Learn some Malay-Indonesian and Understand and Remember Slang

Lots of Indonesian is easy. Ticket is tiket.
Tiket Harian Berjaminan, literally: Daily Ticket with Guarantee (a seven day ticket).
Jalan is street. You see this word all over the place, on street signs and maps.

However, after you learn to read Malay/Indonesian, you find that in Indoneisa they speak slang, a bit like the British shortening words, saying yeah for yes.
Wikivoyage gives a handy phrase list and I have added my own aide-memoire (French for memory aid):

How to speak prokem like a Betawi

The everyday speech of Jakartans (Betawi) is liberally laced with slang (prokem) expressions. Like any slang, words come in and out of fashion with bewildering rapidity, but some features can be distinguished:

• f becomes p
• z becomes j
• The prefix me- for verbs becomes ng-
• The suffixes -i and -kan turn into -in

A short glossary of common Jakartan expressions:

no 

tidak → nggak/kagak/gak/ogah/moh

I 

saya/aku → gua/gue

you 

kamu/anda → lu/lo ('A n d a' is you, which you see on signs in Singapore. For the written word, I think of 'and you'. I had to insert spaces because the spell checker thinks I have mistyped the word and. For the spoken word, think of you and lu.) 

sorry 

maaf → maap

to come up 

menaik → naek

to take 

mengambil → ngambil

to look 

melihat → ngeliat

to use 

memakai/menggunakan → pake/make/ngegunain

to visit 

mengunjungi → ngunjungin

what are you doing? 

kamu sedang apa? → ngapain?

to pay 

membayar → bayar/ngebayar (The shortened version is simpler and easier to remember. B a y a r for pay her. 'ow much am I gonna pay 'er, gebayar, meaning to pay.)

how much is it?

berapa harganya? → berapaan nih? (How do you learn this phrase? Think of pan as pay. Think of nih is you as in the Chinese greeting nih how - how are you.

Keep pointing at items on the table or in the room and asking, 'berapaan nih?'. Think of if as 'how much as you asking,' or 'how much would I pay you for this?' Think of it as: 'how much would I pay you for bread?' Berapaan nih? Berapaan nih? Berapaan nih? How much could I bear to pay you for bread? Berapaan nih?

If you have trouble saying it, don't say it. Ask somebody else (preferably somebody Indonesian) to say it. Just listen to them. Three times. Berapaan nih.

Glossary - means a short list of word explanations, like a short dictionary

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Language teacher, English and other languages.

More Malay Words in surveys and questionnaires : passenger, age, sex, holiday, residence

Malay - English
nomor - number (no more numbers!)

English - Malay
number - nomor

MALAY (My memory aids in brackets)
penumpang - passenger (pa..ng passenger has pangs on flight)
yang - the
terhormat - respectable / terribly honourable (respectful greeting)
selamat datang - welcome
di - at
penerbangan - flight (penetrating the skies)
negara tujuan - country destination (country you are going to)
jenis - type
kelamin - sex
umur - age
liburan - holiday (leisure / liberty)
apakah - what
dewasa - adult ( d .... a - or think d.w.. a one who works)
berapa - how much (tell me the price and we can wrap it up)
kali - times (count all)
dalam - in
sekali - once (solo event)
diatas (on top, in addition, more than that)
negara asal keberangkatan (country departure)
data pribadi data private  / personal
tempat tinggal (residence)

ENGLISH

passenger
the
respectable
welcome
at
flight
destination country
type
sex
age
holiday
what
adult
how much
times
in
once
on top
country of departure
personal data
residence

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English and other languages

Learn A Little Hebrew

Problem
I am travelling down in a gondola at a resort in Romania and I ask a couple of ladies what language they are speaking. Hebrew. Alas, I struggle to red Hebrew, despite attempts to learn the alphabet (which is slightly similar to both Greek and Russian).

Answer
However, I have five minutes confined to a cage with them. If they are willing I can learn ten, twenty, even thirty words of common, everyday conversational useful Hebrew.

Story
I decided learning a few words was a great idea. It was too good an opportunity to miss.

Besides, it is much more interesting to engage one or both in a session about language, than for me to stay silent.  I hate standing like an unwanted idiot whilst two strangers converse together in a language which I do not understand.

Here are my results at translating:

Hebrew - English
(ch is a harsh ch sound like Scottish loch, or clearing your throat.)
Arochat boker - breakfast
boker - morning
boker tov - good morning
litrahot - goodbye or see you soon
maher  - hurry
layut-layut - slow down
kamer - how much?
Anglia - English
Ivrit - Hebrew

The Israeli girl told me: "The quickest way to learn a language is to be in the country and hear people speaking the language. If you want to learn Hebrew, volunteer to work on a kibbutz."

I'd heard of working in a kibbutz as a way of earning a free holiday, or learning about life on a kibbutz. Now there's a much better reason. To learn to speak Hebrew.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have written other posts on learning Hebrew,  Greek, Romanian and  RussianPlease read and share links to my other posts.