English helped me learn Malay

It is interesting to study a language. I liked to study Malay when I was in primary school. At that time, my cikgu (teacher) was a Malay man. In order to learn the meaning of a certain word, I always said, "Cikgu, what is the meaning of (the word I want to ask him)?" He would tell me the meaning in English. Then I would go home and look up my English-Chinese dictionary for the meaning in Chinese. In this way, I accumulated quite a number of words in my vocabulary. There was no such thing as writing an essay then. So it was mainly learning how to pronounce the words and knowing their meanings. My interest in Malay stays with me until now. I will definitely look up the meaning of any new Malay word whose meaning I am not sure of in my Kamus Dewan (the official dictionary by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka).