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Colloquial Malay Colloquial Malay is easy to use and completely up to date! Specially written by an experienced teacher for self-study or class use, the course offers you a step-by-step approach to written and spoken Malay. No prior knowledge of the language is required. What makes this new edition of Colloquial Malay your best choice in personal language learning? • Interactive – lots of exercises for regular practice • Clear – concise grammar notes • Practical – useful vocabulary and pronunciation guide • Complete – including answer key and reference section Whether you’re a business traveller, or about to take up a daring challenge in adventure tourism; you may be studying to teach or even looking forward to a holiday – if you’d like to get up and running with Malay, this rewarding course will take you from complete beginner to confidently putting your language skills to use in a wide range of everyday situations. Accompanying audio material is available to purchase separately on two CDs or in MP3 format, or comes included in the great value Colloquial Malay paperback and CDs complete course. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material complements the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills. The Colloquial SerieS Series adviser: Gary King The following languages are available in the Colloquial series: Afrikaans German Romanian Albanian Greek Russian Amharic Gujarati Scottish Gaelic Arabic (Levantine) Hebrew Serbian Arabic of Egypt Hindi Slovak Arabic of the Gulf Hungarian Slovene Basque Icelandic Somali Bengali Indonesian Spanish Breton Irish Spanish of Latin America Bulgarian Italian Swahili Cambodian Japanese Swedish Cantonese Korean Tamil Catalan Latvian Thai Chinese (Mandarin) Lithuanian Turkish Croatian Malay Ukrainian Czech Mongolian Urdu Danish Norwegian Vietnamese Dutch Panjabi Welsh English Persian Yiddish Estonian Polish Yoruba Finnish Portuguese Zulu (forthcoming) French Portuguese of Brazil Colloquial 2s series: The Next Step in Language Learning Chinese German Russian Dutch Italian Spanish French Portuguese of Brazil Spanish of Latin America All these Colloquials are available in book & CD packs, or separately. You can order them through your bookseller or via our website www.routledge.com. Colloquial Malay The Complete Course for Beginners Zaharah Othman First published 1995 This second edition first published 2012 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1995 Sutanto Atmosumarto and Zaharah Othman © 2012 Zaharah Othman The right of Zaharah Othman to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Zaharah Othman. Colloquial Malay: the complete course for beginners / Zaharah Wan. — 2nd ed. p. cm. — (Colloquial 2s series: the next step in language learning) Previous ed.: 1995. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Malay language—Conversation and phrase books—English. 2. Malay language— Spoken Malay. I. Title. PL5108.O85 2012 499′.2883421—dc23 2011020908 ISBN: 978-0-415-57252-1 (pack) ISBN: 978-0-415-57250-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-57251-4 (CD) ISBN: 978-0-203-85613-0 (ebk) ISBN: 978-0-415-57253-8 (MP3) Typeset in Avant Garde and Helvetica by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong Contents Malay transcription and pronunciation vii 1 Berkenalan 1 Getting acquainted 2 Maaf, saya tak faham 16 Sorry, I don’t understand 3 Mau ke mana? 35 Where to? 4 Nak keluar makan? 51 Want to go out and eat? 5 Membeli-belah 64 Shopping 6 Jangan! 78 Don’t! 7 Bila sampai? 90 When did you arrive? 8 Selamat Hari Raya 106 Happy Eid 9 Saya sakit kepala 125 I have a headache 10 Ada macam-macam 140 There are all sorts of things 11 Amboi, tinggi sungguh menara ni! 154 Wow, this tower is so tall! 12 Tak apa! 166 Never mind! 13 Entahlah! 174 I don’t know! 14 Helo, boleh saya bantu? 185 Hello, can I help? vi Contents 15 Tiket dibeli minggu lepas 195 The tickets were bought last week Key to exercises 207 Malay–english glossary 220 index 228 Malay transcription and pronunciation vii Malay transcription and pronunciation The Malay language, Bahasa Melayu, is an Austronesian language, spoken in countries such as Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra in Indonesia, and parts of the Philippines and southern Thailand. Written in roman characters and without the problematic elements of tone and gender found in other languages, a student of the Malay language will find it easier to learn. All syllables are pronounced almost equally and speakers of the Malay language speak at a more flowing pace, almost singsong to the ear. Perhaps the most challenging aspect of learning Malay would be the use of classifiers or measure words, peculiar only to a handful of languages in Asia, such as Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese and Bengali. Another challenging aspect is the usage of prefixes and suffixes. In this edition of Colloquial Malay, attempts have been made to teach Malay as it is spoken, as opposed to the way it is written. Malay spoken across the region varies in dialect and accent; in Indonesia it has a more staccato sound with a very distinct roll of the r, while in Brunei Darussalam, the Malay spoken there is more similar to that spoken in Sabah. Singapore Malay, while very similar to the Malay spoken in Malaysia, has a rather distinct Singaporean element only detectable by Malay speakers in the region. Within the Malay Peninsula itself, there are many different accents with some words having different meanings colloquially. Thus to have a truly Colloquial Malay from the region is an impossible task. It is impossible to learn a language without knowing its culture. Therefore, where possible, applicable and relevant, there are culture points, which usually follow a text. While the basic elements of grammar in Malay remain the same, its verb forms, nouns, adjectives and adverbs, prefixes, suffixes and viii Malay transcription and pronunciation the reduplication of words, sentence structure, spelling and pronunciation may differ slightly. This book has taken into account Malay as spoken every day, as it evolves with the challenges of the modern world and the ever increasing use of borrowed words, especially from Arabic, Sanskrit, Chinese, Indian and Portuguese. Similar to the English language, Malay uses a rising intonation for yes-no questions. In Malay, there are five vowels, a, e, i, o and u, and 34 consonants. The vowels do not have an exact equivalent in English, while out of the 34 consonants, six can be roughly pronounced as in English. They are f, m, n, l, s and y. Pronunciation of the Malay consonants and vowels is dealt with later in this section. Word stress There is no stress in the Malay word. Speakers of Malay do not depend on stress to emphasise something but use intonation to express emotions and attitudes. The Malay word is segmented into syllables which receive almost equal stress, e.g. pa/pan (two syllables), ma/ ka/nan (three syllables), ke/sim/pu/lan (four syllables). Malay speakers tend to shorten their words, dropping prefixes and suffixes, all of which are understood in context. Here are some examples of such words: tetapi (but) tapi sahaja (only) saja tetamu (guest) tamu kakak (elder sister) kak abang (elder brother) bang Kamu hendak pergi ke mana? (Where do you want to go?) Kamu nak ke mana? John mencuci muka. (John washes his face) John cuci muka. In some words, a glottal stop // can occur at the end, especially when it ends with k, for example, kakak, but there are a few words which Malay transcription and pronunciation ix do not end with k but are actually pronounced as if there were a k. The glottal stop, or rather the voiceless glotta plosive, is a type of consonant sound used in many spoken languages and in Malay it is represented by the letter k. Here are a few examples: nasi: pronounced as nasi(k) bapa: pronounced as bapa(k) pula: pronounced as pula(k) juga: pronounced as juga(k) bawa: pronounced as bawa(k) ambil: pronounced as ambi(k) Intonation In Malay, as in English, a statement can be turned into a question simply by using a rising intonation at the end of the statement, especially in sentences requiring a yes/no answer. Examples Dia beli kereta baru. He bought a new car. Dia beli kereta baru? He bought a new car? John suami Mary. John is Mary’s husband. John suami Mary? John is Mary’s husband? A falling intonation is used for questions with question tags, e.g. what, who, when. Examples apa dia kata? What did he say? Bila heidi pergi? When did Heidi go? Siapa guru kamu? Who is your teacher? Pronunciation In Malay there are five basic vowel phonemes: a, e, i, o and u. Diphthongs or glides are made by combining one with another.