马来语Bahasa Melayu 1
Lesson 1 Nama (Name)
Those who had to struggle with the conjugations of the verb "to be" in French or Spanish will be greatly relieved to hear this! (Having said that, people who feel lost without putting in a verb in a sentence can note that the word adalah is sometimes used for the verb "is". Thus Dia guru saya and Dia adalah guru saya both mean "He/She is my teacher".)
Another thing
you will notice is that while in English we have the pronoun before the noun (eg. my name, your name) in Malay it is just the opposite ie. the noun comes first then the pronoun (so in Malay we say "name my", "name your"). If you remember this it will serve you throughout this course as it is the same word order when it comes to adjectives and nouns (so "big car" becomes "car big" in Malay). The third important thing to remember is something that you'd better get right from the very beginning and that is the same pronoun "dia" is used for BOTH "he" and "she". Only the context will tell whether you're talking about a man or a woman.
Lesson 2 Bahasa (Language)
Notice: The Malaysian language (Bahasa Malaysia) is actually the Malay language (Bahasa Melayu). As such the two terms are interchangeable.
In Lesson 1 saya was used as a possessive (nama saya = "my name" and buku saya = "my book"). Here it is used as a pronoun.
Another widely-used word for "I" is aku.
Dia can mean he or she depending on the context. Thus:
Dia kawan saya. (= He is my friend - if the person referred to is a man)
Dia kawan saya. (= She is my friend - if the person referred to is a woman)
Dia marah. (= "He is angry" or "She is angry" depending on the context)
The two words in Malay to distinguish between the two sexes are:
lelaki for "male" and perempuan for "female".
Thus to avoid any ambiguity in the above sentences you could say:
Orang lelaki itu kawan saya. (= That man is my friend) or
Orang perempuan itu kawan saya. (= That woman is my friend)
By the way while "male" and "female" are also used to describe animals in English lelaki and perempuan should never be used for animals in Malay.
The male of an animal is described as jantan and the female as betina.
Thus a cock is ayam jantan and a hen is ayam betina. In written form Dia is often replaced by Ia which is also used to indicate objects and animals (equivalent of "it").
By the way newspapers often use beliau for "he" or "she" (but this use is restricted to an elderly or respectable person and is not used for a criminal).
nya is tagged on to a noun to mean "his" or "her" eg. isterinya (his wife), suaminya (her husband) or anaknya(his child or her child)
Lesson 3 Ini… (This is…)
Notice:
the noun, in Malay it is the other way round i.e. the noun comes first followed by the possessive pronoun. Thus "my car" becomes kereta saya (car my) and "your friend" becomes kawan anda(friend your).
1. Ini is used for something within reach or when you are introducing someone. When an object is not within reach we use Itu eg. Itu rumah saya. = That is my house.
2. Another word for "father" in Malay is ayah .
3. Another word for "mother" is ibu. .
4. Another word for "wife" is bini .
5. From anak (child) we have anak lelaki (son) and anak perempuan (daughter).
Lesson 4 Orang Inggeris (Englishman or woman)
1.
man. Thus:
Dia orang Amerika. = He/She is American.
Dia orang Jerman. = He/She is German.
Dia orang Belanda. = He/She is Dutch.
Dia orang Rusia. = He/She is Russian.
Note that the pronunciation and spelling of Russia is changed to conform with Malay pronunciation (roo-si-ah) and spelling (only one S).
Dia orang Singapura. = He/She is Singaporean.
Dia orang Thai. = He/She is Thai.
Dia orang Mesir. = He/She is Egyptian.
Dia orang Israel. (pronounced in 3 syllables i.e. Is-ra-el) = He/She is Israelite.
A more common word for this is orang Yahudi (Jew).
A word to describe a person's race is bangsa eg. Dia bangsa Cina. = He (or She) is Chinese or Dia bangsa Melayu. = He (or She) is Malay.
2. Note how a question can easily be formed from a statement by adding the question tag kah at the end. Thus: Anda orang Perancis. (= You are French.)
Anda orang Peranciskah? (= Are you French?)
Do note however that you do not really need to add the suffix kah to turn the statement into a question. As in most languages, a rising tone on the last syllable of the statement is sufficient to turn it into a question. ThusAnda orang Perancis? (= Are you French?)
3. Note also that in this type of sentences the verb "to be" is not needed in Malay and that kah is tagged on to the word preceding it and does not stand by itself.
4. The word for a foreigner is orang asing but you might often hear people talking about orang putih (literally: white person) or mat salih. They are referring to Caucasians (as opposed to Asians). Note that Caucasian is used here to mean one of the main ethnic divisions of the human race or what is loosely called the white race.
5. You should find the word Inggeris very easy to remember as it is the Malay spelling for "English" (ok,
I agree with you, it is not an exact phonetic reproduction as the final "sh" sound becomes "s"). This is because in the Malay language the "sh" sound must always be followed by a vowel eg. syarat or mesyuarat.
6. Saudi Arabia in Malay is Arab Saudi.
Recapitulation
after studying lessons 2 and 4 you would have noticed that names of languages always start with the wordbahasa and nationalities with the word orang or rakyat (see note below). The same principle applies
to the names of countries. These start with the word negara or negeri . The following table will help you understand better. And if you don't find your country here the chances are the name of the country is retained as it is and used with the appropriate word eg. if you are from Sweden you are orang Sweden or rakyat Sweden, your language is bahasa Sweden and your country is negara Sweden or negeri Sweden. The spelling though is sometimes changed to be in line with the Malay sound thus Canada becomes Kanada, America becomes Amerikaand German becomes Jerman.
The word bangsa is also sometimes used to describe a person's nationality though it is best to keep it to describe his race eg. a Malaysian can be Malay (bangsa Melayu), Indian (bangsa India) or Chinese (bangsa Cina) but they are all rakyat Malaysia.
But perhaps it is easier (and clearer) if you just ask the person where he comes from. In Malay this would beAnda berasal dari mana? The full answer would be Saya berasal dari Perancis (if you are from France).
NOTE: If you want to stress that you are a citizen of your country just replace orang with rakyat. Under the column Name of country you can easily replace negara with negeri. The two words are quite often interchangeable.
Lesson 5 Numbers (1-9)
"telephone number" translated as nombor telefon.
Once you are clear about this it is easy to understand why "your telephone number" becomes nombor telefon anda.
Learn the Malay words for 1 to 9 to perfection as you only need to know five more words (belas, puluh, ratus, ribu, juta ) to be able to read any number at all in Malay. More of this later (in Lessons 8 and 22). The word for "zero" is kosong. It is often used for games results and for telephone numbers.
Thus Kami menang tiga kosong means "We won 3-0".
The telephone number 041695827 is read as kosong empat satu enam sembilan lima lapan dua tujuh.
In this connection a useful sentence to learn (yes it's always good to read out the telephone number a second time) is:
Saya akan baca sekali lagi. (I will read it again).
Could I introduce ordinal numbers at this stage?
In English we would say "first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth."
In Malay it's yang pertama, yang kedua, yang ketiga, yang keempat, yang kelima, yang keenam, yang ketujuh, yang kelapan and yang kesembilan.
What do you notice? Yes, I'm sure you would have noticed that all of them (except for "first") start with yang ke followed by the number in question. Quite simple, isn't it?
Okay, let's see it in practice:
You know that Fatimah has got 3 brothers and 4 sisters and you want to know where she is situated. You would ask her Fatimah anak yang keberapa?
And if she is the sixth of the eight siblings she would reply Saya anak yang keenam.
Lesson 6 Berapa (How many)
orang datang means "Several people came" and Dia telefon beberapa kali means "He called (phoned) several times".
Plurality is indicated by duplicating the noun. Thus:
Kereta-kereta ini mahal. (These cars are expensive.)
But when it is obvious that there are more than one the noun is not duplicated. Thus:
Semua kereta ini sudah dijual. (All these cars have been sold.)
Similarly: Orang-orang itu tunggu bas. (Those people are waiting for the bus.)
But: Banyak orang sudah baca buku itu. (Many people have read that book.)
Lesson 7 Days of the week
Ahad. or Isteri saya selalu ke pasar pada hari Ahad.
Note: When the preposition of direction (ke = towards) is used the verb "to go" (pergi) can be omitted in Malay.
hari Ahad (Sunday) is also known as hari Minggu.
hari jadi = birthday. (This is used more often than hari lahir which literally means "day of birth"). To wish someone a happy birthday in Bahasa Malaysia you'd say Selamat Hari Jadi!
hari besar = festival day. (It literally means "big day").
hari gaji = pay day (gaji by itself means "salary". Bila hari gaji? (When is pay day?) is a question often heard in offices. Let's be frank, why is everyone there if not for this?
Hari Kebangsaan = National Day. It falls on 31st August and is also known as Hari
Kemerdekaan (Independence Day).
The Malay term for public holiday is cuti am or cuti umum. But if you hear hari cuti orhari kelepasan don't you worry. They all mean the same thing. (The opposite of this, by the way, is hari kerja i.e. a working day, kerja meaning work).
By the way you might also hear Dia cuti meaning He/She is on leave (note that the verb is omitted here). If you want to specify that he is not on holiday but on sick leave you would say Dia cuti sakit. The word sakit, as you will see in Lesson 16, means "sick".
Thus Dia tidak pergi ke pejabatnya hari ini kerana cuti sakit means "He did not go to his office today because he is on sick leave."
"Annual leave" is cuti tahunan (the word tahun means "year").
"School holidays" is cuti sekolah.
And lastly "to take leave" is ambil cuti.
Hari Natal is the "pure" Malay word for Christmas Day though the "English" version Hari Krismas seems to be more used. tiap-tiap hari = every day
Note that there are three syllables in the word Jumaat (pronounced as joo-ma-art)
1. I was reading the Malay phrasebook from Lonely Planet and on page 190 they write:
- yesterday: semalam (in your Lesson 7 it is kelmarin)
- the day before yesterday: kelmarin
2. What is most popular, bertutur bahasa Melayu or cakap bahasa Melayu?
1. Actually both semalam and kelmarin can be used for "yesterday". However, as I am no expert,
I will quote from the authoritative Kamus Dewan dictionary published by the Dewan Bahasa dan
Pustaka, the authority on Bahasa Malaysia. It gives 3 possible meanings for the word kelmarin:
(i) sehari sebelum hari ini, semalam As an example it gives the sentence: Hari ini hari Khamis,
semalam hari Rabu (Today is Thursday, yesterday was Wednesday.)
(ii) dua hari sebelum hari ini, sehari sebelum semalam As an example it gives the sentence:Hari ini hari Khamis, jadi kelmarin hari Selasa (Today is Thursday, so the day before yesterday was Tuesday.)
(iii) beberapa hari (minggu) yang lepas As an example it gives the sentence: Dia sedang dirawat di rumah sakit kerana dilanggar kereta kelmarin (He is being treated at the hospital because he was knocked down by a car a few days/weeks ago.)
The dictionary further adds that in Kedah and Penang, kelmarin dulu means dua hari sebelum
hari ini. So if you really need the Malay equivalent of "the day before yesterday" you can either say kelmarin dulu or dulu semalam.
It is all very confusing, I know, more so for a learner and to avoid all ambiguity, I would suggest that you simply use the name of the day itself instead. Thus if the day before yesterday was
Monday you could just say hari Isnin yang lalu (last Monday) and there would not be the
slightest doubt or ambiguity about it!
2. As to your second question you can say Saya boleh bertutur Bahasa Melayu or Saya boleh
bercakap Bahasa Melayu for "I can speak the Malay language". They both mean exactly the same thing though for a beginner it would be a bit presumptuous to use bertutur instead ofbercakap.
Lesson 8 Numbers (10-99)
If you have mastered counting from one to nine in Lesson 5 you now need to know only two more words (belasand puluh) to be able to count from 10 to 99.
Counting from 11 to 19 in Malay is simple when you remember how 13 to 19 are counted in English. The "teen" in the second syllable is replaced by belas.
Counting the tens (10, 20, 30, 40, etc.) in Malay is like counting the tens in English. The "ty" is replaced by puluh.
As for all the other numbers in-between 10 and 99 they are formed in exactly the same way as in English . Thus when you have a number such as 47 you only have to say forty (empat puluh) first, then seven (tujuh). For more examples see Column 3 in the table below.
When
Thus "satu" puluh (one ten or 10) becomes sepuluh.
This is also the case with sebelas (11 - remember that in Malay all numbers from 11 to 19 end in belas).
Lesson 9 Telling the time
A second reading (by Michelle Nor Ismat, a native speaker)
Pukul berapa sekarang? (= What time is it now?)
Pukul lima. (= It's five o'clock.)
Pukul lapan setengah. (= Half-past eight)
Pukul dua sembilan belas. (= 2:19 Pronounced "two
nineteen" as in English)
Pukul sepuluh empat puluh lima. (= 10:45) Practice in telling the time.
Pukul berapa sekarang?
=What time is it now?
(Please read pagi for "am" and petang for "pm" in the Malay sentences below. My programming skills are still not that good!)
Sekarang pukul 04:03 pm di Malaysia
= It's now 04:03 pm in Malaysia
Sekarang pukul 4:03 am di New York
= It's now 4:03 am in New York
Sekarang pukul 10:03 am di Paris
= It's now 10:03 am in Paris
to hit - think of hitting a gong to announce the time). What follows is exactly like telling the time in English. Thus "It is 9:25" (nine twenty-five) is translated as Pukul 9 (sembilan) 25 (dua puluh lima).
If you like to do so you can add minit for the minutes but this is not really necessary, eg. Pukul sembilan dua puluh lima minit.
Apart from announcing the time pukul is also used in the sense of beating (hitting) a person eg. Dia memberi tahu polis dia telah dipukul oleh dua orang samseng. (He told the police that he was beaten up by two gangsters).
As you have already seen in Lesson 7 pada is also used with days of the week eg. pada hari Isnin (on Monday). Similarly pada hari jadinya means "on his birthday".
It is also used with months eg. pada bulan Mac (in March).
Thus depending on the usage pada can mean "at", "on" or "in".
Jam berapa? is sometimes used instead of Pukul berapa?
2.15 is pukul dua suku (suku means a quarter). You can also say pukul dua lima belas (minit).
At this point you might as well learn the common fractions: one quarter is suku, half is setengah and three-quarters is tiga suku.
Thus 9.45 is pukul sembilan tiga suku or pukul sembilan empat puluh lima (minit).
Lesson 10 The 12 months
Notice: As can be seen above the 12 months of the year are all borrowed from English with adaptations to their spelling.
Thus "March" is spelt Mac because "ch" in all Malay words are replaced with just the letter "c" though the pronunciation remains that of "ch" (as in "chair").
There is another meaning for bulan, apart from "month". It also means the moon.
Lesson 11 Greetings
Greetings:
Selamat pagi (=Good morning)
Selamat tengah hari (=Good afternoon - from noon to 2p.m. or so)
Selamat petang (=Good afternoon/Good evening)
Selamat malam (=Good night)
Selamat datang (=Welcome)
Apa khabar? (=How are you?)
Khabar baik, terima kasih.(=I'm fine, thank you.)
MNEMONICS: I've received the following email from Michael C Hunt, a teacher of language and linguistics, and am reproducing it (with his permission) as it could be of interest to other learners: There are many interesting ways of learning. If it is of interest, Europeans for some reason learn very quickly when they can adopt a picture connected to the sound of the phrases one is learning (and learning phrases is presented really well by Michel Franc, a man who only teaches phrases!) For me I am remembering what you have written as the following. I say this purely for your interest!
Selamat datang......(offer someone some salami soup when you meet them...as salami and tang in Chinese is soup)
Khabar baik.....(a cab or a bike )
Terima kasih.....(offer someone a terrine of kashik, a Polish lentil)
These are clearly things I like....soup, Chinese language, Polish soup and bikes.
Saying goodbye
There are two different ways of saying "Goodbye" in Malay depending on whether you're leaving or staying behind. These are Selamat tinggal and Selamat jalan . I will explain them in detail below.
1st form: Selamat tinggal
The one who is leaving will say to the one staying behind (the host) Selamat tinggal . So normally it is the guest who says this when taking leave of his host. This of course has to take place at the host's house and not at a restaurant if the host is also leaving at the same time as his guest since tinggal here means to stay (back)!
Note: The word tinggal by itself is used as follows:
Saya tinggal di PJ. = I live in PJ (or Petaling Jaya if you like).
Saya tinggalkan payung saya di rumahnya. (I left my umbrella at his house.)
2nd form: Selamat jalan
The host i.e. the one who is remaining in the house will say this to his departing guest to wish him a safe journey back. Though jalan means "to walk" this term is still used even if the guest is returning home by car.
If the above two forms of saying Goodbye are a bit confusing to you then just stick to Jumpa lagi or in its full form Sampai berjumpa lagi. It simply means "See you soon" or "So long!"
Note: The word jumpa alone means "to meet" as in this sentence:
Saya akan jumpa dia esok. (= I shall be meeting him/her tomorrow).
Warning: When you say Jumpa lagi in the sense of "So long" make sure you do not raise the tone at the end or it could be taken for a question ("Shall we meet again?") in which case you are likely to be asked in turn, Ya, bila?(Yes, when?)
Note: The following rules are not at all rigid. They are only meant to be used as a guide and I know that some people interpret them differently. So please don't hold me responsible for your quarrels!
From sunrise (about 5 or 6 a.m.) to 12 noon, you say Selamat pagi.
Between 12 noon and 2 p.m. or so, you say Selamat tengah hari.
From 2 p.m. until sunset (about 8 or 9 p.m.) , you say Selamat petang.
From sunset to midnight, you can say Selamat petang or Selamat malam (the latter is usually said upon leaving an evening function).
But after midnight and until sunrise you can either say (considering that it is already a.m.) Selamat pagi or, if you are taking leave of your colleagues after a night shift Selamat malam.
A word that does not go by the clock hour is siang which means daytime i.e. when you don't need to turn on the lights. So if you are baffled by Selamat pagi, Selamat tengah hari and Selamat petang you can just say Selamat siang which is not so precise and which is more used by Indonesians but which serves the purpose.
If all this sounds too complicating to you a passe-partout (or all-purpose) greeting which can be used at all times of the day and night is Apa khabar? It's equivalent to "How are you?" in English or "Qué tal?" in Spanish. The standard answer is Khabar baik, terima kasih. (=I'm fine, thank you.)
Incidentally if someone says Terima kasih (=Thank you) to you the standard reply is Sama-sama (=You're welcome). An Indonesian though would reply Kembali instead of Sama-sama but that's another story.
Another useful expression to learn is Maafkan saya when you wish to apologise for something. Instead of this you could also say Minta maaf or Harap maaf (= Excuse me). The usual reply to this would be Tak apa (=It doesn't matter) or Tak apalah (see Lesson 20). Note that the suffix lah is always added to soften the tone or to make something less formal. ("Yeslah it's true" I can hear your Malaysian friends saying!)
Note also that greetings in Malay are normally followed by the name of the person to whom we greet. Thus if we are greeting Mr. Ahmad, we don't just say Selamat pagi but Selamat pagi, Encik Ahmad or Selamat pagi, Cik Ahmad.. Note that while in the written form "Cik" is equivalent to "Miss", in its spoken form "Encik" for Mr. is very often contracted to "Cik".
If we are greeting someone whose name we do not know (as when asking a stranger for information) we can use "encik" (mister) or "puan" (madam). Thus: Selamat pagi, encik or Selamat pagi, puan (for a married or elderly woman).
When addressing someone whom we know to be a teacher we can use cikgu eg. Apa khabar, cikgu?
By the way the Malay word for "teacher" is guru.
Example: Dia guru anak saya. (He/She is my son/daughter's teacher).
When addressing a titled person we can just use his title without his name. Thus Apa khabar, Datuk? or Selamat pagi, Tan Sri.
"Datuk" (sometimes spelt Dato or Dato'), which literally means grandfather, is a title conferred to "prominent" Malaysians (ah, I'm treading on dangerous ground here by using the word "prominent" since there have been cases of such titles being bought!) by the King or Sultans on their birthdays. The wife of a "Datuk" should be addressed as "Datin" but if it is a woman who has the title of "Datuk" in her own right (which is quite rare) her husband is not affected by her title.
Higher up on the title hierarchy is "Tan Sri" and even higher still is "Tun". The wife of a "Tan Sri", by the way, should be addressed as "Puan Sri" and the wife of a "Tun" as "Toh Puan".
Incidentally "Tun" is limited to 60 living holders at the moment (at the initial stage it was limited to only 5). If you like to read more on this subject click here.
When you know that besides the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (the King), each of the thirteen States also confers such titles every year you will not be surprised by their proliferation.
Go here (Honours List) if you wish to have an idea of the awards of the past few years.
Wishing and hoping:
First Wishing:
As you have seen above all wishes and greetings start with the word Selamat (followed by another word).
Other examples are:
Merry Christmas = Selamat Hari Krismas
Wish You a Happy New Year = Selamat Tahun Baru
Wish you success = Selamat berjaya
Or if you prefer you can also say Selamat maju jaya (the word maju meaning "progress").
There is also Selamat sejahtera (May peace be with you) and Selamat Hari Jadi (Happy Birthday) Then there is Selamat berbahagia which you say when wishing someone long life and happiness and Selamat belayar to a person about to sail on a ship.
Incidentally if you want to put the above wishes in a full sentence you can by starting with Saya mengucapkan...meaning "I wish you (success, etc)"
Thus the sentence "I wish you and your family a Happy New Year" would be translated in Malay as: Saya mengucapkan Selamat Tahun Baru kepada anda dan keluarga anda.
But mengucapkan does not mean "to wish" but rather "to express" in the following sentence:
Bila dia mendengar kematian kawannya dia pun mengucapkan takziah kepada keluarganya. (=When he heard about his friend's death he expressed his condolence to the family.)
This little word pun is used here to show an action that follows, or is the result of, an earlier action. In this case the first action is that of hearing his friend's death and this resulted in the second action, the sending of his condolence to the family.
Apart from Christmas and the international New Year on January 1, there are the following occasions when you might have to express your greetings to your Malaysian friends:
End of the fasting month by wishing the Muslims Selamat Hari Raya
The Chinese New Year by wishing your Malaysian Chinese friends Selamat Tahun Baru Cina (unless you'd like to wish them in Chinese in which case you'd say "Xin Nian Kuai Le" or "Gong Xi Fa Cai") The Indian New Year by wishing your Malaysian Indian friends Selamat Hari Deepavali
Next Hoping:
When you tell someone that you hope he will get a job, for example, you start with Semoga (can be replaced by Moga-moga or Mudah-mudahan). All three terms mean "It is hoped that..." or "I hope that..."
Thus Semoga anda dapat pekerjaan yang diminta itu means "I hope you will obtain the job you applied for" and
Mudah-mudahan saya dapat tolong anda means "Hopefully I'll be able to help you".
Note the two different meanings of the verb dapat in the above two sentences:
1. meaning "to get" or "to obtain" eg.
Dia dapat banyak hadiah untuk hari jadinya. (= He obtained many gifts for his birthday).
2. meaning "can" or "be able to" eg.
Dia tidak dapat membuat kerja itu. (= He is not able to do the job).
There is another way of saying the same thing (in fact this is closer to the English way) since the Malay verb for "to hope" is harap or berharap to give its formal form with the prefix. So if you want to tell someone that you hope he gets the job for which he applied you can also say:
Saya harap anda akan dapat pekerjaan yang diminta itu ("I hope you will obtain the job you applied for".)
Other examples on how to use Semoga:
I hope that you will get well soon (or if you prefer "I wish you a speedy recovery") =
Semoga cepat sembuh or simply Harap cepat sembuh
I hope you will pass your exam = Semoga lulus dalam peperiksaan anda.
I hope you will be happy in your new life = Semoga anda berbahagia dalam kehidupan baru.
If you want to split hairs you can always say that Semoga berjaya means "I hope you will succeed" while Selamat berjaya means "I wish you success". But to all intents and purposes it comes to the same thing so in this particular case you might just as well use the first word that comes to your mind.
In the case of wishing someone good health though you have to use Semoga or Moga-moga or Mudah-mudahan but not Selamat.
Thus you would say Semoga sihat selalu meaning "I hope you will always be in good health".
Want some more? Well, sihat walafiat is of Arabic origin and means good health but is quite often used by the local Malays. Thus if you have a Malay friend you could write:
Semoga anda dan keluarga anda dalam keadaan sihat walafiat (= May this find you and your family in a state of good health).
And in case you are the religious type you might wish to say "I pray that.." In Malay it is Saya berdoa or Saya berdoa kepada Tuhan (I pray to God).
Example:
Saya berdoa semoga ibu anda sembuh dengan cepat. (I pray that your mother will have a quick recovery)
Lesson 12 Warna (Color)
aya biru (= My car is blue)
Apa warna kereta anda? (= What is the colour of your car?)
Note: The colour name is sometimes preceded by the word warna meaning "colour" eg warna biru for blue or warna kuning for yellow.
COLOURS IN MALAY:
For orange, you can use the
same word warna oren (though
you can also say warna jingga).
ake a colour darker all you have to do is to put the adjective tua (literally "old") after it. Example: dark red = merah tua
dark blue = biru tua
dark yellow = kuning tua
dark green = hijau tua
Similarly to make a colour lighter all you have to do is to put the adjective muda(literally "young") after it. Example:
light green = hijau muda
light blue = biru muda
light yellow = kuning muda
light red = merah muda
By the way the Malay word for "pink" is also merah muda or merah jambu, "jambu" ("guava"
or "rose apple" in English) being the name of a Malaysian fruit that is pink in colour (on the outside at least).
At times you might want to say that something has the tinge or shade of a certain colour (eg.
reddish, yellowish, greenish, bluish, etc). It's quite simple to do this in Malay. Just repeat the colour word and add the prefix ke and the suffix an to it. Thus:
reddish = kemerah-merahan
yellowish = kekuning-kuningan
greenish = kehijau-hijauan
bluish = kebiru-biruan
Just as coklat takes its name from the colour of chocolate, the same is true for oren, which takes its name from the colour of orange. There is another word for this colour though and that is jingga.
Apart from coklat there is another word for "brown" in Malay and that is the word perang. Since chocolate is brown in colour I have used the word coklat but if you prefer the word perang make sure you pronounce it as pay-rang (if you know French it will help your
pronunciation to see it spelt as pérang). Unfortunately in Malay you don't have the é to help you with the pronunciation and the same word perang, if it is pronounced p?rang (p? has the schwa vowel sound ? as in "per cent") means "war”. So watch out, if you are not going to start a war, pronounce the word for "brown" as pay-rang and not p?rang. But why take the risk when you can use coklat for the brown colour?
Lesson 13 Belum (Not yet)
Although
Thus Saya belum makan is the same as Saya belum makan lagi.
In the sentence Abang saya belum kahwin above it is evident that "abang" means one's elder brother, just as kakak is one's elder sister. However don't be surprised if you hear a woman calling her husband abang. If you are wondering why this is so, read Zaidel Baharuddin's interesting article entitled Why Malay husbands are called "Abang" .
When the sibling referred to is younger than oneself the word is adik and if it is necessary to mention if it is one's younger brother or younger sister the word is adik lelaki and adik perempuan respectively. Incidentally the youngest child of the family is called anak bongsu while the eldest is called anak sulung.
Though there is a specific word for each child's rank up to the seventh child (called anak hitam) it's unlikely that you will ever hear them being used. What you are likely to hear though is anak yang kedua (for "second child"), anak yang ketiga (third child), anak yang keempat (fourth child),anak yang kelima (fifth child), anak yang keenam (sixth child) and anak yang ketujuh (seventh child).
Since all these start with anak it might be useful (if you can still take it) for me to add two more common expressions, namely, anak angkat meaning an "adopted child" and anak tunggal meaning the "only child".
Lesson 14 Hendak (Wish to)
Saya hendak pergi ke lapangan terbang. (I want to go to the airport.)
Saya hendak pergi ke stesen kereta api. (I want to go to the railway station.)
Saya hendak pergi ke pasar. (I want to go to the market.)
Saya hendak pergi ke pejabat pos. (I want to go to the post office.)
As to the other question Anda hendak minum apa? see Lesson 24 for possible answers.
Although pedants will say that hendak should be translated as "wish to" and mahu(contracted to mau) as "want to", to all intents and purposes both are often used interchangeably and you can feel free to use one or the other so long as the sense of intention of wanting or wishing to do something is there (thus in the translated sentences above you can replace "want" with "wish").
To express the opposite meaning i.e. when there is unwillingness to do something, simply put the word tidak before either hendak or mahu. However you might be interested to know that there is a single Malay word for this and that is the word enggan. Thus, if she does not wish to go, you can either say: Dia enggan pergi or
Dia tidak mahu pergi or
Dia tidak hendak pergi.
Similarly if he is unwilling to lend you money you can either say:
Dia enggan meminjamkan wang kepada saya or
Dia tidak mahu meminjamkan wang kepada saya or
Dia tidak hendak meminjamkan wang kepada saya.
Note that in all the above examples hendak is always followed by a verb as it is used in the sense of wishing or wanting to DO something.
However when the word is used all alone by itself and with a rising intonation you can be sure that the speaker is asking you if you want to have something. Thus if you should come along while we are eating biscuits we would certainly ask you Hendak? You should know by now that if you accept the invitation you would say Ya, terima kasih else you would say Tidak, terima kasih.
Lesson 15 Akan (the Future tense)
as a man. Thus Dia akan datang esok can mean "He will come tomorrow" or, if we are talking about a woman, "She will come tomorrow". I might not be repeating this each time in future. So even when dia is translated as "he" please bear in mind that it could just as well stand for "she" if it is a woman we are talking about.
You might have learnt the word bertemu which is a synonym for berjumpa and therefore means "to meet" someone but it is much more formal than berjumpa. Thus if President Obama were to meet Prime Minister Najib we would likely use bertemu but if you were to meet your friend, better use berjumpa or simply jumpa (without the prefix which makes it even less formal). By the way "See you" or "So long" in Malay is Jumpa lagi!
Since we are talking about the future it is time to learn the following:
"Next week" is minggu hadapan or minggu depan in its shortened form.
"Next month" is bulan hadapan or bulan depan.
"Next year" is tahun hadapan or tahun depan.
It will make your learning much easier if you will just remember that di hadapan means "in front of" or ahead of so evidently the word hadapan in the above three sentences denote something that is going to take place in the future.
"Will it rain?" is simply translated as Akan hujankah?
I hope you will not need to use the next sentence during your stay in Malaysia but learn it anyway in case you have a bad experience. The sentence is Saya akan panggil polis and it means "I am going to call the police".
Lesson 16 Kalau… (If…)
Kalau hujan dia tak datang (see banner) is the colloquial form of Kalau hujan dia tidak akan datang
Note in passing that tak is the abbreviated form of tidak.
Note that in sentences two and three above anda (you) is not necessary as it is obvious you are referring to the person whom you are addressing.
The suffix lah in Kalau tidak faham tanyalah saya is meant to soften the tone so that it does not appear as a harsh order.
By the way the Malay suffix "lah" has infiltrated so widely into "Manglish" (Malaysian English) that no true Malaysian, however well-educated he might be in English, can do without it when speaking to fellow Malaysians.