Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

Indeed. Penang Island being a bit of a Chinese enclave that may be the case. Expect a lot of the Chinese living there don't use Malay much at all.
Still Hokkien would take far greater effort to learn...

Good luck with the learning I found it rather a fun language to learn and the Malay folk very encouraging as well.

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

I reckon Malay would pay more dividends than Hokkien, even in Penang. Hokkien-versed Chinese may not use Malay day-to-day but they tend to be more fuent in Malay than English, so you'll be able to communicate at least.

But also, Hokkien is but an offshoot from Mandarin. If you're going to learn such a massively complicated language (from the Latin-based languages point of view anyway) better you learn Mandarin, given that 1.2 billion peeps, give or take 1 or 2, speak Mandarin.

I agree Troubadour, Malay is quite rewarding to learn, because the learning curve is rather steep; you can master it quickly in a relatively short period of time.

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

I thought much the same thing in that why go to the effort of learning Hokkien which is of limited value and I think a little crude sounding to Chinese ears( well Hakka does)when one would be far better of with
Mandarin.
Be a shame not to learn Malay. Even worth paying someone just to communicate to. Trick is start speaking sooner than later.
Malay is a great language to mix with English. Can't do the same in French.

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

Chinese is not as hard as it sounds. The longest word has 5 letters and generally sentence construction is the same as English (unlike Malay of French for example) The trick is to learn the "song" and in Cantonese for example each word has up to 7 unrelated meaning depending how you "sing" it. Hokkien is similar and shares many words with Cantonese.

Mandarin is not like either at all and only has 4 meaning for each word, although I find pronunciation harder. Counting is quite easy and useful when haggling with shopkeepers.:blink:

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

I learned a fair bit of Mandarin in the UAE. All of the people I socialised with in Penang were Chinese and to a person they advised learn Mandarin and they will gradually then inject the Hokkien 'slang' as they call it to my vocab as time goes on.

Back in the UK now and my advanced Mandarin course has arrived, keep me occupied as I make plans to ship period :) Mandarin will always come in useful I think. Hokkien will sure impress the hawkers. Many of the people I know there have children and they all say they educate their children through Chinese Ed (Mandarin) and speak Mandarin to them at home but between adults it's often Hokkien, or English or BM but more often a cocktail of all three. Many of them speak Cantonese too.

Agree with Strider re the clarity of Chinese language if you practice the sing. Just listen to the Chinese announcements at KLIA. Clear as crsytal. Nice language :thumbup:

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

If I were younger, I would think about Mandarin but cannot see the point in retirement when I'll only be travelling around Malaysia probably and bordering countries. Had too much air travel when we ran our business.

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

Makes sense, BB. Same here.

English is my second language, which Ive pretty much mastered and will always fall back on should a Babylonian scenario occur.

To start from scratch and learn Mandarin when my life will be centered around Malaysia, possibly Indonesia, seems to be more trouble than it's worth. I'd rather go fishing :)

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

Crikey, I thought you were a Brit. Your English is excellent.

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

I suppose it depends on what you enjoy doing and whether you will both enjoy learning a language, for what ever benefit you personally will get from it, and can learn it depending on the difficulty. I plan to visit China quite extensively, already have a reasonable grounding in Mandarin, enjoy the language and the people so it's no problem for me. What would be a PITA to one person can easily be a pleasurable hobby to another. I plan to pick up Malay as well though. Languages never that much of a problem for me luckily.

I enjoy fishing too, esp sea bass by lure and fly fishing :thumbsup:

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

Fly flishing eh? Where do you go? When we drive up to Tanjung Resang, we cross about half a dozen decent sungai, with lots of overhanging branches and what-not. Should be ideal for fly fishing, especially if you go upstream a few clicks, because it's totally ulu.

I'd love to do a few sorties, explore Johor's fly fishing potential. It think it could be huge.

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

UK at moment :-(

Plan to be out there soon though, real soon. It would sure be good to hit some of the hot spots. Maybe we cold plan the odd joint venture? You ever do sea fishing at all, mine is mainly off shore for bass with light weight 7' lure rod, Tenyru cracking piece of kit :thumbsup:

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

I used to fish off WA, Australia, near Dampier, in the north. Great spots for mackerel, trevally, queenie, excellent fun.

I haven't done any serious fishing off Malaysia yet, but I know it's brimming with big pelagics and grouper types from Mersing on upwards.

By all means let me know when you're around; I'll set us up with a boat.

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

Cracking, look forward to it :thumbsup:

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

Wonder if any newbies are considering Malaysia? It does appear to me that most folk whom have retired or are in the process of moving to Malaysia have had experience here or at the very least in the Far East or Near North(to Australians) so know somewhat the ropes to living in the Tropics.

Just wonder has anyone decided or are considering a move to MY or indeed one of the neighbouring lands whom have not done any of the above?
Perhaps had a holiday or read about it on a Forum like this and the idea came about from that?

Re: Why Retire in Malaysia?
 

Sorry, what's the question?

:)