Learning Malay From Newspapers and TV

Problem
When you are living in or visiting Singapore, or Malaysia or Idolise, how do you learn Malay easily and practise regularly?

Answer
Check your free newspaper - 'Today' is delivered to homes in Singapore six days a week. You will also see stack of free newspapers at railway stations (known in Singapore as the MRT).

On Sunday I looked for the Sunday paper to check the TV programmes. No Sunday edition of Today exists or is delivered. However, the Saturday edition has the Sunday's TV programmes listed after the Saturday ones, the last double page spread at the back of the newspaper.

Story
I was looking for the English language radio programmes, but instead found the English language TV news on TV in the listings.
After the titles of the English language programmes, I saw the letters E C M and T. The key at the bottom of the first column told me that these letters stood for Subtitles E = English C = Chinese (i.e. Mandarin) M = Malay and T was for Tamil.

As I read down I discovered that TV programmes were available in all of Singapore's four official languages, English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil.

Channel 5, THE ENGLISH CHANNEL is listed first in Today newspaper, which is in English and presumably has a mainly English speaking AUDIENCE. Next comes Channel 8 which is Mandarin.

I scanned down the Malay programme titles and realised that I could recognize two words. M a k a n is food. W a n i t a is woman or women.

That prompted me to translate the other words.

MALAY - English
ceria - cheerful (the first three letters of both words are similar - not serious but ChEeRful)
demi c i n t a - for love
eksis abis - exist after (afterlife? life after?)
h u j a n t e d u h - rain shade or shady rain
j i w a - soul
k e c o h - commotion
m a l a m i n i - tonight (ini means this)
makcik - auntie
makan - eat (or food)
menunggu - waiting (waiting for)

English - MALAY
eat / food - m a k a n
tonight - malam ini
woman / women - w a n i t a

Tips
Malay and Indonesian languages are very similar, like American and British English.
On Sunday if you don't get a print edition delivered, you can read a Sunday edition online.
http://www.todayonline.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Malay-language_television_channels
An amusing video on saying a few words:
https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/ayyo?source=feed_text&story_id=10155994493523902

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