Impossible to Learn Mandarin @ the Global Hanyu Centre

Arrgh! Another attempt at Mandarin class foiled. The first Level (Groupon) was fine, but the follow up level was impossible to catch up. Actually for first time beginners, I think the first level may be a little too tough. This could explain the high number of absentees and slackers. I was on the other hand a rung above with my history grappling with Mandarin.

I was a good student, at least I thought so. I actually revised past weeks’ lessons and tried to copy whatever there was on the board, tried to ask questions when in doubt, attended every lesson, on time as well.

After Level 1, a test was conducted, I scored well, earning me a place in the next level with a discount price. In Level 2, I was in for a surprise. She stopped speaking English altogether. She said, “We need to learn fast.” Also, she wrote less pinyin on the board and started teaching Chinese characters (something I look forward to).

Problem is, I can no longer ask questions, because every 1 in 2 words is new to me. Sometimes she takes up to half an hour delivering her ‘grandmother stories’ which the other 4 students more advanced than I, seemed to understand, laugh even. The official material looked like a photocopied primary school textbook, from which we learnt Chinese characters. Now and then she would derive certain new characters because they are related to some other character we’re learning.

Bottom line is, from the first lesson to the last, the difficulty level increased exponentially. Once she hits your current level, she only goes upwards from there, and that’s when you’re doomed.

My buddy system failed, because my ‘buddy’ has been holding out on me. Apparently he understands everything and his level is a lot higher than mine. It’s just that he refuses to speak unless forced to. That's a lesson for me. Next time pick a buddy who's on par with you, and not secretly hiding his linguistic skills.

The lessons weren’t all that bad, she was clearly trying to shake things up with her lesson plan. Once she had a dumpling festival celebration in a potluck style. One of our homework assignments was to sing a friendly song in Mandarin and record ourselves. One time she made us watch half a movie (thank God it has English subtitles).

But the killer was definitely the second level final exam. Not only do we have to take a written test where half of the questions were based on things never taught (kind of like University), we had to prepare a presentation based on a certain topic and present it to the class. I mean I haven’t learnt enough words, conjunctions not even for a wholesome conversation, and now a PowerPoint presentation?

I really love to continue with the next level, I do, but at this point I expect Level 3 to astronomically difficult, probably discussing Confucius teachings, Fengshui theories etc. Alas I concede defeat, I cannot continue to Level 3.

Phonetic Differences between Standard Mandarin (普通话Pǔtōnghuà) and Malaysian-Singaporean Mandarin (花语Huāyǔ)

The idea for this piece came about because while I’m taking Mandarin language courses from a Chinese cultural centre from mainland China, I live in Malaysia where the majority of local Chinese are schooled and brought up speaking Huayu, the local Malaysian dialect of Mandarin. There are differences such as the usage of certain words, grammatical deviations and even the pronunciation differences for many phonemes.


History had a hand in determining the variation in Malaysian/Singaporean Mandarin. First of all, when the Chinese settled in then Malaya in the 19th century, none of them were native speakers of the Mandarin dialect. Only when the Republic of China formed, the Chinese in Malaya gained a sense of Chinese nationalism towards the mainland. Mandarin was adopted as the Chinese people’s unifying language to be taught in local Chinese schools in Malaya, mirroring developments in China.


However, since the Malaysian Chinese were in a foreign land, they were heavily influenced by their original dialects (like Hokkien and Cantonese) as well as Malay and English. This was exacerbated when the Communists took over China and implemented a closed door policy. The cultural link to China had been all but severed. Hence, the local variety of Mandarin was free to evolve on its own.


Personally, if I were creating a new universal language, it would sound nothing like Mandarin. The problems that I have with Mandarin, as do so many people in the world have, are that so many consonants sound so similar. I compiled a list that compares between Standard Mandarin, what Malaysians think they know about Mandarin and how Malaysian Mandarin speakers really sound like. This is following my exasperating attempt to make sense of all the indecipherable chatter I hear.


Understanding of the pinyin system is needed to understanding the following list. In addition, there are a few concepts to introduce for the table to make sense:

*Aspirated means that a strong puff of air accompanies the consonant when it is sounded. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, you can hold a tissue up to your mouth. The tissue flutters with aspirated consonants while it doesn’t flutter with unaspirated ones.

Fricatives	Affricate
Consonant sounds produced by forcing air through a narrow channel in the mouth. In English s (sing) and z (zoom) are examples.	Consonants sounds that comprise of two stages. First, vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. Next, that restriction is loosened a little, while air is blown, resulting in a frication sound. In English, j (juice) and ch (choose) are examples.

Tongue Position	Description
Blade-alveolar	Roll up the tip of the tongue (blade) against the bony ridge behind the front teeth at the top of the mouth (alveolar ridge)
Blade-palatal	Roll up the tip of the tongue (blade) against the centre of the roof of the mouth (hard palate).
Palatal	The tip of the tongue is pressed against the back of the lower teeth, the rest of the tongue is against the roof of the mouth (hard palate)

The Phonetic/Pronunciation Differences between Standard Mandarin and Malaysian Mandarin

Initial Consonant	Standard Mandarin(普通话Pǔtōnghuà)	Malaysian Mandarin(花语Huāyǔ)	Malaysian Mandarin(Fast & Lazy Speech)
ch	Blade-palatal position, aspirated, affricate. Sounds not too dissimilar from the English ‘ch’	Very much like the English ‘ch’. Malaysians do not grasp concept of aspiration	Same as left
zh	Blade-palatal position, unaspirated, affricate. Has slight buzzing quality to sound.	Sound similar to Standard Mandarin, but tongue not rolled back enough.	Very much like the English ‘ch’.
sh	Blade-palatal position, fricative. Sounds similar to English ‘sh’ but with tongue rolled up	Very much like the English ‘sh’.	Sound like the English ‘s’.
c	Blade-alveolar position, aspirated, affricate.	Very much like the English ‘ch’.	Same as left
z	Blade-alveolar position, unaspirated, affricate. Has slight buzzing quality to sound.	Same as left	Very much like the English ‘ch’.
x	Palatal position, fricative. Not too dissimilar from the English ‘sh’	Sound like the English ‘s’.	Same as left
q	Palatal position, aspirated, affricate. Pursed lips help the aspiration process.	Same as left	Very much like the English ‘ch’.
j	Palatal position, unaspirated, affricate	Same as left	Same as left
s	Blade-alveolar position, fricative.	Same as left	Same as left

Malaysians narrow down the number of consonants when they speak fast. Five distinct consonants end up sounding like the English ‘ch’. Mandarin uses a lot of aspiration as a means to differentiate between different consonants. That’s an issue when people speak fast because no one can produce that puff of air in such short time. Aspirated consonants therefore sound unaspirated.

A good resource: ChinesePod 

Mandarin is so hard. Cantonese is a walk in the park by comparison. Just watch Hong Kong dramas/movies, and you’re speaking like the locals. For Mandarin, it’s been a hundred years and we still couldn’t get it. For me personally, I find that the written characters much easier than spoken Mandarin despite the number of characters to remember.

Initiative: An Abused Word

Initiative. n. The power or ability to begin or to follow through energetically with a plan or task; enterprise and determination.

It's such a positive word. But in the workplace, I've only seen it used negatively. Too many "they should take the initiative" or  so and so "... lacks initiative". It doesn't happen to me, but I've sympathized with many a victim. It's the boss's lazy way of saying, 'You should do more work'. I hope that in time this word could become productive and supportive again.

Learning Mandarin is Hard

Permanently itemised in my Life’s To Do List, learning mandarin was placed front and centre when a Groupon offer came about. I took up a 3 month beginners Groupon-grade Mandarin course with a buddy (in hopes that a buddy system will pull me through). This was my chance to right my failed past endeavours.

In the past, my on again off again approach to learning mandarin was not really seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I only had 3 years of P.O.L. (Pupil’s Own Language) in primary school. It wasn’t enough to reach a self-sustaining ‘critical mass’ of words and grammar to really survive. I tried enrolling in a language class before starting university, although it was sold to me as a beginner’s class, it actually wasn’t. I got lost in the mandarin chatter and practically after every class, suffered extreme mental dehydration. It didn’t work. I bought books and audio tapes, but that too failed because I needed interaction, a class of equals.

One horrid interview made me realise how important Mandarin can be in today’s world. But I was ‘lethargic’ and ‘passionless’ when it came to learning new languages following my less than successful attempts. My short stint with learning sign language just rekindled my sputtering flame. I was now ready to take on new languages.

The centre I joined is called the Global Hanyu and Culture Center. The unique thing about it is not a typical language centre; instead it is more of a cultural exchange centre between Malaysia and China, equivalent to a non-governmental British Council that offers language courses.

The Groupon class I joined was specially crafted to be simpler than their normal beginner’s course, focussing on common conversational language rather than the more conventional formal approach. Also they would not be teaching the written form of mandarin at all.

Be that as it may, coming from an English speaking background, Mandarin is hard! Buy all the books you want, take up those enticing online courses but you’re not going to learn Mandarin that way. You need either immersion (live with the natives), lots of observation (watch lots of Chinese movies) or join a class full of people roughly the same proficiency as you. Since immersion requires very patient friends and observation requires an undying love for that foreign culture, the third option seemed like a simpler solution for me.

Why is this Language so Hard?

Mandarin is the national language of China. However there are many other dialects that use the same writing system as Mandarin but have different grammar, different norms and expressions and sound completely different word for word.

Chinese is written in a string of monosyllabic characters, where each syllable corresponds to a Chinese character. But Mandarin is rampant with homophones – same sounding syllables, different character, and some heterographs - characters which have a few ways to pronounce depending on meaning.

Mandarin pronunciation is represented by the common pinyin system using Romanized alphabets. This is probably what you would start with when you are learning Mandarin.  Although pinyin uses alphabets, it may or may not have any relationship to the English counterparts. The pinyin alphabet ‘z’ sounds more like a ‘ch’. In fact there are 6 initial consonants (z, c, ch, zh, j, q) that sound similar to ‘ch’ but they do not sound the same to the Mandarin speaker. A g is actually a soft k, a b is a soft p. Furthermore, the pronunciation set is so constrained and limited; there are only a fixed amount of syllables you can make. As a result., many English consonants and vowels do not have counterparts.

Mandarin is a tonal language. That means a single syllable like ‘feng’ can be pronounced in 4 different ways according to the tones they are spoken with (tones as in musical tones) and instantly be recognised as four different words. Yup, you can say Mandarin is not spoken, it is sung! (But no one says that). That adds a whole new dimension to speaking a language. For beginners, listening to people speaking rapid fire Mandarin, words jumble up and sound the same.  Confusion is inevitable. And a nagging question I have is “Are tone deaf Chinese basically deaf in the ears of the Chinese?”

The written form of Mandarin is represented by an abstract pictographic ‘character’, with seemingly no alphabets in sight. Each character is made up of many strokes of the brush. Most people shudder at the thought of learning the Chinese characters, worrying that the infinite combinations of strokes of characters might overwhelm the brain. Also since the written form has no relationship to the way it sounds, you have to memorise the pronunciation, the characters and the matchup between the two. So learning Mandarin is actually like learning 2 languages, and that’s why some courses just offer conversational Mandarin, because one language is maddening enough.

Mandarin reuses too many syllables/characters. To all who say Chinese doesn’t use alphabets, this fact challenges that claim. You see in Chinese, words can be 1 character, 2 characters and however many characters that word needs to be. The problem is in the words which are 2 or more characters in length. In a 2 character word, the individual characters themselves have their own meanings but when they combine they would mean something else.

So you have to be armed with complete Mandarin grammar, local culture, knowledge of regional adaptations and a large vocabulary of words in order to understand certain scripts. Dangerously, you might get into ambiguous territory where a combination of characters may mean one thing, and another might mean something else. It’s like deciphering internet URLs. I hope you see the innocent side of “thispenisforyourconvenience”.

Mandarin transliteration of foreign proper nouns poses an issue. In most languages, when foreign words enter the vocabulary, native speakers would probably find local pronunciations that sort of match the original. For instance the ubiquitous ‘Starbucks’ name from America; Americans themselves could identify with that translated word (give or take a second). But not so in Mandarin where you have such a limited set of syllables.

Starbucks is “Xing ba ke”, Xing – means star while bake – is phonetic translation. Carrefour is ‘Jia le fu’ – phonetic translation. Microsoft is ‘Weiruan’ – translated literally as micro + soft. Google is ‘Guge’ - phonetic translation. Transliterations into Mandarin are neither uniform nor do they sound like their original pronunciation. Worst of all, in Mandarin text and speech, there is no hint of the word being a proper noun, and that’s a headache considering proper nouns are constructed using everyday words and characters.

It has been commonly claimed that all you need to know is around 2000 characters, because characters can join up to form compound and complex words, but is that really enough for full mastery?

In my Groupon introductory class, the disparity is great between the know-a-lots and the fresh meats. The know-a-lots have one thing in common; they already know a lot of Cantonese, a Chinese dialect very similar to Mandarin. At the fast pace of each lesson, the clueless fresh meats couldn’t follow at all and end up skipping class (all except one – Qishin Tariq).

I was a fresh meat too, 10 years ago at that language class. I lost all enthusiasm and drive to learn when ‘expert’ students hijack my so called beginner’s class. It took me another language, some self-reading and perseverance to enrol in this class again. I had only wished they have a true beginner’s class where all, especially the fresh meats can follow.

Learning Mandarin is hard, and if you are not living in a Mandarin speaking environment, impossible to master. But I guess it’s ultimately worth the effort just to reach that ‘critical mass’.

How to pronounce the TH in English

Do the words ‘three’ and ‘tree’ sound the same to you? Are the words ‘den’ and ‘then’ homonyms? They shouldn’t be. Indeed, the 'th' is one of the more difficult consonants to pronounce in English, for us anyway. It is no surprise that many Malaysians mispronounce common words like 'the' or 'thick', without realising their error. After reading this, I hope that you will gain a little understanding on how we produce consonants and eventually conquer that elusive 'th'.

Phonetics is an aspect of the English Language curriculum that has been given little or no importance in our schools. When English is taught as a second language, other basic aspects such as vocabulary and grammar take centre stage. So most of us, understandably but misguidedly, don’t say it right. As a Malaysian, I too fall into this category, living life without knowing the distinction, never being corrected and able to get by without the need to know the difference.


Since we were never thought the correct way to pronounce the ‘th’s, we chose the closest speech sounds in our native tongues that resemble them, /d/ and /t/. But before we start belittling ourselves, languages that use ‘th’ sounds are quite rare in this world. The French, who also do not use ‘th’ in their native tongue, use replacements such as /z/ or /s/. Then becomes Zen and Thing becomes Sing.

‘Th’ belongs to a class of speech sounds called fricatives. Fricatives are all consonants and are characterised by a noisy sound generated by turbulent airflow at some point of constriction along the vocal tract. 

In English, there are 8 fricatives altogether; /s/ (as in sing), /sh/ (as in shout), /f/ (as in fun), /th/ (as in thunder), /zh/ (as in measure), /z/ (as in pizza), /v/ (as in vent) and /dh/ (as in then) (DARPA phonetic symbols). ‘Th’ actually consists of two different speech sounds; /th/ and /dh/.


These fricatives are then divided into voiced and unvoiced categories. /Th/ being unvoiced and /dh/ voiced.

Voiced	Unvoiced
v	f
dh	th
z	s
zh	sh

For fricatives, voicing means the production of sound when the vocal chords allow air through and vibrate – ‘active’. We produce it when we say any vowel (your mouth is open, tongue in some sort of position and the vocal chords are ‘active’), or when we hum (your mouth is closed but vocal chords are ‘active’ and air escapes through the nose).


The next part may require the use of a mirror to understand. Before jumping onto the ‘th’ challenge, I would like to explain fricatives using two which we are pretty familiar with, /f/ and /v/. I use these two as examples because they are analogous to /th/ and /dh/. 


Now to fully understand fricatives, we need to isolate them from the vowel. As an example, we examine the /f/ in a word ‘fee’. Try saying ‘fee’ as slowly as you can. The first sound you make is the /f/; you place our upper front teeth above our lower lip and blow air through them. 


As a result, you would feel a small gap form; and the emitted noisy and high pitched sound is your /f/. This fricative lasts as long as you can hold your teeth and lip in this arrangement while blowing air. Subsequently articulate the vowel ‘e’ to form the rest of the word. When this happens you lower your jaw, appropriately position your tongue and voice your vowel. 


To understand /f/’s voiced counterpart, /v/, I use the vocalization of ‘V’ or ‘vee’. You begin almost the same way as /f/ where you also place upper front teeth over our lower lip however; instead of just blowing air you also apply some voicing. A gap also forms between the teeth and the lower lip but this time, because of the voicing, your lower lip would also vibrate a little depending on how much voicing you apply. At the onset of the vowel, you just continue your voicing to produce the ‘e’ vowel sound. If you had not known before, this is how the /v/ and /f/ are produced. 


Next I would like to point out that the vocal tract configurations used in /f/ and /v/ are almost the same. They both use constrictions that occur when the upper front teeth make contact with our lower lip. This means that the pairs of /dh/ and /th/, /zh/ and /sh/; and /s/ and /z/ all use the same vocal tract configuration, more or less. 


The /th/ is very much like the /f/ but with a totally different vocal tract configuration. For beginners, the following configuration is advised: protrude your tip of the tongue or the front of the tongue out through the upper and lower teeth, making sure that the upper front teeth rest on top of the tongue. Check this with a mirror. Then like with the /f/ you blow air, a small gap could be felt between the tongue and the upper front teeth. The sound produced is similar to the /f/ but not quite the same. Attach a vowel after it to make it a word e.g. ‘thin’. 


Just like /v/ is the voiced equivalent of the /f/, the /dh/ is the /th/’s voiced complement. Using the same vocal tract configuration as in the /th/, you not only blow air but apply voicing as well. You should notice that our tongue and front teeth are now vibrating while allowing air out of the mouth. Place an ‘en’ behind it and now the word ‘then’ comes out perfectly. /Dh/ can sometimes be interpreted as a cross between a /d/ and a /z/. This accounts for the French’s tendency to pronounce ‘the’ as ‘zee’.


It should be noted that most native English speakers do not use this vocal tract configuration, their tongues are usually located behind the upper front teeth, just like it would be if you were about to say a /t/ or /d/. Hence, as we become more proficient with our ‘th’s, we can gradually shift the position of the tongue, just as long as we know what sounds to target. 


Finally, I would briefly explain the difference between fricatives and stops to prevent us from substituting a /th/ for a /t/ or a /dh/ for a /d/ again. Stops are another consonant speech sound category that consists of 6 different sounds in English: /b/ (as in boat), /d/ (as in day), /g/ (as in go), /p/ (as in plain), /t/ (as in take), and /k/ (as in kite). Without further description, /d/ is voiced while /t/ is unvoiced. 


Stops are generally defined by a sequence events centred on a burst of energy/air through a point of constriction somewhere in the mouth. In /t/s and /d/s that point is the contact between the tongue and the rear of the upper front teeth. Investigate for yourself the nature of these sounds. The sounds are short-lived and they involve some kind of forced puff of air (a lot of air if a hard /t/ or /d/ is uttered). Compare this to a /f/ or /th/ which requires a continuous stream of air. So if your ‘th’s sounds burst-like, you are still probably saying a /t/ or a /d/.


Hopefully, with all this information, you can understand how different the consonants are and through practice finally pronounce the two ’th’s correctly. But do not consider victory just yet, a major phonetic change needs practice. Try one word at a time. For example, from now on consciously start pronouncing ‘the’ the correct way and over time, start pronouncing more ‘th’ words the right way. 


If you are unsure how to pronounce certain words, always refer to the dictionary which has the pronunciation reference. Foreign radio or television programmes offer good examples, but beware; they do sometimes make mistakes like us. This following website gives an audio assisted tutorial.


As for me, my newly acquired insights on these phonetic gaffes came as a by-product of my thesis research. My topic necessitates the complete understanding of speech, and I thought I would share a little as I see no point for my hard work just to be confined to some filing shelf somewhere. So, have you conquered the ‘th’?

What do you mean you only Speak TWO Languages?

Truth be told, French is the language I really want to learn. Phonetically, I think French is the most beautiful language in the world and I vow that I would learn some French in this lifetime. However, in the meantime, one has to wake up and smell the coffee. Except in the most niche of engagements is French ever spoken – usually involving a French national.


Growing up in Malaysia is unlike other countries. The political reality is that cultural assimilation does not take place like in Thailand or Indonesia. It doesn’t have a homogenous population like Taiwan or Korea either. Malaysian social model is more like that of metropolitan cities e.g. New York and London, anything goes and you can find Chinatowns, Little Indias or Little Nepals everywhere.


I was brought up in an English speaking family and I was sent to national public school for my secondary education. I am proud of my personal heritage; English is my first language as was my Peranakan forefathers who sought to better their livelihoods in the British colonial era. Proud and comfortable with the language, I sought to better my English in the absence of a formal education to this day.


For me, Malay was obligatory, and is only appropriate that the medium of instruction at my school be the National language. I did quite well too, bagged an A2 in my SPM. But for me, unlike English Malay would never take that exclusive spot – the tip of my tongue. And neither will any Chinese dialect.



So English and Malay are the two languages that I can command. I can’t claim any more languages because I know too little to converse with native speakers. I admire those who can so easily pick up languages by just socializing. This is where my introverted nature works against me. One exception is if I were abducted and dumped in some remote foreign village where no one speaks English or Malay. Otherwise, the classroom is the only solution for me.



I am all too aware of Chinese-educated Chinese who can’t stand the likes of the Mandarin illiterate like me. But I shrug it off; I should be able to survive with my two horse stable of languages. That is turning out to be less and less true. More and more English educated Chinese parents are sending their children to Chinese schools purportedly for a better education. My kind is endangered.



So, I have compiled several reasons for my third language must be Mandarin:

1. The Anglophone world is losing out in global prominence. The 20th century belonged to the British Empire and the USA, but in the 21st century will emerging China lead? Nevertheless, English was dominant in the 20th century, the century that witnessed the greatest advancements of science and technology. English will stick around for a long time.
2. The great exodus, we know Malaysian Chinese are the largest number of Malaysians to have immigrated. English educated Chinese are more global in perspective and also more globally demanded. Regrettably, out of all the English educated Chinese friends I’ve ever known, I would say half of them are working overseas. More my Chinese speaking friends stick around so it’s time to speak their language.
3. In IT, there are some companies that just prefer to do business in Mandarin instead of English as I have painfully found out.
4. The best bootleg sites are in Chinese
5. Any credible Chinese politician must speak the language of the Chinese masses: Mandarin. Not that I want to be a politician, just saying.

My friend who works in HuaWei (a Chinese telecoms company which has a regional office in Kuala Lumpur) said the managers once commented that Malaysians (probably referring to Malaysian Chinese) do not face any language barriers wherever they go. With our Bahasa Malaysia (Malay language) we can communicate with Indonesians, most of the time. So it pays to be bilingual, trilingual or even quadrilingual.


Languages are hard to learn especially Chinese. I figure I have to give my dogged determination to reach that critical juncture in Mandarin proficiency, whatever that may be. What I could really use is a partner in crime, a co-implementer of a buddy system. Anyone?

A Couple Of - Definition

Growing up in Malaysia, I got confused what ‘a couple’ meant. Some people say it means two, but in usage, it seems like it can be interchanged with a few. So which is it? The Oxford Dictionary offers 3 definitions for a couple as a noun.

1) two people who are married or otherwise closely associated romantically
E.g.: There’s an elderly couple on the bench. This assumes a man and woman

2) two people or things of the same sort considered together:
E.g. A couple of dancers. This means exactly two (2). It helps if there is supporting information to establish exactly two.

3) informal an indefinite small number:
E.g. I’ll be there in a couple of days. It basically means a few. And though it says informal, usage wise, it’s very widespread

So how to tell between 2 and 3? It’s pretty close, how do I know if they go together or not. If the word couple is used to quantify something, then we need to see the situation and context. Maybe that’s where the informal comes in. If the statement is casual, seemingly unimportant, undecided or uncertain, then couple means few.

If the situation is formal, for example a board meeting, if that number or quantifier is very very critical, then couple means exactly two. The above is my humble observation of what a couple means. Please comment if you disagree.

“I can’t believe this. Boss only gave me a couple of days to prepare this presentation.” – Exactly 2

“It’s too early, I’ll need a couple of hours to sober up.” – A few

“Did you notice there were a couple of hot guys checking us out at the mall?” – Exactly 2
“Whoa, did you see that? A couple of hot chicks just landed on our shores.” – Exactly 2

“How many friends am I bringing to tonight’s party? Just a couple.” – Waaay more than 2

My First Language

English. A simple question deserves the shortest answer

While the term first language has various definitions, I think back to my school days in an Australian university filling up admin forms, and one of the form fields to fill was your first language. The Malaysian in me showed some hesitation. I had rarely come across the term ‘first language’, because in Malaysia if we were asked to single out any language, it’s probably to ask what your mother tongue is.

Arguably the term mother tongue, native language or ‘bahasa ibunda’ on the forms refers to the first language you are supposed to have learnt from your parents. In race-oriented Malaysia, they usually mean the language of one's ethnic background. For instance, if a Chinese like myself enters a government department, the officer would make snap judgments, “Religion: Buddha, Native tongue: Chinese, School: Some Chinese School”. That’s wrong, somewhat right and wrong. You see here that the term mother tongue, people’s own language etc. is associated solely on the colour of your skin.


And so I am heartened by the appellation ‘first language’ because it characterizes you as an individual with your own unique background, and not simply what is expected of you. Since there are various definitions out there, I’m going to give my own.

What Should Your First Language Be?

Your First Language should be:

•  Your first language is the language you are most comfortable with.
•  It’s the language you use in your head when you’re thinking to yourself (If you are adept at creating your own language, be sure to contact your nearest  fantasy or alien movie producers for major motion picture deal)
•  It’s most likely then language you learnt in your formative years. Environmental factors do factor in. 
•  It’s more often than not the language which your mastery of is the greatest where mastery includes vocabulary, grammar, slangs in use when communicating with other fellow speakers.

Exceptions abound for my definition of first language. I’ve known of people who are more comfortable in another language than the one they grew up with. One such person was adopted into a family during his teens and had to pick up a totally alien language which he eventually took as his first language.


I also know a whole bunch of people who speak Chinese dialects but because they never had formal Chinese education never learnt how to read and write the Chinese language. In today’s internet and knowledge driven world, they effectively know only half of the language, but they have enough to get by especially in one to one interactions.


Coming from a country with so many diverse and disparate cultures, I am witness to the many many forms of multilingualism. We are divided into ethnic groups but also social classes, urban or rural. I wrote more about it in a previous article.

Where I Fit In

Where do I fit in? To be precise, my first Language is Malaysian Standard English. I’d say that I’m a minority in a minority. I am what some might call an “English-educated” Chinese. But in today’s world, that is a misnomer. The fact is I went to national school. Everything I studied; science, mathematics, geography, history etc. was in the Malay Language or Bahasa Malaysia. That’s 13 years including 2 years of pre-university Form 6. English was just a language subject.

A dose of history: Back in the British Colonial days, there were schools of every kind. 1950s Malaysia was a different world then, English schools existed because they were setup by the British or missionaries. Obviously Britain controlled the economy, and as such, priority and favour were given to those who speak fluent English. There is a preconceived notion that English educated Malaysians were a class above came about, it’s not true though.

But in the 1970, all English schools met their demise. The new national education policy aimed to control and somewhat realign the syllabi of all schools in the country and more notably to turn once English-medium schools into Malay-medium ones. This policy shift arose in the wake of racial clashes in 1969 and is intended to ‘unify’ the nation. The Chinese, Tamil and Malay schools carried on, but the English schools were buried 6 feet under. Tell me, was it really the English educated who had a hand in the racial clashes? To me this was an excuse to get rid of what Malays reviled at the time, the English and all their influences in Malaysia.


While I may not be English educated, my parents were. They went to English schools because an English education presented the best opportunities to get ahead that competitive world. Whatever traditions they have, they passed on their on to me. I grew up reading lots of English books starting with Enid Blyton series. We had bought old Hollywood movies, cartoons and musicals in video cassette form. The internet was in its early years, though not as informative as this Wikipedia age.


English in the Malaysian media is alive and kicking. There are two main newspapers putting Malaysian Standard English into print, The New Straits Times and The Star. There are also a handful of English radio stations on the airwaves but local English TV programs other than news are scarce. The theatre scene in Kuala Lumpur is extraordinarily vibrant, modern and lively enough to attract a sustainable crowd.

And ultimately the Malaysian English speaking people like me will continue to persist and prosper in Malaysia but mostly in pockets concentrated in the more urban regions of Malaysia; I should know because I’m a product of it.

Back to School

But what really left a mark on my proficiency in English was my primary school which was a private school. That school taught me English as if it were my first language. I received 6 hours of English classes a week, which is on par with the learning of the Malay language. More importantly we were taught grammar but unfortunately not phonetics. It was not an English-medium school though, as all other subjects were in Malay. Nevertheless, most students I’ve interacted with are like me who use English as their primary language. I guess that’s how English was dominant in my formative years.


When I transferred to national school for my secondary education, I saw the great shortcomings in the teaching of the English Language subject in Malaysian public schools. The syllabus was incredibly easy-peasy. All the simple multiple choice questions, fill-in-the-blanks and the heavily guided compositions are all deliberately designed for the students to NOT master the English Language, which is a pity because with 4 hours a week, a lot of mastery can be gained.


While English in my first 3 years in lower secondary (leading up to PMR) was smooth sailing, the last two years of secondary (leading up to SPM) were very different. We had a very enthusiastic English teacher who was the head of the English Department at our school. In those two years, our English advanced like never before. She had organised debates, speech and story writing competitions, encouraged us to read more mature forms of literature and even verging on theatre. She expected a lot from us, and we delivered, at least my class did. She corrected our grammar and made sure everyone knew about it; and we had a vocabulary book just like I had in primary school where we jot down new words that we come across.


Alas my English Language slide was corrected.  Later in life I found out that this was an anomaly, most of my peers in college never had such an English coach. Her lesson plan clearly deviated from what the government prescribed, as she took her lonely stand against the deterioration of English in Malaysia and for this I owe her much thanks.

The Others (Dan Lain-lain)

In Malaysia, being Chinese and not knowing Chinese earned me the moniker ‘Banana’, that’s yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Am I supposed to feel ashamed because the sound of my tongue doesn’t suit the colour of my skin? Am I supposed to look, think, sound like the others. Well, firstly I think that ancestral identity is overrated. What should matter more is your own personal history. In this case, be proud of the way you’re brought up, but work toward a better you and a better future for your family.


My second language is easily Bahasa Malaysia since the schools I attended were Malay-medium. However my usage of the language is restricted to the academic purposes because it’s really not suitable for the streets. Street Malay is devoid of all the grammar and tenses of formal Malay, complete with its own vocabulary and chronically shortened.  I have some Chinese friends who speak colloquial Malay with all the slangs and what not. That comes with lots of interaction with Malay friends, interactions which I never really had. I only wish that colloquial Malay sounded more like proper Malay, so that my Malay education doesn’t totally go to waste.


As for mandarin, I did learn little of it in my primary school, but my grasp on that wee bit of language is slipping away. I grew up on Penang Hokkien, which is virtually useless where I’m staying in the Klang Valley. As far as the Klang Valley region is concerned, Cantonese is the predominant Chinese dialect, and I did pick up bits of the language especially from my colleagues and now can order food confidently.


From years slaving away in the working environment, I feel that the need to master mandarin is greater than before. English educated Chinese families have been leaving Malaysia in droves over the decades leaving all the Chinese educated ones behind. Indeed in many industries and corporations the Chinese educated rule the roost. Pax Americana and other Anglophone countries today are on the decline in contrast to an ascending China which has yet to see the top of the hill. And you bet I’m going to take classes in the future.


To many people, their language is solidly tied to their culture. I am no different. It reflects my childhood, background and upbringing. And no matter what people say and no matter how many languages I may or may not master in the future, I’m proud to declare that English is my first language now and always.

Ducks Quack, Chickens Cluck: Languages in Malaysia

According to the Malaysian Constitution, Malay or Bahasa Malaysia is the national language and every Malaysian is highly encouraged to learn it. In reality, mastery of that language varies from community to community as national schools use it as the medium of instruction while Chinese and Indian vernacular schools only teach it as a language subject. Nevertheless Malay is the official language, and all government related affairs, legal and parliamentary proceedings, and official statements are conducted in this language.

Malaysian Standard English is unofficially the second language in Malaysia due to its historical and current global importance. English is taught in every school, but method of teaching English does not make the students proficient speakers of the language; grammar is not studied in depth in the syllabus.

In the early 20th century, the Chinese in the country mostly speak dialects from different regions in China where they immigrated from e.g. the Hakka, Hokkien, and Cantonese etc. Most Malaysian Chinese children go to Mandarin-medium primary schools but most of them make the switch to Malay-medium secondary school because Chinese-medium secondary schools are not free apparently. As such, the use of Mandarin is growing as the unifying language for the majority of Malaysian Chinese.

The Indian community comprise hugely of ethnic Tamils and other South Indians while the rest of the Malaysian Indian community are from North India. So the almost de facto official language of Indians in Malaysia is Tamil.

The indigenous communities in East Malaysia have their own ethnic languages. And it’s worth mentioning that since Malaysia is the heartland of the Malay peoples, the Malay language itself has many dialects and creoles which formed regionally within the large expanse of the Malay Archipelago.

When communities converge and intermingle, like in other cosmopolitan countries, you see a variety of language by-products, the first being foreign word adoption. Each language, especially their colloquial forms, finds itself using words from another even in modern times. The Malay language for instance is enriched with a lot of English (the last colonial power in Malaysia) words for words like patriotisme, demokrasi and polis and other borrowed words include samseng (gangster) from Chinese, kedai (shop) from Tamil.

Another phenomenon that pops up in a melting pot such as Malaysia is the emergence of creoles. One notable but almost extinct creole is the Baba Malay that is based on Malay but is heavily influenced by Chinese Hokkien dialect. Bizarre as it sounds there is another Portuguese based creole called Kristang that has persevered for over 600 years since the Portuguese last conquered Malacca.

We all hope that our children do their best in school, but the reality is that many will never get those A’s and B’s you wish for. They may not be adept at languages but have exposure to many, and mastering even one language may be too much to ask for. What’s happening is that when constructing sentences, written or spoken, words that come to mind are not necessarily from the same language. Colloquialisms, coffee shop chats, chatroom banter is represented by a mishmash of local languages or bahasa rojak as we like to call it.

Manglish or Malaysian English (sounds like Mangled English doesn’t it) sounds a lot like Singlish if you’ve heard of it. It can be considered a creole itself with English as its base but with many local slang words, and borrowed words from Chinese, Malay and Tamil. It even has its own augmented grammar. But depending on whom you talk to and their backgrounds, Manglish can be more skewed towards Malay, Chinese or Tamil. It’s terrifying that for some Malaysian, all the English they know is actually Manglish.

What may seem like a colourful country is in fact a black spot for nation building. There remain pockets of racially divided communities that do not speak Malay, the national language nor English. I see this especially in West Malaysia, where tempers flare even today, 50 years after independence, over misunderstandings and cultural differences. The situation today continues to drive communities apart with newspaper, television and social media all catering to each community’s wants.

The Malay language doesn’t seem to be a good integrator for the Malaysian society because simply it’s too closely intertwined with Malay culture and Islam. The custodian of the language is a body called Dewan Bahasa Dan Pustaka, and their bias shows. In fact, from 1986 to 2007 the official language was changed to Bahasa Melayu or the Malay Language as opposed to the more inclusive Bahasa Malaysia name. The Cabinet realised that The Malay language belongs to Malaysians of all races and not just the Malays.

We should make comparisons with a few neighbours. In Thailand, the Thai language is imposed on all citizens. However, in majority ethnic Malay regions of southern Thailand, wars are waged to keep their Malayness. A land with as many ethnic groups as they have islands, Indonesia is united by the common language Bahasa Indonesia which is the only language taught in schools. Singapore, which seceded from Malaysia decades ago, uses English to unite their people. English is a neutral language, and not affiliated to any ethnic community. In other Asian countries minorities either blend into the majority like Vietnam and Phillipines, or are united by a true national language as in Indonesia.

Back in Malaysia, how can other communities embrace the national language without all its cultural attachments? They can’t right now. For most of us non-Malays, the national language will always be a second language mainly reserved for official use and dealings with Malay friends. A good example is that when a typical non-Malay speaks Malay, it sounds awkward because the speaker hardly uses it. But to be a truly Malaysian language, all communities must share it, advance it and cherish it. That’s not happening right now. Forging a new future united for this nation is like tracing a path through a socio-political minefield. How this would be tackled by the government, we have to wait and see.