Learn A Few Words Of Malay Easily During Malay Language Month In Singapore

Singapore flag.

Why bother learning the Malay language? It is spoken in Malaysia and Indonesia, is easy to learn, is all around in Malay restaurants and food kiosks and even Singapore airport signs and train station announcments. Why not? A new skill for free.

Signs You See At Singapore Airport:
(You will also see similar bilingual signs in Malaysia and Indonesia.)

English - Malay
bus - bas
taxi - taksi

Just say the words aloud and you will find the language is phonetic and you can often recgnie at least one word in every sign and sentence.

Pick up a Singapore map or travel guide and compare it with the version in Malay.

English - Malay
action - aksi
admission/ticket - tiket
app - aplikasi (like application)
category - kategori
customer - konsumen
Chinese - Cina
connectivity - konektivas
electric - elektrik
fares - tarif
festival - festival
focus - fokus
free - gratis
local - lokal
optical illusion - ilusi optik
recipes - resep
Singapore - Singapura
souvenir - suvenir
tour - tur
traditional - tradisional/tradisi
trail - rute
transport - transportasi
unique - unik

That's twenty-one words you can instantly recognize.

A couple more handy words:
and - dan (the same letters but the letter d is at the start instead of the end)
you - anda (I think of  'and you')

Restaurant Menus
Looking at Restaurants and food kiosks and the food in supermarkets at Singapore airport, you will soon learn that Makan / makanan means food, meal, or eat and Minuman means drink or drinks.

Some items you might spot on menus:
English - Malay
icon - ikon
chocolate - coklat
satay - sate

Also look for t-shirts with the flag.

And baseball hats. I bought mine for 5 dollars on the YWCA shop.

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is an author, travel writer and photogrpaher and teaches English and other languages.