Shame on us! After almost two weeks in Malaysia, we still don’t know how to say “Thank You” in Malay :(
But that’s mostly because everybody speaks English!
Malay, however, uses the latin alphabet (unlike Thai or Chinese), and we did therefore learn a few words from the signs and announcements we saw.
Play with us, and see if you can translate the following Malay words in English!
Below, you’ll see a list of words. For each Malay word, the English translation is hidden between two”arrows”. Simply double-click between the arrows to see the solution!
For instance, if you double-click between the following arrows, you will see the word “solution”:
->solution<-

The easy ones

For the following words, the translation is almost obvious, since the words sound just like English:
polis ->police<-
notis ->notice<-
servis ->service<-
ambulans ->ambulance<-
klinik ->clinic<-
kolej ->college<-
restoran ->restaurant<-
feri ->ferry<-
tren ->train<-
kelass ->class<-
sentral ->central<-
ekonomi ->economy<-
ekspress ->express<-
tiket ->ticket<-
kaunter ->counter<-
kad kredit ->credit card<-

The tricky ones

With these words, the phonetic helps slightly, but not completely! And sometimes, it sounds like words in other languages than English:
lori ->truck<-
teksi ->taxi<-

motosikal ->motorbike<-
basikal ->bike<-

stesen ->station<-
bas ->bus<-
sekolah ->school<-

jem ->jam<-
nanas ->pineapple<-
jus ->juice<-
ais ->ice<-

The hard ones

Here, there is no connection with English or any language we know, so just try and guess!
kanak-kanak ->child<-
dewasa ->adult<-
jam ->hour<-
air (clue: the solution is not "air") ->water<-
awas ->caution<-
kecil ->small<-
besar ->big<-
buka ->open<-
kereta ->car<-

In conclusion

One can clearly see the influence of British colonialism in the Malay language, and it’s actually funny to try and read the signs, searching for more English-phonetic Malay words.
This is only a few of the words that we’ve seen most often; but it’s definitely easier to travel here than in China (we miss China though…)
We hope that this post helped those of you planning to go to Malaysia ;-)
By the way, “Thank you” in Malay is “Terima kasih”, or “Terima kasih banyak-banyak” for “Thank you very much”!