PETRONAS TOWERS, KL, Malaysia. How would I describe them? "Tinggi!"
Problem
What can I say when I visit a landmark in a foreign country? What am I likely to hear the local people saying?
I was looking at the pictures of the Twin Towers or Petronas Towers in KL (Kuala Lumpur) in Malaysia.
I went into Google translate and tried the words big, high, and beautiful.
In Malay language (which they call Bahasa Malay (not to be confused with Malayala which is in Indian language) I got these results:
English - Malay
big - besar (big as a bazaar)
beautiful - cantik (Malay is simple, K instead of c or ck; so beautiful it can tick all the boxes)
high - tinggi - (so high it makes me tingle just looking down!)
English - Indonesian
beautiful - indah (Indonesian girls are indah - beautiful)
big - besar (same as Malay)
high - tinggi (same as Malay)
So, two of the three words are the same in Malay and Indonesian. We can make ourselves understood and understand what others are saying.
My Malay memory aids are 'big as a bazaar'; besar, big. Alliterative b and b.
***
So now you can say, in Malay or Indonesian, in Malaysia, Indonesia, or Singapore, to a Malaysian, Indonesian - or just think it to yourself to remind yourself of your words in foreign languages. Tinggi - tinglingly high.
Tower on Community Club Tampines West in Singapore. "Tinggi!"Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
You always need to reverse to check the exact meaning of the translation. I once tried translating nail file into French and got the words clou (a nail which you hammer into wood, and dossier - clearly stationery).
Click on the arrows at the top of the text box in Google translate to reverse the languages (the words swap languages appear when you hover over the arrows) and you find the words:
MALAY - English
besar - big
tinggi - height
cantik - beautiful
Watch out if you try to change the order into alphabetical. I did that and ended up matching the wrong words. I thought it would save me time to just change one word at a time, but it then took me ages because I had to go back to the start and check every pair to be sure I had not got it wrong.
Reverse again and you get:
English - MALAY
big - besar
height - ketinggian
beautiful - cantik (Can tick all the boxes for beauty in Malaysia or worldwide.)
Now try that reversing check with Indonesian:
English - INDONESIAN
big - besar
high - tinggi
height - tinggi
beautiful - indah (Beautiful as an Indonesian girl.)
Now we know the three magic words to we can say and nod at the top of the Twin Towers in KL, or looking at pictures of the twin towers in New York or any skyscraper in the USA.
Trump Tower, USA. How would you describe it? Besar? Tinggi? Indah or cantik?
You and I can also say these Malay and Indonesian words when shown to a bedroom on an upper floor of the hotel next door to the Petronas Towers (the hotel where my husband and I stayed for two nights at the weekend in KL to get one full day of sightseeing).
I am an aspiring polyglot.
If you like the Google translations, or don't like them, you can join the Google Translate community. The idea is that everything has to be approved by several people before it is added or changed, or noted as a 'possible' translation. Several websites, nowadays, including Duolingo (language teaching) and Wikipedia, offer the public a chance to suggest changes and to go onto forums discussing translations or asking questions.
Useful Websites For Travellers Learning Languages
Duolingo
Duolingo.com
Google Translate
translate.google.com
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, teacher of English language and other languages. Please share your favourite posts with your friends and family and colleagues.
