"ko ni mmg sng nk absorb bljr language kot, kn?"
a friend said that to me once not too long ago. i nvr think of it as d special skill/ability that i hv. to me, anything that involves LEARNING new things/skills msti kna kerja keras, hatta nk bljr language sekalipun. then, lps dh brjaya bljr that new thing/skill, kna dipraktikkan.
i'm glad that i went to skolah kbgsn (SRK Convent actually) for 6 years. i started learning d basics to read, write, listen and speak in English during those years. i'm not saying that bdk2 skolah Convent je pandai guna English. tp, there's a slight advantage actually. d school didn't enforce us to speak in english. and i don't think we have English-speaking day, etc. spelling bee? hmmm... i can't recall whether we have that as well. tp cz kenkwn skolah ms tu gna english, it felt natural to just follow and speak using d same language. it wasn't perfect english. grammar tunggang terbalik (smpi skrg pn mmg tunggang terbalik), english rojak2 (English + B. Malaysia). tp xde org gelakkan. in fact, bila ada terslh sebut, ada yg akn betulkn. and that's hw i learn english... selain dr bc buku citer english (beli buku citer B. Malaysia adalah dilarang kat rumah), dgr lagu & bc newspaper cm newscaster/deejay (dibuat bila sorg2).
then came secondary school. d school i went to requires students utk pilih 1 foreign language & u'll learn that language for 4 years. Arabic, French and Japanese... and i chose Japanese. d same basics of reading, writing, listening and speaking, this time in Japanese, smpi Form 4. org Jepun ada mcm2 jns tulisan (Hiragana, Katakana & Kanji). each year kitrg bljr 1 jns tulisan. plg sng Hiragana, dats y bljr ms Form 1 =) ms Form 2 tmbh lk Katakana (tp Hiragana still kna igt). naik Form 3, bljr tulisan yg cm simbol, Kanji. plg susah la ni. yg Hiragana & Katakana tu still kna igt gk. bljr vocab & grammar. every yr ada Japanese Profeciency Test. sume bdk2 dr boarding school len yg amik Bahasa Jepun will sit for d same exam... reading, writing & listening skills were tested. result kuar, tnjk ko dpt nmbr brp among sume bdk2 yg amik exam tu, okeh. bknnye tnjk result ko among kwn2 sma skolah. sll nma i dlm list ntah yg ke brp ratus ntah, huhuhu... sian cekgu pnt mengajar dgn pnh bersemangat. cekgu lk mmg pure org Jepun yg sll tnjk emosi excited tnpa kwln :) paling best bljr Japanese ms skolah bila sensei bg tgk video (zmn dulu video la) kumpulan SMAP. asal tgk video, sume kusyu', hahaha...
then masuk matric centre. 1st semester masuk uni (for 3 months), dpt 1bilik dgn bdk Sarawak. kitrg berborak gna bahasa Melayu biasa. tp this roommate ada kwn, bdk Sarawak gk. her room wasn't far from ours. so, bila kwn dia ni dtg bilik i, diorg brckp gna bahasa melayu Sarawak. bila diorg brckp dgn i (& sebaliknye), diorg kna tune jd bahasa Melayu biasa. kesian. just imagine bila d 3 of us were sitting together... asal i menyampuk/tanya je (suprisingly, i leh phm pe diorg 2 ckp), diorg reply gna bahasa Melayu biasa. so, utk memudahkn diorg xyh nk wt fine tuning bahasa, i told them that i'm going 2speak gna bahasa melayu swak gk when i'm with them. & diorg ok je. i learn d vocab&sentence construction. xde la susah mana pn. abis je 3bln, dh x dpt sama bilik, tp i still gna bahasa melayu swak bila i dgn diorg.
bahasa Sarawak i bljr informally. yg formal kna bljr, yg akn tntukn whether i lh masuk main campus/x is bahasa Arab. memndgkn xde basic bahasa arab, kna bljr dr basic & i kna lulus smpi level 3. bljr lg skali reading, writing, listening, speaking skills in Arabic lk. nsb baik tau huruf jawi. msa exam speaking level 3, cuak thp maksima. kna speaking dpn ustaz. xlh nk ckp xtau/xphm, krg xlulus, nt xlh g main campus. nk pulak that was my final semester for matriculation. xnk la xlulus then 1 semester kna bljr arabic je. i leh phm org ckp pe (during that time) tp i xtau nk reply/berckp sndiri. nsb baik bila exam speaking tu phm la soalan ustaz... being translated here as "tlg ceritakn psl keluarga kamu". ok, i pungpangpungpang jwb yg i tau. bila tiba kna ty "mak kamu kerja apa?". cmne nk jwb cz i xbljr "operator mesin pemprosesan data" in arabic tu amenda. so, amik jln senang, ckp je "cekgu", hahaha... tiada niat nk menipu ok.
dlm semua languages yg i dh bljr tu, i can say that i still know a lil' bit of those languages. i read, write, listen, and speak in English everyday. i can still read Japanese Hiragana, still know how to write my name in Katakana, still remember that "tegami" is letter, "jitensya" is bicycle, "byoo-in" is hospital, "kabang" is bag in Japanese (among d words that i can still remember). i can sing "Head and shoulders, knees and toes, eyes ears mouth and nose" in Japanese =) i speak bahasa melayu sarawak with my sarawakian officemate. and i can read arabic to do transliteration of books as well as understand simple conversation among our foreign student (it also helped me, a lil' bit, when i performed umrah last yr). so, when my father asked me recently whether i'm interested to learn new language, i said yes. & what language u may ask... it's mandarin. read, write, listen and speak in mandarin, i hope to start anytime this year. insyaallah.
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