I guess it's not necessary to learn as most folks seem to speak English, but you do come across a number of signboards and road signs in Malay.

On one of my first trips to Penang, and I already knew that Jalan meant street, I was amazed at this incredibly long road in Georgetown called Jalan Sehala, then eventually the ringgit dropped and realised it meant One Way Street

Hehehe! It sure pays to learn some useful Malay phrases especially if you are living or visiting Malaysia regularly. What I would love to have is a device that can translate Malay phrases into English and vice versa but then again it makes one lazy about learning the language.

I think there's quite a lot of online dictionaries, so all you need is one of those handheld devices with internet I suppose.

Hmmmmmmm! Has anyone bought a hand held device and which would you recommend?

I would recommend the Iphone 4 (Maxis, Digi). And for translating I would recommend using google translate. After 3 years in Malaysia I've learnt very little Bahasa Malayu and have found that English is has got me everything I've needed so far.... though I do find a lot of people think I am saying 3 when I say 2 and vice versa. Anyone else come across this as well or is it simply my zummerzet accent?!

Yes I don't get it with the 2s and 3s. We find we have to try and change our vowels a little bit sometimes too - change A to E helps. At the foodcourt if we order Anchor beer, quite often they bring up Tiger <go figure> but if we pronounce it as Engker, we get Anchor

Could be the British accent. Wait till you hear how the Kiwis pronounced six....usually sounds more like sex.

I don't seem to have difficulty with my 2s and 3s as well as the Anchor or tiger beer ..............probably because I lived there many, many years ago.

You're dead right of course.

I think you are correct there, but there's a couple of things I've noticed the past few weeks.

First, driving down the expressway to KL, all the road signs are in Malay, so it's a bit handy.

Secondly, and this happened to me today, in shops and other places, I've noticed that shop assistants (who can speak perfect English of course) will quite often huddle together and say something in Malay (presumably not meant for my ears) so I think it will be quite useful for eavesdropping

In the old days when I worked in Malaysia, the question was which language to learn. In those days, before English as a language was side lined, most people spoke good English (as they still do in many country towns). But being in business I has to deal with Chinese more often than other ethnic backgrounds. So then the question became, which Chinese dialect should I learn. The answer in my case was Cantonese. So I did learn to count in Cantonese. Very useful as the huddle you speak of in my case as a buyer, was to discuss their buying price and work out how much to sting round eyes. I would take their buy price and add 10% and stick to that. Much screaming, pounding of chests, cries of starving children etc, but I got my price.

Must have hurt as the CNY hampers reduced from 3 or 4 bottles of VSOP and maybe an XO, down to local rocket fuel with brandy essence over the years. The wonder was that they didn't catch on to my being able to count and I only let on at my farewell party....just as well I was on a plane next day.

Never could get on with Malay though, as not only is it still evolving, but construction is akin to French...nuff said. Cantonese however has sentence construction very like English and usually it was a case of direct word translation. The fact that every word has 7 different levels of "song" and non of the meanings are similar in any way. Makes for some terrible gaffs sometimes, but the Chinese always laugh with you and are happy you tried.

I dunno, I find Malay sort of logical and very nice not to have to learn new characters Thai was pretty challenging. I have every respect for anyone who has learnt any kind of Chinese dialect. It looks very difficult to me. Did you learn to write the characters?

I know someone here who has learnt a lot of Hokkien and it sounds really impressive to me, but he tells me he hasn't got all the tonal stuff mastered and, as you say, a lot of gaffs. I just don't think I could do tonal.

No. Characters for 1,2&3 are ok but gets complicated after that. Thai would be impossible for me. I have sadly forgotten most of my limited "business" Cantonese, so these days its down to ordering a favourite dish or drink. I'm very very slowly getting to understand one or two words of Malay, but its an uphill battle for this old bloke....and all the young ones speak so fast....in any language......snot old age....is it?

Malay language is easy to learn and practise, but am more interested in Thais language, soon I will take the course:-) Sawadikhap...

From personal experience it's not that easy! 3 years in and I can still only speak sedikit sedikit... mostly as locals want to practice their English when talking to me so I never get a change to speak Malay, but when the do speak it is soooo fast! (I am the only expat in an office with over 300 Malay staff so should be an ideal situation to learn!!:)

I never was good at languages mind...

Ha ha, you better get over to the Thai sub-forum I learnt a bit when I was living there. Forgive me correcting you, but I see you are female, so you must say Sawadi-kar. A man will say Sawadi-khap. I enjoyed learning it but the characters... whorrrr... and they don't all go left to right either. And after I discovered that they don't put gaps in between words, that finished it off for me. A bit too challenging for my senior brain Anyway best of luck with that. It's an interesting language and I'm sure your braincells function a little better than mine

How many languages do you speak, Stranded?