What did you say again?????

WE seriously need to review the way we Malaysians communicate!! The way we speak, influenced by Malay, Hukkien, Cantonese, Tamil language, has somewhat evolved to some rojak language that I can't quite grasp anymore. I used to think our language is unique..one in a million...now I think we were just fooling ourselves, because even if we were multi-lingual , we most certainly are not living in "harmony" as most travelogues would say.

I had a meeting yesterday with my suppliers that comprises of a Malay, a Mamak and my colleague who was a Malay. We had a coffee session, and I swear, I only understood probably 40% of the conversation, and most of the time, I was giving very general comment like "Oh, yar, yar....", " Oh really?"... And, we were all speaking in a common language, Malay. Even I made an effort to converse in Malay. Throughout the conversation, I fine myself zoning out and wondering if this was caused by bad conversation skills or by the rojak language the Malaysians created........

In much contrast, I came upon this group of well English speakers in the TESOL class I'm undertaking. I mean, they're really good, some are teaching English in International Schools so go figure! The lecturer encourages constant interaction among the students, and there was a live and animatic discussion. But, even so, even with that kind of fluency, there was one particular lady who kept missing the point in ALL our discussions. And mind you, in this class, everyone's expected to speak proper English, so we weren't exactly speaking Manglish. And then there was one who was a teacher but he uses the BIG vocabulary in the wrong context...and this guy is supposed to be an English teacher!!! Have mercy on his poor don't-know-better students!

So, it's definitely time to review and re-evaluate the way we speak. Is it the language we are using? Is it our inability to decipher and analyze when in a robust conversation? Is it the lack of general knowledge? Until we are able to pinpoint at least our own flaws, we Malaysians may never make it to the "international" scene to discuss "properly" with the *big boys*.