jOSiAh's ^_~ Haven

I sort of found this Wikipedia entry on Malaysian English while doing my (somewhat related) coursework. You should read it too... even if you are a Malaysian. I've actually learnt lots of things which I never even knew...

I did notice that people here tend to say "hand in assignments" or "submit assignments", but I've never noticed that "pass up assignment" is actually a direct translation from Chinese! Must have sounded really weird when I used the term "pass up" while conversing with my classmates (^^;)

The fast food cashier must have been confused when I said "having here" (actually, I mumbled... luckily (^_^)) .

What? "Outstation" is a Malaysian word!?

I don't remember whether I've used the word "handphone" here before... Hmm... it's quite true that it's a Malaysian term. Try searching google for "handphone"!

Hmm... bet most of you never knew about these too!

I'm still trying hard to catch a fake British accent... it's not that easy to catch the accent, what with almost all your classmates being anybody BUT Brits. Need to stop myself from using Malaysian vocabulary too... You won't be able to count the number of times I blurted out the word "makan" here before trying to cover up my mistake (^o^).

But I have improved, I think. You will never catch me saying "Can I have a doughnut, please?" back in Malaysia... In Malaysia, I will be like "kak, tu satu!" or even worse...
*points at doughnut*
*lifts index finger to indicate 1*
*flashes cute smile*

Hmm... Malaysians must really have good telepathic abilities... don't you think? One thing I've noticed about Brits is that they actually wait for you to finish your sentence... unlike this little boy here (^o^)

I miss the times when I can freely to mix all languages together... Back home, if I can't think of a Chinese term while conversing in Chinese, I would just throw in an English term. Or when conversing in English, then I'll just throw in some Malay words. Here, when it's English, it's English. I found myself digging hard into my Chinese vocabulary archive when conversing with my flatmates from China (in Mandarin, I can understand their Mandarin better than their English (^^;))

I still think that Malaysian English is much more expressive... not to mention concise too!

I'm so proud to be a Malaysian...