A few days ago, I went to the Fireflies Park and there, I was surprised to see Brits (Or maybe they were Americans? I couldn’t tell.) and also Japanese at the park. I was really happy because I could understand a little of what those Japanese were saying- even though I was totally eavesdropping (Very rude of me, I know!) This proves that my 4 years of learning Japanese is a success! Even my father praised me :)

Unfortunately, I couldn’t comprehend what the Brits were saying, though I’m not entirely sure that they were Brits, they could be Americans.

It really was a pity because I have been learning/speaking English for many, many, many years. I was really depressed after that because I was thinking that my English… sucks.

I came up with many conclusions to convince myself of my fluency:

1) I just couldn’t hear them well because they were too far away (Or I could be deaf)
2) I was not used to hearing their thick accent.
3) They were fast talkers.
4) The sea was doing this weird thing to my brain (The Fireflies Park is located near the sea, in fact, we had to wait till dark and then get on a boat to see the fireflies who like to roam around mangroves)
5) I hit my head on the car door and was losing sense.
6) They might not be Brits or Americans after all, they could be French!

I know, some of those reasons don’t make sense. I also know that some most of you won’t think about your ability to speak English. Some of the reasons could be because you have been speaking that language since you were born (For Americans and Brits) or perhaps you consider English your second language (For Asians especially). But it’s neither for me.

My home language is Mandarin but I do not consider it my first language of choice. Part of the reason is because my Mandarin is quite bad. I think I got the grasp of the accent but my vocabulary is not that impressive. I have attended Mandarin classes before but I quit 3 months later.

In Malaysia, we are multiracial, multicultural, multicoloured and all the other multis available. We are also multilingual with English as an international language and Malay as our national language. Plus, we have Mandarin for the Chinese and Tamil for the Hindus.

For me, Malay is a tedious language. It is hard to learn that language due to the fact that it is an ever-evolving language, thanks to our Institute of Language and Literature. As mentioned above, my Mandarin is BAD. Tamil is an interesting language but sadly I am only familiar with the profanities that I’ve learnt from my Indian friends. Japanese is also a wonderful language but it is really hard to learn and it will take many years. English however, is a language I took seriously.

I ‘fell in love’ with English even before I was in kindergarten. Even then, I was more keen of learning English than Mandarin. I learned my ‘one, two, three…’ earlier than my ’一, 二, 三…’ or ‘Yi, Er, San…’

It is depressing to know that you sucked in a language you had so much confidence in.

It’s true that in Malaysia, another version of English exists. It’s call Manglish. It’s sort of a mix between broken English with Chinese and Malay thrown in together. It is really slangy and only spoken in Malaysia. But of course Singapore has Singlish which is totally similar to Manglish.

All Most Malaysians speak Manglish but we are able to revert back to standard English when circumstances call for it. We are very flexible :)

If spoken in other parts of the world, no one would be able to comprehend us because it is like a whole different language. Observe:

A: You doing what now?
B: Nothing-lor.
A: Want come with me go mamak?
B: Eh, cannot-leh.
A: Aiyah, very fast one-lar. 5 minutes we can come back oledy one.
B: Later my boss scold me-lah.
A: Haih, nevermind-la.

Manglish involves many additional particles like ‘-lor’, ‘-lah’, ‘-leh’ and also derived terms from English like ‘oledy’ which means ‘already’. There are also borrowed terms from Malay and Chinese like ‘mamak’ which means ‘food stall’. Below is a translated version:

A: What are you doing now?
B: Nothing much.
A: Do you want to get something to eat?
B: I can’t.
A: We’ll be quick. We can be back in 5 minutes.
B: My boss will tell me off.
A: *Sighs* Never mind then.

Okay… Weird… I’m suppose to be depressed over the fact that my English sucks.

P.S. The fireflies I saw were REALLY tiny, it ruined my dreams and fantasies to see them light up the night. But, I enjoyed myself a little because those fireflies really liked me! They kinda clung onto my fingers :D

~ Anonymously Secret