Post-Office, campus (ahahha.. forever in campus nih!)
Scenario: Eeee.. what was I doing there?? Can’t remember… must be some PosLaju delivery kot! I was sitting on a small bench when a white lady around 55-60 of age, came and sat beside me. Okay, I am confused… why was I sitting on the bench in that kucifat post-office again? Hmmm? *blur... Her husband was in a queue, accompanied by a Malaysian. She was friendly, can’t remember who started the conversation but we had a pleasant chat.
~ we yadda yadda~ she’s from Australia ~ vacation with husband ~ retired couple ~ have friends here ~
~ me ~ a penangite who has been here far too long until she can predict bungee jumping from penang bridge is gonna be next thing to look out for~ errr..
“U speak English very well”
Ok.. wait... is this an issue… like local issue ke global issue ke? Or is it because I have the ‘haaa, wat u talk yer, I zonno Englis’ expression eh? that i surprised em even with my intermediate english?
Or is it because we are from a country that doesn’t practice English as our first language, so having a good/fair command of it is almost impoh-sibley? :D
“I was told the locals have hard time with english” She was a dear, the way she put it, it did not sound offensive but it made me think (Okay, who told her that aaar?) and I speculatively looked at the Malaysian accompanying them… adakah dia memberi info tersebut? “some students in the universities too, I believe…?” she continued.
Of course, yours truly tried to clarify. I said that’s merely generalization, not depicting the real picture. I talked about diversity; I talked about the different school systems hence the different background people have. I talked about languages and English as the second language, and it’s not mastered by just one group of people/race.
If you are wondering… Yes, her hubby was in a veli long-long queue, imagine, even after that clarification thingy, we had time to spare, and she talked about her kids. Then again, brings us back to this question: what was I doing sitting on the bench for so long aar?? Aiyoo Lupa lah…
So, anyways…
I don’t see why we should think toooo highly of English to the extent that we think not having a good command of it is a disgrace. Yes, it is an important language, and it is important to be able to convey the rite messages, to your interest group. It’s just a language, doesn’t represent our level of intelligence. On the other hand, our effort to learn a language is also a part of exploring and widening our knowledge, rite? So it kinda reflect on the effort part :-)
As we know, the significance of this particular language varies. In some part of the world, (countries where English is not first language) it’s not at all crucial, as they believe their own language has strength of its own, whereas in some other parts, it’s all about survival in the global market. For some, English is a symbol of status and class.
We/our country… seem to have a rickety stand on this. One day, it’s all about mastering english from early age to ease your way through tertiary studies. The next day, it’s all about placing the national language as priority before any other language. Confusing sikit eh? Advice? Just try to master both languages lah :-)
P/S: My Ultimate Choice of verbal communication: Malay Language ;-)
Akhir Kata,
Where's My Uncle Tobys?
