In Malaysia and Indonesia and the Food Courts of Singapore you will see lots of Malay words for food and drink. Makan (verb) means eat and food for short, and makanan for food. Miniman means drink. Indonesian and Malay are similar with a few differences in vocabulary, with Portuguese words or derived words added in Indonesia.
In Singapore you see signs and hear announcements on the MRT (Mass Rapid Transport) trains, in the four national languages, English, Chinese (Mandarin), Malay and Tamil. The easiest language to pick up quickly is Malay, because the script is one which English speakers recognize, and what you see is what you say. (Technical term, a phonetic language.)
I looked at the English language and Malay language versions of a health leaflet about vaccinations and found lots of similar words. You will easily recognize:
Malay - English
aktif - active
aktiviti - activity/activities
doktor - doctor
fizikal - physical
kronik - chronic
program - programme
serius - serious
sistem - system
sosial - social
vaksin - vaccine
vaksinasi - vaccination/vaccinated
Some common words (with my memory aid hints)
Malay - English
anda - you/your (I'm fine - and you?)
atas - above (at the top, like a hat)
atau - or
bagi - for
boleh - can
dan - and (same letters in a different order)
di - at
diri - self (direct it back to yourself)
ini - this (in, inside or on or is this, isn't it innit?)
orang (as in orang utan) person
orang-orang (plural is doubled) people
rumah - home (room at home, letter m in both languages)
selamat - safe (Letters s a a and e in both words)
wanita - woman/women (initial letter w in both words, and the e in women is pronounced like i, it is a woman)
Malay is very similar to Indonesia.
Useful web sites
duolingo.com Indonesian
Facebook Polyglot groups
translate google
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