English Language and me

Memartabatkan Bahasa Malaysia dan Memperkukuhkan Bahasa Inggeris.

I was exposed to English since I was little. My siblings and I grew up with Sesame Street, Disney cartoons - Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Mickey Mouse and Friends to name a few, Warner Bros cartoons - Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Friends , listen to English songs and many more. We learned English indirectly through media.


However, we rarely speak in English to each other. When we were kids,we did not want to speak in English in front of other people because we will be labelled as berlagak or proud. People will speak of us. Therefore, we made a decision to speak only in Bahasa Melayu (at that time we called it Bahasa Melayu). Not standard Bahasa Melayu. We used Perak dialect (loghat Peghak). It was not a wise decision because it is somehow decreasing our speaking skill.


Those days, I hate reading. Haha! So, my vocabulary is so poor (until now. Haha!). There was one time, I have to write an English essay about tin ore. At that time, tin ore was not in my vocabulary. So I wrote 'bijih timah' instead of tin ore. My late teacher gave me a big red circle because of the mistake. Silly me.


These days most of our reference books are in English. We have to master the language in order to understand it. As for myself, I am still learning. I still look for words I do not understand in the dictionary. I promote dictionary to my pupils. Unfortunately, they are not interested with the suggestion. They rather wait for me to translate the words or sentences for them than using their own effort to open and search the words themselves.


English Language is important nowadays. I do not say that we have to put Bahasa Malaysia aside and focus only on English Language. We uphold Bahasa Malaysia and at the same time we are good in English Language. Isn't it good to master two languages?


p/s: pardon for my grammar mistakes. i am learning.