Saturday, January 31, 2009

Experience to Language learning

My second language is “Bahasa Malaysia” which is known more better as the Malay language. I speak it with a fairly neutral Borneo accent, though this tends to change depending on who I'm talking to at times. I enjoy trying to mimic different regional accents like trying to speak like how the west Malaysian do with a lots of juncture and a slow way by adding the short phrases like le, ke, meh and many more. This is one of the reasons which are possibly why I developed such an interest in languages and learning TESL and speaking it in a wired way and also mixing the way I talk with the different regional of the east and west to get my own attention.
I moved with my parents when I was six years old and grew up in Sabah in the east side of Malaysia and stayed there for 15 years. This is when I used to have a bit of difficulty trying to speak like the Kadazan and the natives people there in Sabah with a thick way of pronouncing certain words because my first language was English. Thus, knowing that I stayed in Malaysia and the national language was Malay I had to know how to speak it in order to survive in Malaysia. I found a lot of difficulties when I transferred from Kuala Lumpur to Sabah but I was lucky and did not feel island because I had my elder sister with me. Things did not feel wired, when I spoke to her and my family.
But things were different when I started to go to school. I had to learn Malay because almost everybody spoke Malay in school. So I first tried speaking to them in English and the look at me n said “ooi na tengok ba orang ptih cakap” which means “hey... Look at how white people talk”. I felt so bad so I went back home and ask my Kakak at home who is my maid from Indonesia to help me because I spend most of my time with her because I had busy parents who I only see them on Sundays. So she came up with an agreement for me to learn and acquire Malay with conditions if I teach her English, she will teach me Malay. So everyday when I wanted something I had to ask her in Malay if not she wont answer me and that was how I improve and acquire Malay besides learning it at school as a compulsory subject.
On the other hand, being the only Indian at school in Sabah. I was always the center of attraction because there were a few of Indians there and Indians were highly respected because they were all doctors and somebody there. Besides that being an Indian and being good in my English because it was my mother tongue, I had my own advantages because lots of people didn’t know how to speak good English so they wanted to be my friend. In order to learn it, they needed my help so I had lot of friends because being able to switch and adopt myself to them and the surrounding.
So basically that was my experience to language learning which I learn a lot besides just acquiring it I also learn how to suit in a group.