Some words in Malay and English with the same spellings

In the course of studying both English and Malay, I have found a few words with the same spellings in both languages. I shall list them in this post.


The first word is ‘air’. In English it means the moving gas around us but in Malay it means ‘water’. In Malaysian petrol stations, the sign board for ‘air and water’ is placed beside the air pump and water tap. The Malay equivalent is ‘angin dan air’ [wind and water] because air in Malay is ‘udara’ but the gas that comes out of the pump is known as ‘angin’ [wind].


The second word is ‘cat’ which is a feline species but in Malay is ‘paint’. For example, ‘Saya menyapukan cat biru pada dinding itu’ means ‘I applied the blue paint to the wall.’


The next word is ‘pun’ which means ‘the humorous use of a word to suggest different meanings’ but in Malay it carries the meaning of ‘also’. For example, ‘Dia pun dating.’ Means ‘He came too.”


The fourth on the list is ‘main’. In English it means ‘chief or principal’ but in Malay it means ‘play’. An example is ‘Jangan main di sini.’ which means ‘Don’t play here.’


So far these are the ones I can think of. If there are more to come, I will post them later.