Begin Learning Malay and Indonesian - A Few Words Of Malay and Indonesian

Singapore flag

I was standing by the lift on the ground floor of a building in Singapore. Americans would say first floor and elevator.

A woman waiting for the lift was conversing in a foreign language to the cleaner. I heard her greet him.

Malay flag.

Malay Language
I recognized the words selamat pagi, which means good day, so I knew the language was Malay. After that I did not understand a word.

However, I heard one word repeated. So when we got into the lift I asked her what it meant. It was a number.

Later I asked my family, who know a smattering of Indonesian, mostly the same vocabulary, and overlapping with Malay from regular visits to Malaysia by motorbike, and trekking in Indonesia, what are the numbers.

Indonesian flag

"I can tall you Indonesian a few, zero, one two thee four five. Nul is zero. Satu dua tigga, empat, lima. It rhymes."

"Ah. Anything else?"

"The first thing that men on bikes learn to say is satu bir, one beer, meaning another beer."

From the announcements on the train stations I hear the English then can recognize the Malay instruction to ring 999 in emergencies. Nince nine nine is sembilan, sembilan, sembilan." that's six out of ten, over half way there. More later.

Most Malay speakers will understand Indonesian and vice versa

English - Malay/Indonesian
zero - nol Indonesian (like English words  nil or nullify) Malay sifar
one - satu (I remember I am satisfied with one)
two - dua (as in dual or duo)
three - tigga (t as in three and the i in the Malay is pronounced like the ee in the English word three, remember tea for three)
four - empat
five - lima (letter i in both the Malay and English, five of us are leaving for Lima)
good morning - selamat pagi
one beer - satu bir (bir sounds and looks like beer, letters b and r)
sembilan, sembilan, sembilan 999

dua, tiga
empat, lima
 two, three
four five

Easy to remember.
du -a
tig -a
em-pat
lim-a
Not quite a rhyme but a definite rhythm of two syllables.
Tig-a and lim-a are assonance, sounds echoing.

Malay-English
nul - zero
satu - one
dua - two
tigga - three
empat - four
lima - five
selamat pagi - good morning
satu lagi - one beer / another beer

I want to learn both Malay and Indonesian with the minimum outlay of money and time. So I am learning online.

I prefer Duolingo to Memrise, but some people suggest using both. Here are the handy links and a comparison of these two language learning systems and others.

If you already speak Malay and want to keep it up, in Singapore you can attend or joing the Toastmasters Clubs, Jauhari (Malay) which meets on a Saturday late afternoon, or the Indonesian Professional Speakers Association. Other Toastmasters clubs are in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Useful Websites
duolingo.com
memrise.com
https://www.alllanguageresources.com/memrise-vs-duolingo/
https://www.memrise.com/course/193830/beginners-malay/
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English and other languages