Colloquial Malay

The Complete Course for Beginners

Zaharah Othman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317305163
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Sprachen

Colloquial Malay: The Complete Course for Beginners has been carefully developed by an experienced teacher to provide a step-by-step course to Malay as it is written and spoken today.

Combining a clear, practical and accessible style with a methodical and thorough treatment of the language, it equips learners with the essential skills needed to communicate confidently and effectively in Malay in a broad range of situations. No prior knowledge of the language is required.

Colloquial Malay is exceptional; each unit presents a wealth of grammatical points that are reinforced with a wide range of exercises for regular practice.

Key features include:

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• A clear, user-friendly format designed to help learners progressively build up their speaking, listening, reading and writing skills

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• Jargon-free, succinct and clearly structured explanations of grammar

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• An extensive range of focused and dynamic supportive exercises

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• Realistic and entertaining dialogues covering a broad variety of narrative situations

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• Helpful cultural points explaining the customs and features of life in Malay-speaking countries.

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• An overview of the sounds of Malay.

Balanced, comprehensive and rewarding, Colloquial Malay is an indispensable resource both for independent learners and students taking courses in Malay.

Audio material to accompany the course is available to download free in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

Unit One

Berkenalan

Getting acquainted

In this unit you will learn:

• how to introduce yourself and others

• pronouns

• greetings and how to say ‘thank you’: Apa khabar? Terima kasih

• how to address people (formal and informal)

• about the Malay family and Malaysian society

• the question tag kah and how to give a yes/no answer

• the question word siapa?

Dialogue 1

(Audio 1:35)

Salleh and his older brother Badrul meet Sarah Green, a student on an exchange programme. They get to know each other.

SALLEH	Apa khabar? Saya Salleh.
SARAH	Khabar baik. Nama saya Sarah Green.
SALLEH	Selamat datang ke Malaysia. Ini abang saya Badrul.
SARAHT	Terima kasih. Apa khabar, Badrul?
BADRUL	Baik. Anda dari England?
SARAH	Ya, saya dari England. Saya orang Inggeris.
SALLEH	How are you? I am Salleh.
SARAH	Fine. My name is Sarah Green.
SALLEH	Welcome to Malaysia. This is my brother Badrul.
SARAH	Thank you. How are you, Badrul?
BADRUL	Fine. Are you from England?
SARAH	Yes, I am from England. I am English.

Vocabulary

apa khabar?	How are you? (literally: What news?)
saya	I
khabar baik	I am fine (literally: Good news)
nama	name
selamat datang	Welcome (literally: Safe arrival)
ke	to (a place) (preposition)
terima kasih	Thank you (literally: receive (with) love)
ini	this
abang	older brother
anda	you (formal)
dari	from (a place)
ya	yes
orang	people, person
Inggeris	English
dan	and

Language point

Personal and possessive pronouns

In Malay, there are several pronoun words with the same English meaning but the ways of using them are different, especially when you are talking to different people. This will be dealt with in depth in the Culture points.

Note that personal pronouns and possessive pronouns share the same form in Malay.

You will also notice that there is no gender in the Malay language; for example, the third person dia can be male or female. When spoken in context, you will understand the gender of the person referred to. Once you are familiar with Malay names, this will become easier.

saya, aku	I, me, my, mine
anda, kamu, awak, engkau, kau	you, your, yours
dia	he/she, him/her, his/hers
mereka	they, them, their, theirs
kita	we, our, us (including person spoken to)
kami	we, our, us (excluding person spoken to)
ia	it, its

Examples

Anda Sarah.	You are Sarah.
Nama anda David.	Your name is David.
Ini anda punya.	This is yours.
Saya Salleh.	I am Salleh.
Nama saya Salleh.	My name is Salleh.
Ini saya punya.	This is mine.
Dia suka saya.	She likes me.

Note that the third-person plural mereka ‘they’ is hardly used in spoken Malay. Instead, the term more commonly used is dia orang, literally ‘them people’. However, this...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Malay transcription and pronunciation
• 1 Berkenalan: Getting acquainted
• 2 Maaf, saya tak faham: Sorry, I don’t understand
• 3 Mau ke mana?: Where to?
• 4 Nak keluar makan?: Want to go out and eat?
• 5 Membeli-belah: Shopping
• 6 Jangan!: Don’t!
• 7 Bila sampai?: When did you arrive?
• 8 Selamat Hari Raya: Happy Eid
• 9 Saya sakit kepala: I have a headache
• 10 Ada macam-macam: There are all sorts of things
• 11 Amboi, tinggi sungguh menara ni!: Wow, this tower is so tall!
• 12 Tak apa!: Never mind!
• 13 Entahlah!: I don’t know!
• 14 Helo, boleh saya bantu?: Hello, can I help?
• 15 Tiket dibeli minggu lepas: The tickets were bought last week
• Key to exercises
• Malay–English glossary
• Index