The Love for Language

I love languages. As much as I would have liked to master more languages, age is proving to be a huge obstacle (Oh yeah, I am simply giving excuses). I have been undergoing translation class for the past week and and I am now onto the second week and trust me guys, it is not easy!

The first two days, we were inundated with nouns and grammar and our heads (my classmates and mine) were spinning like tops (Gasing). It is very interesting yet frustrating because the norm is we go with whatever that sounds right in our head (or heart) which most of the time is not right. Note: It's Martabak, guys not Murtabak..tee hee

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to assess some students who have applied for scholarship from a reputable company. This company hired another independent company to conduct the assessment and in turn this company hired a group of people with diverse backgrounds to be assessors all in the name of being neutral, me being one of them :)

Honestly, I was a little disappointed with the command of language these kids had. They could neither speak fluently in English nor Bahasa Melayu and it was saddening. I don't know, maybe I had very high expectations but the general comments from the other assessors were of similar nature besides commenting that the kids were not putting in much effort. They are the future of our country!

Coming back to the topic of language, I rarely meet someone who can speak both English and BM fluently and I find that very odd especially people of other countries can converse comfortably in their mother tongue besides English. So who is to be blamed? The education system? Our parents? Or ourselves? Or is it something inherent? Don't you find it disturbing that a Bangladeshi can speak BM more fluently that our kids? I do! I think they are highly adaptable in mastering languages.

I am as guilty in not being fluent in these two languages. I speak and write proficiently (I think la) in English. Sadly after school, I don't speak and write fluently in BM anymore. I love BM. It's a beautiful language and I have already made a mental note in ensuring Pebbles be fluent in English, BM, Tamil and Mandarin.

The past few days have taught me the importance of writing and speaking right in both languages and it is so much fun learning to do just that. One of our instructors even mentioned that one good thing in doing translation work is you get to be smarter as you tend to be on the look out for new words and also constantly correcting/translating sentences mentally which is so cool (Who wouldn't like that?)

Personally, I get so worked up when I come across Malay phrases that have been modified with English words in it to appear more hype like kipidap = Keep it up, doter= daughter, sukses=success and many more. Come on guys, cintailah bahasa kita!

Although the year is almost ending, I have made a resolution to learn how to speak and write both languages excellently. How about you?

Image from Google