How To Remember The Days Of The Week In Malay

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My family picked up a free for customers 2020 calendar produced by Suzuki in a garage in Singapore.


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The calendar has English, Malay and Mandarin.

Days of the week
English - Malay
Sunday - Ahad
Monday - Isnin
Tuesday - Selasa
Wednesday - Rabu
Thursday - Khamis
Friday - Jumaat
Saturday - Sabtu

How do you remember them? Firstly, let's sort out Saturday and Sunday.
Sabtu begins with an S and you might think it is Sabbath and Sunday. No, it is Saturday. Easier than you think. The Moslems celebrate on Friday, the Jews on Saturday and the Christians on Sunday.
So how do you remember Sabtu is like the Jewish Sabbath. Don't bother worrying about that. The simple way is to simply look at the letters. Saturday and Sabtu begin with the same two letters.

Malay- English
Ahad - Sunday - AH- A Day of rest, for most, Sunday. I/Ah had a good day of rest.
Isnin - Monday - iIS it Not n the office day, moNday. It's not monday, is it?
Selasa - Tuesday - Selasa SE in TuESday. SEcond day of the week. SElasa.
Rabu - Wednesday - RABU short four letters, remember it's half way, about midweek, you (U) only have two days to the weekend, Wednesday
Khamis - Thursday - Khamis with an h kHamis is tHursday. Coming to the end of the week. Hurray!
Jumaat - Friday - Jumaat - Jews celebrate Friday night, eve of Sabbath, and Moslems Are AT prayer All day.
Sabtu - Saturday - SA-btu is SA-turday

The memory aids are helpful even if they simply make you keep re-reading the list of the days of the week it until you remember them all.

Now let's look at them and see if you can remember the English from the Malay.

Sabtu - which day?
Ahad - which day?

Isnin - which day?
Selasa - which day?

Rabu - which day?
Khamis - which day?

Jumaat - which day?
Sabtu - which day?

Now, let's mix them up.
Isnin - ?
Jumaat - ?
Ahad - ?
Rabu - ?
Selasa - ?
Khamis - ?
Rabu - ?
Sabtu - ?

Now let's try them in a sentence. Will I see you Monday?
Isnin.

Useful Websites
Malaysia tourism
https://www.tourism.gov.my/

Malay/Indonesian languages
Duolingo.com


About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Teacher of English and other languages. Please share links to your favourite posts.