What Goes Under the Sun

It is 'T'neah Kong Seah' again

2012-01-30T23:13:00.002+08:00

When the clock strikes twelve zero one at midnight, the sound of firecrackers will be heard.

Yes, it is T'neah Kong Sneah (The Birthday of the Jade Emperor) again.

Legend has it that the Hokkien people were saved from being slaughtered by their enemies when they hid among the leaves of the sugarcane when they passed by a sugarcane plantation. Hence, on T'neah Kong Sneah, the main item is a pair of sugarcane plants with all its leaves and roots intact tied to the legs of the altar used to pray to the Jade Emperor of the Heavenly Realm. It is a way the Hokkien people say thank you to this plant for saving their lives.

Other items for prayer include 'ong lai' (pineapple) to bring in good luck, 'nian gao' to symbolises getting promotion year after year.

Happy praying to the Jade Emperor to all Chinese, especially the Hokkiens.

The three-day rental scam

2012-01-24T20:48:00.002+08:00

If you have a house for rent, watch out for people who offer to pay you very attractive rental.

There is evil intention behind their act. Read the following true account of the rental scam.

A man, Mr X wanted to rent a house on a daily basis after having seen the telephone number of the house owner somewhere.

He offered to pay RM200 per day for three days that he would stay in the house. This transpired only through the phone. Being a busy man, the house owner had no time to see this tenant and he would come to collect the RM600 on the third day. Meanwhile he asked the tenant to collect the keys from the guardhouse as he left them with the guard.

On the third day, the house owner telephoned the tenant because he wanted to collect the rental from the man. However, the telephone was not opened. He tried several times and lt went dead all the time. Feeling suspicious he went to his flat unit and sure enough the man had esconded. Hence he locked his house with a new lock.

On the next day, a group of Banglashis came to the flat, telling the guard they were renting a house there. The guard took them to the unit mentioned earlier. They could not open the door of the flat unit. The guard then telephoned the house owner. He told them that he was not renting out the unit at that moment.

Only then did the foreign workers realise that the earlier temporary tenant had cheated them. He collected RM1900 from them, that is RM800 for deposit, RM800 for one month's rent and RM300 as utility bill deposit. He had produced an agreement with fake name and IC number on his part.

In conclusion, the unscrupulous tenant had cashed in on his deal with the house owner, milking money out of the Bangladeshis who worked in a nasi kandar eatery.

The Chinese usher in Year of the Dragon today

2012-01-23T17:11:00.005+08:00

Today is the first day of Xin Nian or Chinese New Year. For this year, it is the year of the dragon.

Dragon symbolizes power and hence commoners were not allowed to wear clothing bearing any resemblance of the dragon. Only the King in China has the picture of dragon embossed on his attire which was known as 'long pao' or dragon robe.

The Chinese also likes to be associated with the dragon that they call themselves 'long de chuan ren' or 'descendents of the dragon'

It is believed that this year's dragon will bring in wealth or money as it is a 'water dragon'. In 'wu xing' or the five elements, the dragon belongs to water, one of the five elements. The other four are gold, wood, earth and fire.

When working at your desk, it is suggested you face west and avoid south-easterly direction.

Reunion Dinner

2012-01-22T23:16:00.002+08:00

Today is the day of get-together for family members far and near as it is Reunion Day - the Chinese New Year Eve.

Most Chinese people are working outside their hometowns and they seldom meet. However, once a year they will make it a point to get together over dinner when everyone will be present. It is during Reunion Dinner that they are together again as one family.

Usually steamboat dinner is the best choice with so many members of the family around.

I just finished Reunion Dinner with my family members. For this year, we can vegetarian steamboat. It is not a bad idea to go vegetarian as it is good for our health.

Taboos when making nian gao

2012-01-20T22:24:00.002+08:00

Nian gao or what is know as kuih bakul in Malay is the glutinous rice dumpling cooked over slow fire for 12 to 24 hours. It is a must for Chinese New Year as the Chinese will place it on the altar of the Kitchen Dewa in the hope that He will make a good report of the household for the year in front of Jade Emperor in the Heavenly Realm when He goes there on the 24th of the twelfth lunar month. It serves as a 'bribe' to aske Him to report only the good things and leave all the bad ones.

When preparing this 'dodol' type of cake, there are certain taboos to be observed. No one should utter things that 'it won't turn out well', 'it will not turn to the colour of gold' or some negative thing said before it is cooked. If such things are uttered, nian gao will not turn out as it should be.

Moreover, ladies having period are also not allowed to prepare this food or it will turn out to the right colour and texture.

So much for taboos about making nian gao.

How to use 'lend itself to' in a sentence

2012-01-17T22:58:00.003+08:00

The expression 'lend itself to' means 'is suitable for'. You can sentences such as the ones below.

1 This hall lends itself to holding a grand birthday party as it is very spacious.

2 This stadium lends itself to hosting a grand concert as it can accommodate 5000 music enthusiasts.

However, you cannot make a sentence as follows.

This shirt lends itself to being worn by kids only.

You can say 'This shirt is only suitable for children only.'

A quick brown fox

2012-01-16T22:54:00.002+08:00

While waiting for my SC (School Certificate) exam results, I enrolled at a typing school to learn typing. This proved useful to me even now because I can type with the correct fingering.

One sentence that I had typed many times and could still remember is the following sentence:

A quick brown fox jumps right over the lazy dog.

It contains all the letters in the English alphabet.

If you are learning to type, type the above sentence many times and you will have ample practice of all the letters on the keyboard.

The Brilliant Mind

2012-01-15T22:11:00.002+08:00

I just finished watching 'The Brilliant Mind' hosted by 8TV. It is a very good programme as it increases one's general knowledge. In the Reality Show, there are three competitors and one of them will be eliminated based on the lowest prize money gained. Then the remaining goes to the next stage of competition and finally one will go to the final when a RM30,000 is waiting for him or her if she managed to answer all the last five questions correctly.

In the first round, each participant is asked a general knowledge question. If he answers correctly he will be given RM300 and he will be allowed to answer question 2 which is based on a roulette with graphics and numbers superimposed and he will be asked to give two numbers where the graphics are identical. This question fetches RM200. Again, the same participant will be given another chance to give another pair of numbers whose grapics are the same in shape. This last question is worth RM400 if answered correctly.

All in all, I enjoyed watching the reality show.

Watching online TV

2012-01-14T13:36:00.002+08:00

When I was touring China, I like to watch CCTV, the local television station. It came as a surprise to me that I could actually watch the same contents worldwide because CCTV has a online version with the same content broadcasted in real time. I discovered only today when I stumbled upon the site where you can choose to watch CCTV 1 until CCTV13.

I was attracted to the CNY special programme where talented people would be chosen to do the annual variety show. CCTV3 is now having auction and it is televised online. I suppose I will be able to watch the real variety show come this Chinese New Year.

It is a wonderful idea for countries to allow the world to view their television programmes as is done by China.

I will have a great time watching some of the wonderful documentaries thru this CCTV.

When air is water

2012-01-13T23:12:00.002+08:00

In Malaysia, notices are displayed in Malay and English. Confusion arises when the spelling of both languages is the same.

For example, when your fill up your petrol at a petrol and needs to inflat you tyre you will go the side when water and the air pump are provided. Here you will see 'Air' and 'Angin' being displayed side by side. To the local people, it is very clear that 'air' means 'water' and 'angin' means 'air'. It will cause confusion to the foreigners as they may think that the Malay 'air' is the same as the air they are familiar with.

Subject verb agreement

2012-01-12T23:34:00.005+08:00

Students should pay attention to subject verb agreement when they write their essays. In this post, I shall tell readers a little bit about this aspect of the English language.

In English, a singular subject should be followed by a singular verb, that is, a verb which has an 's' after it. Look at the following examples.
1 The boy likes to sing. ['boy' is singular and 'likes' is an singular verb.]
2. Hashim drives to work every day. [Hashim is singular and 'drives' is a singular verb.]
3. It is cute. [The pronoun 'It' is singular and the auxiliary verb 'is' is singular.]

When the subject is an abstract noun, it is considered singular and hence takes a singular verb. For instance, you can write sentences such as what are shown below.
1 Water is important to all living things. [Water is an abstract noun and it is singular]
2 Beauty is but skin deep. [Beauty is an abstract noun and is considered to be singular.]

Likewise, a plural subject will take a plural verb, a verb without the 's'. Let us look at some examples.
1 Boys are usualy naughty. ['Boys' is plural and hence takes a plural verb such as 'are']
2 They come here almost every evening. ['They' is plural and is followed by the plural verb 'come']

Some words may not have 's' but are plural in nature. These include cattle, the police, the poor, and the Chinese. Hence you can write sentences such as the ones below.
1 Cattle are reared by the villagers there.
2 The poor are give financial aid by the government.
3 The Chinese are celebrating Chinese New Year a week from now.

So much for subject verb agreement for today's post.

About the Malay word 'bazir'

2012-01-11T23:23:00.002+08:00

The word 'bazir' is one of the Malay words that need to have the prefix 'meN' to be correct. Hence you cannot say 'Jangan bazir semasa menggunakan air.' The correct sentence should be 'Jangan membazir semasa menggunakan air.' (Don't waste water when you use water.'

You can add the suffix 'kan' to 'bazir' to form 'bazirkan' which is used in a command. For example, you can write 'Jangan bazirkan air.' (Don't waste water.)

The word 'bazir' can also be changed to the form 'membazirkan' by appending the suffix 'meN_kan'. You use 'membazirkan' which is a transitive verb in a statement. For instance, you can produce a sentence such as the one below.

Adik suka membazirkan air semasa mandi. (My brother likes to waste water when he bathes.)

To sum, 'bazir' cannot be used without the prefix 'meN'. In a command you can use 'bazirkan' dan in a statement 'membazirkan' is used.

The difference between 'live' and 'stay'

2012-01-10T23:21:00.002+08:00

Do you know the difference between 'live' and 'stay'? If not, then read on.

If you live in a place, you occupy a house, carry on your daily activities from year 1 you were there until now. In other words, 'to live in a place' is to settle down in a place for a long time.

As for 'stay' it means put up in a place for a short time. Hence, when you go to your relative's house outstation, you will be put up there for a few days. In this case, we can say that you will stay there for several days.

So much for the difference in meaning between 'live' and 'stay'.

Happy living in your present house permanently and happy staying in your relative's house for a few days.

How to construct compound sentences in Malay

2012-01-09T23:48:00.002+08:00

The first lesson with my Form 4 Malay Language class invariably begins with the scope of the SPM exam. In the section 'Pengetahuan dan Kemahiran Bahasa' (Knowledge and Skills in Language), students have to construct sentences. In order to make their sentences, I will introduce my cultured drink, the 'yakus' (Mind you, it's not Yakult). It stands for 'yang' (that/which), 'apabila' (when), 'kerana (because)', 'untuk' (to + verb) (to be followed by a verb) and 'supaya' (so that). As long as they include any one of these words in their sentence, it will become a compound sentence.

Let me show readers how this is so through the following sentences.
1 berisi
Dua buah bakul yang berisi buah durian ini dikandar oleh Pak Busu dari dusunnya.
[These two baskets which were filled with durians were carried by Pak Busu on a pole hung on his shoulder from his orchard.]

2 mengisi
Apabila saya mengisi sebarang borang, saya pasti berbuat demikian dengan berhati-hati.
[When I fill in any form, saya will certainly do so carefully.]

3 mengisikan
Saya mengisikan asid ke dalam botol itu dengan berhati-hati kerana tidak mahu menumpahkannya.
[Saya filled the botol with acid carefully because I did not want to spill it.]

4 memenuhi
Penonton sudah memenuhi stadium itu untuk menyaksikan perlawanan bola sepak antara pasukan Malaysia dengan pasukan Singapura.
[The spectators filled the stadium to watch the football match between the Malaysian team and the Singaporean team.]

5 mengekalkan
Aminah sentiasa mengekalkan kebersihan pekarangan rumahnya supaya dapat menjauhkan lalat dan lipas.
[Aminah always keeps her courtyard clean so that she can keep houseflies and cockroaches at bay.]

I hope this tip is useful to SPM students.

Happy constructing compound sentences the 'yakus' way.

CNY is approaching

2012-01-08T23:39:00.003+08:00

CNY or Chinese New Year is approaching. I can feel it when I walk down Ipoh Lane to the Jelutong market every morning. Along the lane, there are stalls selling new year cookies, Mandarin oranges and Xian Nian (New Year) decorative items. Roadside CD stalls are blaring out CNY songs to attract customers to buy them.

The Nian Gao (brown gluttinous rice dumpling) is on sale too. It is used for offering to the Kitchen God to 'bribe' him to tell good things about the household whe He goes to the Jade Emperor to do His annual reports to the Heavenly Emperor on the 24th day of the 12th moon according to the Lunar Calender which falls on the 17th of this month.

Stalls selling New Year dresses are doing a roaring business too. The Chinese will not fail to wear new dresses on New Year Day, the first day of Xin Nian. They like to start with a new beginning, hoping to have a better year ahead.

Come 23rd of January, the Chinese will usher in the Year of the Dragon. Many Chinese are getting married this year because they want to have their babies born in the Year of the Dragon - a very auspicious animal.

The disadvantage of a child born under the Dragon year is keen competition for places in the universities and chances of getting a scholarship when these children reach their college-going year.

About 'akan' in Malay

2012-01-07T22:37:00.003+08:00

The 'akan' in the Malay language can be classified under the group 'kata sendi nama' or prepositions or 'kata bantu' or auxiliary word.

Let me explain how to differentiate between the two.

When 'akan' is used in front of a verb, it belongs to the 'kata bantu' group whereas it becomes a 'kata sendi nama' when it is used after adjectives denoting feeling such as 'suka' (like), 'bimbang' (worry), 'cinta' (love), etc. Perhaps the following examples will clarify what I have said earlie.

1 Dia akan berkunjung ke tempat itu. [He will visit the place.]
'akan' here is a 'kata bantu'.

2 Aminah sangat sayang akan anak tunggalnya. [Aminah loves her only son dearly.]

I hope I have made mayself clear in explaining the different parts of speech for 'akan' in different context.

So do I

2012-01-06T23:44:00.000+08:00

To economise the use of words, there are certain ways you can use to achieve this aim. One of them is explained below.

You use 'So do I' in response to 'My brother likes to eat ice cream.' as uttered by my brother.

Look at some other examples below:
1 She did not come to school yesterday.
So did her sister.
[The longer sentence is Her sister did not come to school yesterday too.]

2 They play badminton in the evening daily.
So does she.
[The longer sentence is She plays badminton in the evening daily too.]

So much for economising the use of words.

My joy was short-lived

2012-01-05T23:18:00.003+08:00

It was good news for me when Telekom Malaysia called me informing me that my condominium flat was unifi-ready. In other words, I will be able to subscribe to unifi - a fast broadband service using optical fibre.

However, my joy was short-lived because when the technician came to install unifi, he found that the jumper for my block was not there yet. Needless to say, the man had to go back and I had to wait for the gadget to be fixed before he could do anything to bring unifi to my unit.

The package that I subscribe to is VIP5 which stands for Video, Internet and Phone with download speed at 5MB/sec. My present Streamyx speed is 2MB per second. There are two other packages, viz VIP10 and VIP20 with higher speed.

Looks like it will be quite some time before I will be able to enjoy the above high speed broadband Internet service.

How to break monotony in your writing

2012-01-04T23:19:00.003+08:00

I have been an examiner of 1119 English. What I really enjoyed was reading a piece of writing that did not bore me. I could tell it because I did not see repetition of the same expression often. The candidate varied his style of writing and he had a good command of the English language besides having a wide vocabulary.

When we write an essay, we should bear in mind our readers. They are the ones who will decide whether to read your written work or not. As such, variation of the style of writing, using different expression to put the same message across is what you need to do. In this respect, mastery of the language in terms of grammar, idioms, synonyms and so on should not be overlooked.

To put it in a nutshell, using various sentence structures, putting different words bearing the same meaning in your writing and inventing clear but interesting expressions will do the tricks of drawing readers to peruse what you have written.

If you are aware, I am just doing that in the preceding paragraphs.

Happy writing to all readers and English language learners.

How to download video clips from Youtube easily

2012-01-03T22:35:00.001+08:00

Youtube has become so popular that every Internet used has used it before. For magic fans like me, the like to watch magic shows performed by Liu Qian. He is so talented in attracting the audience and have them spellbound with his show. You will never feel bored watching his deft hands conjuring things and making them disappear in front of you.

I have tried a few freeware to download video clips from Youtube and I found that the best way is to go an online site to do it. I shall now share this site with readers. The URL is http://keepvid.com.

When you go to this site, there is a space for you to place the URL of the video clip from Youtube. Just dump it there and the intended clip will be shown before it, giving a choice to download as an avi, mp4, or other video formats shown. Click the one you fancy and it will download for you.

By the way, you need to right click your mouse at the Youtube video clip and click 'copy location of url' or something to that effect.

Happy downloading video clips using the above method.

How to use 'antara' correctly

2012-01-02T23:04:00.000+08:00

In the Malay language, the word 'antara' (between / among) can be classifed under kata sendi nama or preposition and kata arah or direction word.

As a preposition, 'antara' is used for situation not related to position. Perhaps, the following examples will suffice to illustrate this point.
1 Antara mereka berdua, saya lebih suka berkawan dengan Azmi. [Between the two of them, I prefer to befriend Azmi.] In this sentence, the word 'mereka' (they) does not show position.

2 Pertandingan nyanyian antara kelas akan diadakan pada hari ini. [Inter-class singing competition will be held today.] In this sentence, kelas (class) does not indicate any sense of direction.

3 Kerjasama antara negara jiran amat penting demi kebaikan bersama. [Co-operation among neighbouring countries is vital for their common good.] In this sentence, too, the phrase 'negara jiran' (neighbouring countries) does not show position.

When 'antara' is used after the preposition 'di' (at), it functions as a kata arah or direction word. The combination of 'di antara' will show position when used in sentences. Let us look at some examples when position is indicated with 'di antara' being used.
1 Adik duduk di antara ibu dengan bapa. [My younger brother / sister is sitting between my mum and my dad.] In this sentence, 'adik' is positioned between 'ibu' (mother) and 'ayah' (father).

2 Kuala Lumpur terletak di antara Perlis dengan Johor. [Kuala Lumpur is situated between Perlis and Johor.] In this sentence, Kuala Lumpur is shown to be occupying a place between Perlis and Johor.

A few points need to be pointed in using 'antara'.
a) When two people or two things are involved using 'antara' is used, the conjunction 'dengan' (and) is to be used and not 'dan' (And) e.g. Antara buah durian dan buah manggis, saya lebih suka makan buah durian. [Wrong]
Antara buah durian dengan buah manggis, saya lebih suka makan buah durian. [Wrong]
[ Between durians and mangosteens, I prefer to eat durians.]

b) The nouns after 'antara' need not be duplicated as antara carries the meaning of being plural in nature. e.g. Antara buah-buah yang dijual di gerai itu, hanya buah nanas ialah buah tempatan. [Incorrect]
Antara buah yang dijual di gerai itu, hanya buah nanas ialah buah tempatan. [Among the fruits sold at the stall, only the pineapple is a local fruit.] [Correct]

c) If three people or things are involved, the conjunction used together with 'antara' is 'dan' (and) and not 'dengan'.
e.g. Antara Ali, Busu dengan Chandran, Busu ialah lelaki yang paling tinggi. [Wrong]
Antara Ali, Busu dan Chandran, Busu ialah lelaki yang paling tinggi. [Correct]

I really hope my post today will help readers to use 'antara' correctly and confidently.

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-01T23:03:00.004+08:00

First of all, let me wish all readers a very Happy New Year.

Today is the first day of 2012. As usual, people will start to make New Year Resolutions only to find that they can't do what have planned to initially. I did the same and was not able to carry out some of them.

For this year, I hope to write something every day. Last year I was not regular in writing my posts and hopefully I will be more regular this year.

Looking back at my posts I wrote more posts on English and Malay than other topics. I tend to write something which I think will be of interest to readers before I start to pen my post.

Sometimes laziness sets in and I do surfing the Internet rather than writing my post. Once you get lazy, it spreads to the next day and the next day. If I can form the habit of writing something daily, then it will be a routine and I won't miss writing the post meant for the day.

Once again, a very Happy New Year to all.

New spelling in Malay

2011-12-26T23:46:00.003+08:00

When Kamus Dewan 4th Edition was published, you will find that some words are given new spelling. These include jawaban (previously jawapan), pelihatan (previously penglihatan) and pelibatan (previously penglibatan). However, the old spelling of each word is still printed and can be used for the time being. For the understanding of international readers, jawaban means answer, pelihatan means eye-sight and pelibatan means involvement.

Some other common errors in spelling committed by users of the Malay language are perletakan (which should be peletakan), and perlantikan (which should be pelantikan). I shall now explain why the spelling in each bracket is correct.

The word peletakan (the act of placing something somewhere) comes from meletakkan or to place. When this verb is transformed into a verbal noun, it should be peletakan and not perletakan. Likewise, pelantikan
9appointment) is derived from melantik (to appoint). Words of the per_an group such as pergaduhan, perlawanan and perlanggaran come from intransitive verbs bergaduh (to quarrel), berlawan (to fight against), and berlanggar (to collide with) respectively.

Similarly pelihatan comes from melihat (to see) and pelibatan comes from melibatkan (to involve). As for jawaban, it is derived from jawab (to answer). I found it awkward to pronounce jawaban when all the while we pronounce it as jawapan.

So much for some aspects of the development in the spelling business of the Malay language.

My Ride on Maglev train

2011-12-18T23:53:00.006+08:00

One of my memorable experience while in Shanghai, China was to have a chance to ride on the Maglev train. It is a type of train whose forward movement is caused by a magnetic field. Hence it can travel smoothly and fast. The blurred image of my camera caught the speed at 301 km/hr. In fact it fluactuates between 300 km/hr and 301 km/hr.

According to the tourist guide, the Chinese government bought the patent right of the German technology and had it run in Shanghai - an attraction to foreign touriests.

I really enjoyed my ride on the smooth and almost quiet ride on the Maglev.

This is where you buy your Maglev train ticket

Side view of Maglev train

Waiting to board the Maglev train

Speed of Maglev train: 301 km/hr

When old friends met

2011-12-09T22:33:00.005+08:00

Tan Jee Peng (4th from L), me, Boo Cheng Kee, Boo' wife,
Tan Dek's wife and Tan Dek

Imagine meeting your old friends who served as teachers 37 years ago again!

Well, I did meet them. They were Boo Cheng Kee, Tan Dek and Tan Jee Peng. We gathered in front of Royal Selangor Pewter, Straits Quay, Penang.

We talked of old time most of the time. Boo had us in stitches when he related incidents which he could remember vividly. He mentioned Anchor Chong, a teacher whose hobby is drinking Anchor beer. The lockjaw that I suffered three decades ago was also one of the incidents recalled. You can read about the incident in one of the posts under the label 'Reminiscence of Life in Jerantut'.

In one of the incidents mentioned by Boo, one Mr Phang, a Commissioner of Oath for Civil Marriages used to say 'Zhu Shen' (which means 'You Animal' when he meant ' speak louder because his Mandarin was very poor. He could have said 'Shuo da shen yi dian') when he asked the bride and bridegroom in front of him to vow that they were sincere in wanting to tie the nuptial knot.

We took some photos but I could not produce them here because I did not bring my camera along. I will try to put some here if I ever received from my old friends later.

Later we adjourned to Mr Bala's house. He was a lecturer of a teacher's college and Boo's friend. We had more vigorous talk of life in old Jerantut. Then when it was time for lunch we had our fill at a vegetarian restaurant in Burmah Road.

We hope to meet again.

How to prevent rheumatism

2011-11-29T22:36:00.003+08:00

I just came back from visiting a few places in China and I learnt quite a lot of things during this trip. In this post, I would like to share what I have learnt from people who reside in Suzhou. The people there seldom suffer from rheumatism. The secret is wearing slippers while walking in the house. It seems that the floor is considered damp and this dampness will permeate to your leg causing rheumatism.

Hence it is advisable to wear slippers while walking in the house if you want to keep rheumatism at bay.

How to digitize books

2011-11-14T10:40:00.003+08:00

In the course of my work as a tutor, I need to scan materials from books to be printed as master copi copies, then have them photocopied before I give them to my students as homework or exercises.

Nowadays, I find that there are too many books for me to keep. Hence I need to find a way to economise space. Then I dawn upon the idea of digitizing the books I have.

To to do the task, I need to have a scanner which I have and an OCR such as FineReader. First, I have to scan the parts of the books which I need as jpeg files. Then, I use an OCR to turn them into Word files so that I can do editing as there tend to be mistakes in grammar.

The tedious part of the task is to do formatting of the texts and correcting mistakes in scanning. I spend about four hours to scan a 60-page books and do all the needed editing.

Now, whenever I need materials for my class I can always go to the digitized books and get whatever I want to be printed.

This is what I want to share in this post. Happy digitizing your books.

Happy Deepavali

2011-10-26T00:01:00.003+08:00

Happy Deepavali to all Hindu readers of this blog.

According to my Indian friends, Deepavali is a day to commemorate the victory of Good over Evil and it is also known as the Festival of Lights.

As with other celebrations in Malaysia such as Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Chinese New Year and Christmas Day, Deepavali is a day of significance to us. On such a day, we will visit our friends of other religions to promote mutual understanding of their customs and religious practices. It is only we understanding that we can foster closer friendship with friends from different races in Malaysia.

Since the day I was a participant of a Students' Exchange Programme, I have come to realise the importance of knowing the customs and religious practices of other races in Malaysia. If all Malaysians harbour goodwill towards each other irrespective of race and religion, all of us will live side by side peacefully.

Once again, Happy Deepavali to all Hindus.

How to scan embedded image file in Word

2011-10-04T23:05:00.003+08:00

I was downloading the state PMR and SPM state trial papers when I came across document files with images which cannot be edited in Word. My FineReader will not allow me to scan Word files. After some experimenting, I found a way to do it. This is how I convert the so called Word document files with images embedded in them to editable Word document.

First, I open the file in Word. Then I save it as a PDF file. Now my FineReader can convert it to editable word document.

I would like to share this experience with readers of this blog, especially teachers teaching PMR and SPM classes in English and Bahasa Melayu.

The demise of a young soul

2011-09-21T14:13:00.003+08:00

During last night's Form 5 English class, I was surprised and sad to learn that one of my students, Al-Amin passed away in a road accident. A bus had knocked him down and dragged him a few meters ago. He died on the spot because of serious injuries sustained when he was being run over and dragged along by the bus.

This tragic news really awakened us to the transient world we are in. We are here for the time being and we can be called by God anytime.

I remember Al-Amin as an enthusiastic student in my English class. He would jot down the meaning of every new word he came across or the one whose meaning I wrote on the whiteboard. According to his friend, he had turned over a new leaf as previously he was a naughty student who always tried to test his teachers' patience with his rudeness and misbehaviour.

The Chinese always believe that if a bad person suddenly turns good it is a bad sign because some misfortune will befall him. Al-Amin's case seems to fit this phenomenon.

Beating the traffic light when it turns red always end up in tragedy. If Al-Amin had been patient enough to wait for the traffic lights to go green, he would still be in my class. However, sometimes, if his 'ajal' (the day one is destined to die) has come, there is no way he can escape it.

I really miss Al-Amin's naughtiness and his spirit to master the English language.

Zhong Qiu Jie is here again

2011-09-11T23:18:00.003+08:00

Come tomorrow and the Chinese all over the world will celebrate Zhong Qiu Jie or Mid-Autumn Festival. The cake not to be missed on this day is the Yue Ping or Moon Cake which is offered to the Moon on the 15th day of the eighth moon,according to the Lunar Calender.

Legend has it that a maiden named Zhang Er had swallowed a pill that immortalize her and she flew direct to the moon, leaving her lover on the Earth. It is her that offering is made on Zhong Qiu Jie and the Moon Cake is one of the items used for this purpose.

On the night of Zhong Qiu Jie, children will be carrying lighted lanterns to celebrate the occasion and make the festival merrier. Nowadays, modern electronic gadgets have replaced the old types of coloured paper lanterns.

Happy Zhong Qiu Jie to all who celebrate this occasion.

About 'antara'

2011-09-08T23:46:00.004+08:00

For today's post, I will talk about the usage of the Malay word 'antara' as I find that it is not being used correctly by some users of the language.

The word 'antara' which means 'between' or 'among' belongs to 'kata sendi nama' (preposition) and 'kata arah' (direction word). Used alone, it belongs to 'kata sendi nama'. For example, if you write 'Antara Ali dengan Abu, saya lebih suka berkawan dengan Abu. (Between Ali and Abu, I prefer to befriend Abu), it is used as a 'kata sendi nama' or preposition.

If you use it after another preposition 'di', then it belongs to 'kata arah'. For instance, you can write a sentence such as the one below:
Adik duduk di antara abang dengan kakak. (My younger brother is sitting between my elder brother and my elder sister).

In the above sentence, 'antara' is used as a 'kata arah' or direction word (for lack of a better term, I use 'direction word' to render the translation).

Now I shall elaborate on the correct usage of 'antara'.
1 When used alone, 'antara' is used for 'non-position' situations.
e.g. Kerjasama antara negara amat penting. (Co-operation among nations is very vital.)

2 If it is used after 'di' to become 'di antara', then it is used for situation denoting position.
e.g. Kedai runcit itu terletak di antara kedai tukang jahit dengan kedai gunting rambut. (The grocery shop is situated between the tailor shop and the barber shop.)

3 The noun that follows 'antara' must not be duplicated.
e.g. Antara buku-buku ini, buku merah ini paling mahal. [wrong]
Antara buku ini, buku merah ini paling mahal. [correct]
(Among these books, this red book is the most expensive.)
Notice that 'buku-buku' used after 'antara' should be used singly to become 'buku'.

4 If there are only two objects used between 'antara', then 'dengan' is used.
e.g. Antara buah durian dan buah manggis, saya lebih suka makan buah manggis.[wrong]
Antara buah durian dengan buah manggis, saya lebih suka makan buah manggis. [correct] (Between durians and mongosteens, I prefer eating mongosteens.]

5 However, if there are three objects or things used together with 'antara', then 'dan' is used.
e.g. Antara Ali, Abu dengan Chandran, Abu paling gemuk. [wrong]
Antara Ali, Abu dan Chandran, Abu paling gemuk. [correct]
[Among Ali, Abu and Chandran, Abu is the fattest.]

I hope the above tips on the usage of 'antara' will be of help to students and Malay language users.

How to check forgetfulness and boost brain power

2011-08-22T23:59:00.003+08:00

I was waiting outside the physician's clinic when I spotted a poster telling us how to check forgetfulness and boost brain power. I would like to share the tips with readers here. Here it goes.

Step 1: Learn a new skill such as using the computer or operating some gadget or simply using the left hand for right-handed man

Step 2: Follow a routine, that is do the same thing every day in the same pattern

Step 3: Use memory tools such as a calendar where you write what you intend to do.

Step 4: Spend time with friends and family. Talking makes your mind work all the time.

Step 5: Play memory games such as zig saw puzzle, sudoku, cross word etc

Step 6: Make association or connection. Use landmarks to remember places

I do agree that learning a new skill activate the mind. Learning a new language is a very good way of making the mind work and reduce forgetfulness as you will have to remember new words in the language to make learning the language meaningful.

As for associating things to remember the things we want to remember, it really works. For example, the last four digit of my IC is 5183 and I remember it by associate 51 with Labour Day (May 1st: 51) and climbing the hill for 83 as it sounds like 'pa shan' which in Mandarin means 'climb the hill'. Hence when I think of myself climbing the hill on Labour Day, I will remember the last 4 digit of my IC number.

Solving crosswords always challenges the mind and makes it sharper as one cracks his head over the word to be used to fill the squares.

How to lose 5 kg in two days

2011-08-18T10:41:00.003+08:00

Last Friday, I was admitted to hospital to enable Lower GI Endoscopy to be carried out and surgery to be done to my bleeding piles. On the day before the procedures, I was asked to take a laxative at 5.00p.m. to purge my large intestines of all the faeces. I had a hard time running to the loo five or six times before I did not have to urge to release things from my anus. At 5.00 a.m. on last Friday, I had to take another laxative to completely clear my intestines of the remnants of the faeces so that the endoscopy can be done.

Do you know what? When the nurse weighed me in the hospital, I lost five kilograms within two days! I wonder how heavy the colon's contents weigh.

Anyway, if it is a way to lose your weight this fast, do you dare to do it?

Zhong Yuan Jie

2011-07-31T00:08:00.004+08:00

Today is the first day of Zhong Yuan Jie or the Ghost Festival. Ghosts are supposed to be released from hell during the seventh moon of the lunar calendar.

Some people will avoid going out at night for fear of meeting the bad ghost that may harm them. The Chinese will definitely not choose this month for getting married.

In Malaysia, opera shows will be held in various parts of the country in connection with the above festival which is also known as Wu Lan Shen Hui. In some places, instead of the traditional opera show, modern singing and dance troupes will be performing. Usually, money will be raised for the Chinese primary schools for their building funds during such performances.

According to Buddhism, ghosts do exist as they are one of the six realms who undergo samsara or suffering until they achieve nirvana when there is no more rebirths into the six places. Some people do possess 'yin yang' eyes and are able to see 'them' but most of us can't. Some people can have the hair-raising sensation when talking about ghosts which really exist. I belong to this group of people.

The difference between 'kecurian' and 'pencurian'

2011-07-16T23:00:00.004+08:00

Many students and the media often use 'kecurian' in place of 'pencurian'. To them only 'kecurian' exists and not 'pencurian'. Let me enlighten readers how to use these two words correctly.

According to Kamus Dewan 4th Edition, 'kecurian' means 'kehilangan harta benda kerana kena curian, kemalingan' which means 'burglared'. The model sentence given in the dictionary is 'Kecurianlah baginda tujuh biji peti yang berisi emas.' This is a reverse sentence. The normal one should be 'Baginda kecurian tujuh biji peti yang berisi emas.' It just shows that 'kecurian' is a kata kerja pasif (passive verb).

We can make a sentence such as the one below.
Rumah Hassan kecurian semalam dan banyak barang yang dilarikan oleh pencuri itu.
[Hassan's house was burglared last night and many things were stolen by the thief'.

As for 'pencurian' it means 'perbuatan mencuri' or the act of stealing or theft. You can make a sentence such as the one below:
Pencurian sering berlaku di taman perumahan itu.
[Theft (The act of stealing) often occurs at the housing estate.]

In conclusion, 'kecurian' is a passive verb and 'pencurian' is a noun. Hence it is wrong to write a sentence such as the one below:
Kecurian sering berlaku di taman perumahan itu. [wrong]

So much for 'kecurian' and 'pencurian'.

Redundancy in Malay usage

2011-07-04T12:37:00.004+08:00

For today's post, I will talk about the redundancy in Malay usage with examples.

Redundancy occurs when reciprocal action words such as 'saling' and affix such as 'ber_an' are involved. Let us look at some examples to see what I mean.

Example 1

1 (a)Mereka saling berpandang-pandangan untuk seketika. [salah]

1 (b)Mereka saling memandang untuk seketika. [betul]

1 (c)Mereka berpandang-pandangan untuk seketika. [betul]

Sentence 1(b) and 1(c) mean 'They looked at each other for a moment.'

Explanation:

Sentence 1(a) is wrong because 'berpandang-pandangan' means 'saling memandang' or 'look at each other'. Hence if we write 'saling berpandang-pandangan' it is equivalent to saying 'saling saling memandang' which shows redundancy clearly.

Example 2

2 (a) Penghuni asrama itu saling bantu-membantu semasa tinggal di sana. [salah]

2 (b) Penghuni asrama itu saling membantu semasa tinggal di sana. [betul]

2 (c) Penghuni asrama itu bantu-membantu semasa tinggal di sana. [betul]

Sentence 2(b) and 2(c) carry the meaning of 'The residents of the hostel helped one another while staying there.'

Explanation:

Sentence 1(a) is wrong because redundancy occurs in it. This is because 'bantu-membatu' means 'saling membantu' or 'help each other (for two persons) / help one another (for more than two persons). The use of 'saling bantu-membantu' incurs redundancy as it will mean 'saling saling membantu'.

How to retrieve text from embedded image in a doc file

2011-06-29T00:18:00.004+08:00

When we use Word to write something, we will sometimes scan pictures, photos or text and insert them directly into our document file.

I have been wondering how to retrieve text or photos out of such embedded images. Then one day, through sheer luck, I right clicked the part with the embedded scanned text image and saved it as a jpeg file. When I used my FineReader to scan this jpeg file, I was able to retrieve and edit the text.

Hence I would like to share this experience and tip to readers of this blog. The next time you come across a Word document file with embedded image, just right click and save it as a jpeg file. With this new image file, you will be able to retrieve the text through a scanning software such as the FineReader.

About the word 'melawat'

2011-06-17T11:09:00.003+08:00

According to Kamus Dewan, 4th Edition, 'melawat' means 'pergi mengunjungi (negara asing, dll) [go to visit other countries] and 'menziarahi jenazah' [visit the dead]

The example given for 'melawat', that is 'melawat ke Jepun' shows that it is an intransitive verb.
Hence, it would wrong to write 'Saya akan melawat negeri Kedah pada hujung minggu ini.' It is correct to write 'Saya akan melawat ke negeri Kedah pada hujung minggu ini. [I will visit the state of Kedah this weekend.]

Alternatively the above sentence can be written as 'Saya akan melawati negeri Kedah pada hujung minggu ini.' because 'melawati' is a transitive verb.

As for the second meaning of 'melawat', you can also use it to mean 'visit the sick' such as 'Ali akan melawat neneknya yang sakit itu.' Here 'melawat' is treated as a transitive verb when used in this sense but it has no passive voice because 'dilawat' does not exist in Malay. If you need to do exercise for changing from active voice to passive voice, it would be better to word the above sentence as:
'Ali akan menziarahi neneknya yang sakit itu.' [Ali will visit his sick grandmother.] Then you can turn it into the passive voice as follows:
Neneknya yang sakit itu akan diziarahi oleh Ali.

To sum up the discussion, 'melawat' can be used to mean visiting a place but it must be followed by the preposition 'ke' whereas it can be used directly in front of 'jenazah' [the dead]or ' orang yang sakit'[the sick] to mean to visit 'the dead' or 'the sick'.

So much for the word 'melawat'

Dun Wu Jie falls on tomorrow

2011-06-05T23:19:00.003+08:00

Come tomorrow and the Chinese will be celebrating the annual Dun Wu Jie or Chang Festival.

Rice dumplings are a common sight a few before this festival which is meant to commemorate Chu Yuan, the patriotic poet who committed suicide at Milo River in China. He ended his life because his suggestions of reform to the Emperor was rejected.

Legend has it that the Chinese put cooked rice wrapped in bamboo leaves and dumped them into the river on the tragic so that the fish would not devour his dead body since they could eat the rice dumplings thrown down the river as their food.

Dun Wu Jie falls on the fifth day of the fifth moon according to the Lunar Calendar. For this year it falls on 6th of June 2011.

So much for a little bit of legend about the Chang Festival.

The difference between it's and its

2011-06-01T23:10:00.002+08:00

Many of my students often do the guessing game when it comes to these two words: it's and its.
They can't differentiate between them.

In this post, I shall try to explain their difference.

Actually, it's is the contraction of 'it is'. You can make sentences such as the ones below.
1. It's getting cold. Let use get inside the house.
2. It's going to rain soon.
3. It's not my fault.
4. It's the only way I know how to get there.
5. It's really easy, believe me.

It's can also be the contraction for 'it has'. For instance, you can say 'It's been a long time since I visited my granny.'

As for its, it means 'of or belonging to it.' Look at the following sentences to see what I mean.
1 Its tail is quite long. [It can mean the dog's tail is quite long]
2 Its surface is smooth. [It can mean the table's surface is smooth]
3 Ir comes with its own carrying case. [It can mean a laptop's carrying case.]

So much and the difference between it's and its.

Bahasa Baku and my blogs

2011-05-23T23:11:00.004+08:00

Now I am writing 3 blogs. This blog is general in nature. One of the other two called 'Learn the Correct Bahasa Melayu (http://bmcorner.blogspot.com) is about Standard Malay and general mistakes put right. It is written in English. My new blog 'Halaman Bahasa Melayu Cikgu Yeoh" (http://halaman-bahasamelayu.blogspot.com) is teaching Malay (Bahasa Melayu) to beginners and those interested in mastering Bahasa Baku and it is written entirely in Bahasa Melayu (Malay),

I can't be writing daily for three blogs as my tuition schedules are quite tight. Hopefully I will pen one of the blogs per day so as to keep the readers coming. Sometimes, I can't decide what to write but after pressing the 'New Post' button, ideas seem to keep coming.

For today, it is general talk about my blogs and how I intend to do about them.

Yesterday, I did attempt to back link 'Learn the Correct Bahasa Melayu' blog and found a few schools linking it under 'Bahasa Melayu' and 'Learn Bahasa Melayu'. Thanks for using my materials for educational purposes. I am too willing to share my knowledge in bahasa Melayu with any reader for that matter. Our language is progressing and there are changes as shown in the Kamus Dewan, regarding the spelling and new entries. Tatabahasa Dewan also does a good job by standardizing grammatical aspect of the language.

I was first attracted to learn Bahasa Baku from Awang Sariyan. Nowadays, Cikgu Abdul Ghalib Yunus, the Munsyi Dewan is the 'pakar rujuk' (consultant) when it comes to using the correct bahasa Melayu. Personally I benefited a lot from both of them although I had attended two sessions of Bahasa Baku when I was teaching Bahasa Melayu in Sek Men St Theresa, Sungai Petani, Kedah.

Let us hope that one of these days, we will be all be using Bahasa Baku in all our written and printed works.

My Malay Blog

2011-05-19T23:54:00.003+08:00

Readers who are interested in learning Malay or bahasa Melayu can go to my new blog entitled 'Halaman Bahasa Melayu Cikgu Yeoh' which I started to write three days ago. It is written entirely in bahasa Melayu.

My aim of writing the above blog is to help promote bahasa baku or standard Malay. It is my sincere hope that more users of the language will use it correctly and grammatically, in accordance with 'Tatabahasa Dewan Edisi Ketiga' - the official grammar book for use in schools and the media.

For my first post, I write about 'Penggunaan kata pemeri 'ialah' dan 'adalah' (The usage of 'ialah' and 'adalah'). In my second post, I deal with 'Kesalahan Umum Penggunaan Bahasa' (Common mistakes in language usage), starting with the absence of prefix 'meN' in statements. As for today's post, I touch on 'ayat inti' (the basic sentence structures). Exercise and answers are also given for readers for self-assessment. If readers want to ask questions about Malay usage, they can key in their queries in the Chat Box and I will answer them in my post.

Just surf to http://halaman-bahasamelayu.blogspot.com to view my new Malay blog.

So much for my new blog.

Happy Wesak Day

2011-05-17T08:09:00.003+08:00

On this auspicious day, I would like to say 'Happy Wesak Day' to all Buddhists all over the world. It is a day the Buddhists will reflect on the teachings of Gautama Buddha.

Simply put, Buddhism is a way of life. The Buddhists will try to emulate what the Buddha does - be compassionate to all beings, animals included and practise loving kindness to everyone around them.

On this day too, many Buddhists will opt to release birds, tortoises and animals about to be slaughtered to practise 'saving lives' as a way to prolong lives for themselves as well as showing compassion to others. According to the working of karma, if one saves lives, his age will be prolonged.

I would like to repeat the basic teachings of Buddhism in this post. According to Gautama Buddha, human beings suffer because of three things - avarice (greed), hatred and delusion. Hence we should all try to eliminate all these three so that we will say 'goodbye' to suffering.

To part with avarice, we have to practise dana or donating things to the needy. We can donate a ringgit a day to a beggar if we can't afford to give more. Some people will cling to their money for dear life and they suffer because they are always worried that the money will be robbed by some bad guy. Are you going to take with you the money you own when you pass away? If it is no, then you should donate it to those who need it to survive or alleviate their suffering.

In order not to hate others, we have to treat others with love no matter how badly they treat us. I know this is not easy. However, if you think in terms of the karma theory then you will find it easy to do it. If someone always says bad words about him, do not hate him. On the contrary, forgive him because in your last life (the Buddhists believe in past lives) you must have done the same thing to him. Why harbour hatred towards others when you can radiate love to them?

As for delusion, we have to understand the true nature of things in this world. All things are impermanent. They do not stay the same forever. The car you bought yesterday will have wear and tear after a week. The water you put in a glass will become less after a few days even if you do not drink it. If we can understand the impermanence of things then we will not cling to things and loved ones so much. In this way we will have less suffering should the things we own get lost or destroyed and our loved ones leave us suddenly. In other words, we should practise detachment of things and loved ones.

I hope my simple explanation of the gist of Buddhism will help others to understand Buddhism better. For very detailed teachings, one has to consult a monk.

Once again, Happy Wesak Day.

Happy Teacher's Day

2011-05-16T23:25:00.002+08:00

Today is Teacher's Day. I would like to wish all teachers in Malaysia a very happy Teacher's Day.

As a teacher, Teacher's Day is the day I look forward to. When I was teaching in Jerantut, Pahang, teachers would be entertained to a variety show put up by the pupils. Sometimes teachers would join in the fun by playing the guitar and singing. Sometimes I was surprised to see pupils who were quiet in class showing their talent in singing and dancing.

As for my teaching days in St Theresa Secondary School in Sungai Petani, I cannot forget the sumptuous curried chicken brought to the school for the teachers from Koh Choon Hong, the son of Sek Kiang Restaurat (I hope I remember the name of the restaurant correctly) which I savoured with greed for more. The pupils in the school performed marvellous Chinese traditional dances too.

In the last school I taught in, that is Methodist Boys' School, I did enjoy watching the sketches put up by the scouts and the singing of some talented pupils. I also joined in the games with the pupils.

I did receive presents from my pupils. They were mostly pens but I like cards with sincere words poured out by the pupils. The appreciation shown really put me in the air for quite some time.

Once again, Happy Teacher's Day to all engineers of the soul.

The difference between 'pedalaman' and 'pendalaman'

2011-05-11T23:31:00.003+08:00

In today's post, I am going to talk about the difference between 'pedalaman' and 'pendalaman'.

According to Kamus Dewan 4th Edition, 'pedalaman' is said to be 'daerah yang jauh dari pantai (yang terletak di ceruk pelosok atau di hulu negeri' which simply means 'inland area' or 'remote area' You can make a sentence such as the one below using this word.
Kemudahan asas di kawasan pedalaman serba kurang.
[There is litter basic amenities in the remote area.]

As for 'pendalaman' it is 'perihal mendalamkan, tindakan (proses) mendalamkan' or 'the act of deeping' in English. An illustration of its usage is seen in the following sentence:

Pendalaman dasar sungai itu dilakukan untuk mencegah berlakunya banjir di sana.
[The deepening of the river bed is to prevent the occurrence of floods there.]

So much for the difference between 'pedalaman' and 'pendalaman'.

Look before you leap

2011-05-06T23:30:00.003+08:00

I fell three days ago for tripping over a stone on the tarred road in the parking lot of my condominium thanks to being not mindful.

You see, I was turning my head to the left while continuing my walk and when I realised that my left foot had kicked something protruding from the ground, it was too late. I tried hard to balance myself but failed and I landed with my right elbow touching the rough and jagged surface causing it to bleed because of abrasion. I quickly ran to reach my unit and had it washed with Dettol solution and pressed with gauze to stop the bleeding after which acroflavine is applied to the wound. Bandaging was done after that. As I was a first-aider before, doing all these is not new to me.

It taught me a good lesson. You must 'look before you leap' that is watch your steps when you walk so that you won't trip over anything and be in my plight now with the wound still hurting.

How to open amipro files in Word

2011-04-29T23:01:00.002+08:00

Besides using Wordport to convert sam (amipro) files, I have learnt of a way to open it directly from Word. You need to do the following to enable Word to read your amipro files.

1 Download the Amipro to Word converter from http://www.gmayor/downloads.htm
2 Look for the Amirp converter for Word whose length is 114 kb.
3 Click on it to save the file Ami332.zip.
4 Unzip this file to a new folder called Ami332.
5 a) For Windows 32-bit user,
copy Ami332.cnv to C:\\ProgramFiles\CommonFiles\MicrosoftShared\TextCnv\Ami332.cnv
b) For Windows 64-bit user,
go to the 64-bit folder and copy Ami332.cnv to C:\ProgramFiles(x86)\CommonFiles\MicrosoftShared\TextCnv\Ami332.cnv
6 Merge the registry patch given

Now if you open any amipro or sam files in Word, it will be opened without fail. Then you can save the file in doc or docx. It is another way of converting your sam files to doc or docx files.

I hope this tip will be of use to those who still have sam files but do not have the amipro software anymore because all those sam files can be converted using the above method.

Happy computing.

One into two and now two into one

2011-04-22T11:51:00.005+08:00

Looking at the title, you may wonder what I am trying to say. Well, it has to do with Socso or Social Security Organization or Perkeso (Pertubuhan Keselamatan Sosial) in Malay.

My sister-in-law passed away in 2003 and her parents benefited from this scheme by being able to receive monthly dependent benefit (something like pension) of RM243.08 each month. The full share is 4/10 of the monthly salary of the daughter which was about RM1200 at that time.

Then this year, my father passed away. The cheques in his name still kept coming. So I brought them back to the Perkeso branch in Penang and was told that I could help my mother-in-law to get her late husband's share credited into her account. Hence my mother-in-law can now receive RM486.16.

The above is a case of one into two (the dependent benefit is equally divided between parents) and now two into one (the husband's share and the wife's is combined and she gets the full share).

Parents who have children working in the private sector should know this benefit in case something bad happens to their working children.

Count up to 100 when you start to flare up

2011-04-19T23:37:00.003+08:00

In Buddhism, one of the three things to be avoided is hatred. When someone harbours hatred towards a certain person, he will go all out to condemn him, scandalise him, scold him or even murder him. Hatred often gives rise to anger which is not only bad as it bears negative karma but only bad for health. The Chinese physician will tell you that anger will harm the liver.

Those who are always angry are paving their way to the hell realm. In such a realm, beings are always quarrelling, and stabbing each other with sharp objects. They are so used to hurting others that when they are reborn as human beings, the traits are always there. Such people will not give in and they are the 'kneah-su' (afraid of losing) lot.

If we do not want to go to the hell realm, abstain from getting angry. Count up to 100 when we start to flare up and after a lapse of doing nothing but counting mentally, maybe we can forget about wanting to get angry. Why not practising forgiving others? If someone annoys you, just treat him as one of those whom you annoyed in your last life who are here to give you back what you had given him then.

Let us forgive and forget when someone hurts you physically or verbally. As long as we can subdue our anger, we are getting ready to go to a better realm when we leave this world.

Today is Qing Ming Jie again

2011-04-05T09:05:00.003+08:00

Today, most of the Chinese will be graveyard bound as they will be paying homage or respect to the deceased relatives by cleaning up the grave and offer items such as paper money, cakes and meat for prayer. It is Qing Ming Jie again.

The purpose of having this festival is to show filial piety to the elders especially the ones who have passed away. When the Chinese are at the site of their relatives' graves, they will start to do weeding and cleaning up the grave after which praying to the deceased is done.

Nowadays, it will be a good get-together for relatives who will return from all places just to show respect to the late relatives. Going up the hill slope is actually good exercise for us.

Today is the actual day of the festival but the Chinese can go the graveyard ten days before or after to pay homage to the dead ones.

How to change font size immediately

2011-04-03T09:58:00.003+08:00

Have you ever surf to a site where the fonts are too small for comfort? Well, there is a way to solve this problem. How about increasing the size of the font so that you can read the text easily. Here is the trick.

Hold down the CTRL key and scroll the mouse wheel away from you, that is forward. The font size will increase according to how far you roll your mouse wheel to the front. Scrolling the wheel towards you will decrease the font size.

I hope this trick is useful to readers of this blog when you are surfing the Internet.

How I prepared for windows crash this time

2011-04-01T23:36:00.002+08:00

I just bought a Dell desktop, the recent Crazy Deals powered by AMD Athlon II X4 Processor. As the computer I arrived I set about configuring Windows 7 64-bit as the OS was pre-installed.

If you still remember, I have done reinstalling of Windows at time 10 times with my old sets thanks to Windows crash. This time, I planned ahead before the arrival of my new pc. All software and drivers needed were burnt on a DVD. Hence when the set reached my hands, I installed what I wanted.

I partitioned my 1 terabyte hard disk into two, that 200G and 800G. The former is my C drive and the second my data drive. Then came the task I deemed important - backing up my system.

Windows backup did a good job and I had the backup file in my 2.5" external hard disk. The repair disc was burnt too. In case of a crash, I can always boot this disc and recovered my system with the help of my backup file in the external hard disk.

As a precaution, I also used Macrium Reflect (a freeware which I introduced to readers through this blog some time earlier) to back up my system too. This software also helped me to prepared a self-booting rescue disk.

This is the best time to back up my system as everything is working perfectly just like a new car running for the first time on the road.

How to boot your computer when the battery is weak

2011-03-25T22:44:00.003+08:00

Have you encountered the problem of being unable to boot your computer?

Well, I have. One of the reasons is weak battery connected to CMOS and I have learnt of a way to overcome this.

If this happens at night and you have no place to buy a CR2032 lithium battery to replace it, let me teach you a method to boot your CPU. The trick is very simple.

You just start your computer and quickly press F2 to force the computer to go to the configuration stage. Now, click 'Load Default CMOS Setting' or something to this effect. Then, click save and exit and press OK. Now, your computer should be able to bott.

I hope this finding is useful to my dear readers.

Honesty is the best policy

2011-03-17T23:59:00.003+08:00

It was such a coincidence that I witnessed two real cases of honesty shown by two different people, a woman and a man.

This morning, I was on my usual trip to Jelutong market to have my breakfast when I was touched by the act of a woman who bought newspaper from the vendor from whom I bought my newspapers, namely The Star and Kwong Wah Yit Poh. When I was there, I saw a woman returning one ringgit and twenty sen to the newspaper vendor. She told her that it was embedded in the newspaper that she had bought. How honest the lady was!

After breakfast, my wife and I were on our rounds to buy our things. We stopped at a hardware stall to buy a can opener. A Malay lady was beside us buying something too. Then she gave the man five ringgit. On checking, the hardware vendor realised that there were two five-ringgit notes. Immediately he called her back because he wanted to return the extra five ringgit to her. Another case of honesty being displayed right in front of me again.

As I have said in my earlier posts, our lives are full of causes and effects. If your take someone's things or money, somehow or other you will have to repay him or her in this life and the next life and you will have to pay more. That is how karma works. Hence we should not take what is not ours.

In short, honesty is the best policy.

How to use 'kita' and 'kami' correctly

2011-03-14T23:04:00.004+08:00

In response to a reader's request, I shall deal with the difference between 'kita' and 'kami' in this post.

The pronoun 'kita' refers to the speaker, the person who listens to him and other people. You can remember it by the last letter 'a' for 'all'. For example, the world belongs to me, you and other people. Hence we can write a sentence such as the one below:

Dunia kita sedang mengalami pemanasan global.
[Our world is experiencing global warming.]

Look at another example as shown below.
Kita harus menghormati ibu bapa kita.
[We (all of us) should respect our parents.]

As for 'kami', you can remember its usage by this pneumonic: Kami -->The King and I
This pronoun refers to the speaker and other people other than the one who listens to him.

For example, if you are telling a friend of your experience climbing a mountain with your friends, then you would write something like this:
Kami mendaki Gunung Jerai pada minggu lalu.
[We (my friends and I) climbed Mount Jerai last week.]

Here is another example:

Semasa awak tiada di sini, kami sudah menyiapkan kerja ini.
[When you were not here, we (my friend s and I) had completed this job.]

I hope the above explanation and examples are useful in helping readers to use 'kita' and 'kami' correctly.

About 'banyak' in Malay

2011-03-11T23:35:00.002+08:00

According Tatabahasa Dewan Third Edition, the word 'banyak' (many) can be classied under two categories, namely 'kata bilangan' (counting words) and 'adjektif' (adjectives).

To tell readers the trick of recognising each of them, I need to illustrate it by using the following two sentences.

Sentence 1
Banyak buku dibelinya di kedai itu. [Many books has he bought at the shop.]

In the above sentence, the word 'banyak' is under the 'kata bilangan' category.

Sentence 2
Banyak tempat yang dikunjunginya selama ini. [The places he has visited so far are many.]

The above sentence is actually a 'ayat songsang' or 'reverse sentence' formed by placing the predikat in front of the subject. The original sentence is: Tempat yang dikunjunginya selama ini banyak where 'Tempat yang dikunjunginya selama ini' is the subject and 'banyak' is the predicate as this belongs to one of the four basic sentence patterns in Malay, namely Frasa Nama - Frasa Nama (Noun phrase - noun phrase), Frasa Nama - Frasa Adjektif (Noun phrase-adjectival pharase), Frasa Nama - Frasa Sendi Nama (Noun phrase - prepositional phrase) and Frasa Nama - Frase Kerja (Noun phrase - Verbal phrase)

The original sentence just quoted belongs to the sentence pattern Noun phrase - adjectival phrase. Let us convert this sentence into the 'ayat songsang' or the 'reverse sentence'.

Tempat yang dikunjunginya selama ini [subject] banyak [predicate] -->
Banyak [Predicate] tempat yang dikunjunginya selama ini [Subject]

The trick here is if you see 'yang' after 'banyak', the banyak belongs to the 'adjective' category whereas the 'banyak' that appears in the subject alone is categorised as 'kata bilangan'.

How to use 'responsible for' and 'responsible to' correctly

2011-03-08T23:12:00.005+08:00

Some people get confused when it comes to using 'responsible for' and 'responsible to'. Well, in this post, I am going to tell readers their correct usage.

The expression 'responsible for' is used in front of something. For example, you can say 'I am responsible for getting new members for my club.' Another example is 'A policeman is responsible for the safety of the masses.'

As for the expression 'responsible to', it is used in front of 'someone'. For instance, you can say ' I am directly responsible to my superior.' or 'A prefect is responsible to the disciplinary master.'

So much for the usage of 'responsible for' and 'responsible to'.

The Internet is our teacher

2011-03-03T00:12:00.004+08:00

Many a time, I encounter problems regarding ways to make Windows 7 work the way I like it. From past experience, the best place to look for help is the Internet. Sure enough, I have solved most of my problems through help given by the Internet.

As there are many people around the world who write on a variety of topics in their posts, they are a source of knowledge to others. Personally, I have discovered that many of my posts on English have been used to answer questions posed by Internet surfers. For example, the article on Present Participle was used wholesale to answer an Internet user's query.

I am happy to be of help to those who like to learn English. You can always go to the label 'Tips on English' to read all the articles I have written on using correct English. My experience in learning and teaching the language helps me to understand the language better and I am too willing to share the knowledge with readers all over the world.

When I say that the Internet is our teacher, I am telling the truth. I have benefitted from this vast source of knowledge, with myself contributing a bit to it.

Long live the Internet - a good source of knowledge.

Toying with microsoft virtual pc

2011-02-24T23:16:00.003+08:00

I am still unable to find the canonscan lide20 drivers for my windows 7 64-bit system. Finally, I tried to create a virtual pc to install the driver meant for Windows XP.

I went to www.microsoft.com to look for the update file (.msu) to install the Virtual PC. After a few experiments I was able to install WinXP in this Virtual PC. The snag is I did not know how to access files in my host drive to install the said driver for the above scanner.

When I click on Microsoft Virtual PC, my Windows XP looks exactly as it should be run but with a smaller window. I managed to install a free AVG anti-virus software in it. That's it. I have yet to know to access files in my real drive to do more installation of software.

Toying with Microsoft Virtual PC will occupy much of my free time these few days.

How to set up a default email

2011-02-18T12:57:00.003+08:00

In surfing the Internet, we sometimes need to click to direct some articles, photos and so on to be sent to our email. However, when you click it, it will go to Outlook which you have not configured and you miss having the material sent to your email.

In this post, I will introduce one freeware that will direct the material sent when 'mailto' command in the highlighted word is clicked. The address to download this freeware is

http://gmaildefault.codeplex.com/releases/view/55413

Download this gmail default maker and install it.

The next time you click on any line that bears 'mailto', it will be directed to gmail, yahoo or hotmail as is preferred when you run the software.

Chap Goh Meh and the lasses

2011-02-17T23:05:00.003+08:00

Come this evening, and you will hear the splashing sound of mandarin oranges falling into the rivers or sea. Why? It's Chap Goh Mei or literally the 15th night of the Lunar New Year. On this day, unmarried girls will throw mandarin oranges into the river in the hope of gettingn good husbands, as is the general belief among the Chinese.

Nowadays, the girls will write down their mobile phone numbers on the oranges, hoping that those who pick them up will call to strike up friendship which is hoped to develop into love, leading to marriage. Hence Chap Goh Mei is also considered the equivalent of Valentine's Day.

I hope all single girls will find their life-partners after Chap Goh Mei having done the necessary customarily.

How to create a shortcut on the desktop

2011-02-15T23:56:00.002+08:00

Many a time, we need to launch a program quicky. The best place will be to place it on the desktop.
In this post, I will share my knowledge of how to create a shortcut on the desktop. Here are the steps:
1 Right click the desktop.
2 Go to New.
3 Click Shortcut
4 If you know the location of the program, type it in the box provided.
5 If not, click browse and search for it and click it.
6 Click Next
7 Give a name to your shortcut.
8 Click Finish

I hope this tip is useful to readers of this blog.

Thumbs up for Windows backup

2011-02-13T10:23:00.003+08:00

I had a busy week retrieving some of my important documents since my Windows crashed because of my 'cleverness' in resizing Drive C, resulting in my Drive G completely wiped out when my earlier Windows back up restored my PC to the Dell fresh environment as bought. Imaging my heartbreak when many of my 'masterpieces' cannot be revived. I have two unformat software to get back the files in Drive G of my hard disk and I had to wait for 4 hours for each of them to prepare the environment because restoration work can be donw. Alas, after that I could still not get back a single file because the preview showed 'rubbish' rather than the text I wanted to see.

From now on, I will stick to the principle of saving any single word document in Drive C, Drive G and my USB in order not to suffer the same fate as I did just a week ago. From my experience, the Windows back up is still the best solution. The rescue disk can boot up your computer and you can have it look for the back up file saved on another external hard disk.

I hope all readers will do the same to safeguard their system by having Windows back up your system, files if needed and have it create your rescue disk too. As for the backup image file, it is better to have two copies in case one should fail you. Likewise, prepare two rescue disks too should it fail to boot up your computer.

How I do ocr in Windows 7 64-bit environment

2011-02-12T23:12:00.002+08:00

When I purchased my Dell desktop last, it came with preinstalled Windows 7 64-bit. While 64-bit environment runs faster, it inconveniences me as my FineReader 6 OCR software cannot access my Canon LiDE 20 scanner.

After some searching in the Internet, I downloaded VueScan and it can be run under Windows 7 64-bit environment. Then I thought of an idea to do OCR with the scanned files.

First, I will scan the text using VueScan and save under jpeg file. Then I will start FineReader 6 to read the scan file. It works and that is how I am able to use my old dear FineReader to scan text through the image done by VueScan earlier.

I suppose sometimes we have to do things in a roundbout way to achiever our aim.

At Midnight today is Thnee Kong Seh

2011-02-10T23:12:00.002+08:00

The Hokkiens will pray to the Jade Emperor (Thnee Kong) tonight at midnight. It is to commemorate the event of them being save from extermination in ancient time when they took shelter in a sugarcane plantation. Hence the compulsory item for tonight's praying session is the sugarcane. Other praying items include ang koo (red glutinous rice cake), mee koo (red coloured buns), huat kuih (prosperous cake), bit chien (skewered sweets), bee koe (swee glutinous rice) and nogr siew th'ng (pink padoda-shaped candies).

Although firecrackers are banned, you will never miss the sound of firecrackers the moment midnight arrives. The din can be quite deafening at times.

Happy praying to the Jade Emperor on His birthday today.

How to use 'some time', 'sometime' and 'sometimes'

2011-02-08T23:08:00.003+08:00

In order to use 'some time', 'sometime' and 'sometimes' correctly, we must first of all know their meanings. 'Some time' means 'a period of time', 'sometime' carries the meaning of 'at an unstated time in future' and 'sometimes' is the equivalent of 'occasionally'.

Let us try to make sentences out of them to show how to use them correctly.

1 I will need some time to tidy up my messy room.'
2 Krishnan remembered seeing the man sometime last week.'
3 Sometimes we have to try our luck in doing something new.

Now try to make sentences yourself with these three words.

Email saved my day

2011-02-07T10:15:00.001+08:00

I was meddling with my C drive when I resized it so that I could have another drive but alas I did the wrong thing when I formatted the new drive resulting in it being unable to boot. As I did not have my rescue disk which I should have created very much earlier.

The above situation rendered my computer dead as I could not restore the system at all. Then out of desperation, I used a downloaded Windows 7 to reinstall my system. After having done that, I made a rescue disk. With this disk, I was able to restore my Windows 7 Home Premium - the preinstalled system by Dell. However, in the restoration process, it wipe out all my data in Drive G. My precious data of my lessons are gone. I had intended to back it up later but now I really regretted not doing it.

As I emailed my lessons to the tuition centre every month for publication, I was looking for a place where I might retriever. Fortunately, in the Sent folder, I could see all the files I sent earlier. Hence, I downloaded all these and kept them in two places - one in the hard disk and one in my USB drive.

Email really saved my day.

Welcome back, God of Kitchen

2011-02-06T16:36:00.002+08:00

Today the Chinese will pray to welcome back the Zhao Shen or God of Kitchen after having left the Earth on the 24th day of first moon according to the Lunar Calendar. Hopefully He had made a good report about one's household.

Shop owners and vendors also start to do their business as is the norm. Business is really good as not all businessmen want to start working today.

I visited my usual coffee shop and was happy to note that there was no increase in the price of coffee and tea sold to regular customers like us.

Tomorrow most office-workers will start their routine again.

I hope the Rabbit Year will be a very good one for every body.

How to enable file name extension in Windows 7

2011-02-05T14:52:00.003+08:00

Many a time, I wanted to rename a file in Windows 7, only to finding myself having filenames such as happy.tif.jpg just because the file extension of happy.tif , that is tif cannot be seen. In the processing of renaming the jpg extension is appended at its end.

I have learnt of how to enable file extension in Windows 7 and would like to share it with readers. Here it goes:

1 Click the Start button, then click Control Panel.

2 When Appearance and Personalization is seen, click the Folder option

3 Then Click View and under Advanced Settings, clear the Hide file extension by clicking the tick sign to clear it.

4 Click OK.

Happy computing.

Second day of Xin Nian

2011-02-04T11:40:00.003+08:00

The second of Xin Nian is meant fora daughter-in-law to go back to her family's house. As for the first day, she and her husband will go to the hubby's house to give red packets to the parents and her husband's unmarried siblings.

For this year, the first day of Chinese New Year is not a good day to receive the God of Money but today is. The direction is North-east. Hence it is a good idea to place a bowl full of 168 0ne-cent or 10-cent coins on a table at the North-eastern corner of the house. This act will bring in luck and a lot of money to the owner of the house.

I am now enjoying myself watching variety shows over the telesion and surfing the net at the same time. This post was done while I was doing multitasking in this way.

Happy receiving the Dewa of Money today.

It is Xin Nian today

2011-02-03T17:09:00.004+08:00

The year of the Rabbit is here today. The Chinese call their New Year, Xin Nian.

On this day, the children will be the happiest because they will be getting Hong Bao or red packet containing money from their parents and relatives who are married. Only those who are married can have the privilege to hand out hong bao.

As parents the Chinese have to part with their money in the form of hong bao to their children and offspring of their relatives. The very purpose of giving out this red packets is to wish the young a safe year. It is also called ya sui qian which means 'money for longevity'.

One of the taboos during Xin Nian are sweeping the rubbish in the house. Rubbish is thought to be money. Hence by throwing away rubbish, you are literally throwing away your dough. Another taboo is saying bad things or something not auspicious. They should greet each other 'Xin Nian Kuan Le' or 'Happy New Year', 'Gong Xi Fa Cai' or ''Congratulations for striking it rich' and so on. The Cantonese will not say 'San Nin Fai Lok' which is meant to say ' Happy New Year' because 'Fai Lok' can also mean 'Falling fast' as 'fai' is 'quick' and 'lok' is 'fall' in the Cantonese dialect.

Xin Nian Kuai Le to all Chinese readers of this blog.

It is reunion dinner time again

2011-02-02T14:44:00.002+08:00

Today is the eve of Xin Nian or Chinese New Year. On this day, members of the family will come together for Tuan Yuan Fan or Reunion Dinner. To me it is a good practice and should be sustained because it stresses family unity as no matter how far you are you will come back to meet your father, mother, brothers and sisters. Each of you will be able to exchange news of the happenings throughout the year.

I still remember how I rushed back from Pahang, 500 kilometres away from home just to be in time for this occastion. My principal, Encik Yaakub Isa allowed us off earlier so that I could reached Penang before Chinese New Year Eve.

It is always wonderful to be home. Hence the saying 'Home Sweet Home'. The Malay proverb always says 'Hujan emas di negeri orang, hujan batu di negeri batu di negeri sendiri, baik juga di negeri sendiri' which can be translated literally as ' Golden rain in other people's country, stone rain in our own country, it is better to be in one's own country.'

I wish all Chinese enjoy this family togetherness today.

A free software to backup system and files

2011-02-01T22:52:00.003+08:00

In this today's post, I would like to share with readers a free software for us to backup our system and files. My past experience taught me to be double safe when it comes to restoring our OS, that is Windows. Although Windows 7 comes with a back and restore system, it is still OK to have another backup software.

The software in question is EASEUS TODO Backup Home. It helps you to backup your system or files. The beautiful part of this gem is you can create a bootup disk to do the discovery job. I tried the boot disk and it worked. Just for your information, you can download it from the following URL or link:

http://www.todo-backup.com/download/

Happy backing up your system and files.

Affixes meN_i and meN_kan Part 12

2011-01-31T10:24:00.000+08:00

For today's word to include in the series meN_i and meN_kan, I shall deal with 'cerita' [story]. Here are the six sentences governed by the rules I mentioned in Part I of this series.

1 Dia menceritai kami pengalamannya semasa berkhemah di dalam hutan itu. [Rule 1]
[He related to us his experience while camping in the jungle.]

2 Johan menceritakan pengalamannya kepada kami. [Rule 2]
[Johan related his experience to us.]

3 Kami diceritai nenek pengalamannya semasa pendudukan Jepun di negara ini. [Rule 3]
[My grandmother related to us her experience during the Japanese occupation in this country.]

4 Kejadian itu diceritakan oleh Ali kepada kami. [Rule 4]
[The incident was related by Ali to us.]

5 Ibu akan saya ceritai pengalamanku tadi. [Rule 5]
[Mother will I relate my experience just now.]

6 Kejadian itu sudah saya ceritakan kepada mereka. [Rule 6]
[I have related to them this incident.]

Affixes meN_i and meN_kan Part 11

2011-01-30T14:17:00.002+08:00

For the 11th post of the series meN_i and meN_kan I will deal with the word 'tugas' (duty) and its affixes. These are the sentences I constructed to show how the six rules for the word are applied.

1 Encik Lee menugasi pekerja itu kerja yang ringan sahaja. [Rule 1]
[Mr Lee gave the duty of doing an easy job to the worker.]

2 Majikan itu menugaskan kerja yang berat itu kepada Hussin. [Rule 2]
[The employer gave the duty of doing a difficult job to Hussin.]

3 Krishnan ditugasi untuk menyiapkan laporan itu. [Rule 3]
[Krsihnan was given the duty of completing the report.]

4 Kerja itu ditugaskan kepada pekerja baru itu. [Rule 4]
[The job was given as a duty to the new worker.]

5 Adik akan saya tugasi untuk membersihkan halaman rumah kami. [Rule 5]
[My brother will I give the duty of cleaning up our courtyard.]

6 Kerja itu akan saya tugaskan kepada Ali. [Rule 6]
[That job will I give to Ali as a duty to perform.]

Affixes meN_i and meN_kan Part 10

2011-01-29T23:06:00.001+08:00

For Part of the series meN_i and meN_kan, I shall make sentences with 'hubung' (connect) with its affiexes thrown in. Here they are:

1 Saya menghubungi Ali melalui e-mel. [Rule 1]
[Saya communicate with Ali through email.]

2 Jalan ini menghubungkan Kampung Baru dengan bandar. [Rule 2]
[This road links Kampung Baru to the town.]

3 Hassan dihubungi oleh kawan melalui telefon. [Rule 3]
[Hassan was contacted by his friend through phone.]

4 Tali ini akan saya hubungkan dengan tali itu supaya menjadi lebih panjang. [Rule 4]
[This rope will I connect with that to make it longer.]

5 Adik sudah saya hubungi untuk memberitahunya tentang hal itu. [Rule 5]
[My brother have I have contacted to tell him about the matter.]

6 Tali ini akan saya hubungkan dengan tali itu untuk memanjangkannya. [Rule 6]
[This rope will I connect with that to lengthen it.]

Affixes meN_i and meN_kan Part 9

2011-01-28T22:57:00.002+08:00

Today's word for sentence construction in the series meN_i and meN_kan is 'maaf' (excuse or pardon).

Here are the six sentences constructed using the above word with suffixes thrown in.

1 Saya memaafi adik yang mengotorkan buku saya. [Rule 1]
[I pardoned my brother who dirtied my book.]

2 Encik Tan memaafkan kesalahan pelajar itu. [Rule 2]
[Mr Tan excused the pupil's mistake.]

3 Hassan yang menyinggung hati kawannya dimaafinya.
[Hassan who had offended his friend was excused by him.]

4 Kesalahan pelajar itu telah dimaafkan oleh gurunya.
[The student's mistake was excused by his teacher.]

5 Krishnan akan saya maafi walaupun dia menyinggung hati saya tadi. [Rule 5]
[Krishnan will I excuse although he offended me just now.

6 Kesalahan adik akan saya maafkan kerana dia sudah meminta maaf kepada saya. [Rule 6]
[My brother's mistake will I excuse because he has apologised to me.]

Sending off Kitchen God to see the Jade Emperor today

2011-01-27T12:00:00.004+08:00

As a custom, the Chinese will be sending off Kitchen God to see the Jade Emperor today, the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month.

Usually the Chinese will be serving nian gao (a cake made of glutinous rice), fa gao (prosperity cake), tang yuen (glutinous rice cooked in syrup) and mandarin orange. The main item is nian gao which according to legend is to sweeten the mouth of the kitchen deity so that he will only report favourable things about a family to the Jade Emperor.

Affixes meN_i and meN_kan Part 8

2011-01-26T22:54:00.003+08:00

For today's post,I will only deal with one word of the meN_i and meN_kan group of words for sentence construction. The word intended is 'hidang'.

The word 'hidang' (to serve with food) and its suffixes
1 Kakak menghidangi para tetamu minuman. [Rule 1]
[My sister served drinks to the guests.]

2 Ibu menghidangkan kek kepada kawan-kawanku. [Rule 2]
[My mother served cakes to my friends.]

3 Para tetamu dihidangi air sirap oleh kakak. [Rule 3]
[The guests were served with syrup by my sister.]

4 Kek dihidangkan oleh kakak kepada kawan-kawannya. [Rule 4]
[My sister served cakes to her friends.]

5 Ali akan saya hidangi minuman kegemarannya. [Rule 5]
[Ali will I serve his favourite drink.]

6 Jus oren akan saya hidangkan kepada Ali yang datang ke rumahku.[Rule 6]
[Orange juice will I serve to Ali who comes to my house.]

Affixes meN_i and meN_kan Part 7

2011-01-25T23:44:00.005+08:00

I am sorry to be unable to write something in this post for a week. Here I am again, to continue my post on the affix meN_i and meN_i involving 18 words. Here are two more words whose sentences I will construct now.

The word 'hujan' (rain) with its affixes.
1 Pemberitahu itu menghujani menteri itu pertanyaan tentang projek itu. [Rule 1]
[The reporter bombarded the minister with questions about the project.]

2 Wartawan itu menghujankan pelbagai soalan tentang isu itu kepada pemimpin itu. [Rule 2]
[The journalist put forward various questions about the issue to the leader.]

3 Ketua itu dihujani pelbagai soalan tentang rancangan itu. [Rule 3]
[The leader was bombarded with various questions about the programme.]

4 Pelbagai pertanyaan dihujankan oleh penduduk kampung kepada penghulu itu. [Rule 4
[Various questions were put forward by the villagers to the village headman.]

5 Ketua itu akan saya hujani pelbagai pertanyaan tentang hal ini. [Rule 5]
[I will asked the leader various questions about this matter.]

6 Pelbagai pertanyaan akan saya hujankan kepada pemimpin itu.
[Various questions will I put forward to the leader.]

In the above sentences, 'menghujani' means 'shower someone with questions' and 'menghujankan' carries the meaning of 'bombarding questions towards someone'.

When it is silly to do direct translation from Malay to English, I used the active voice in the task.

The word 'bekal' (supply) and its affixes
1 Pekedai itu membekali kami barang keperluan harian. [Rule 1]
[The shop owner supplies us with things of daily need.]

2 Lembaga peperiksaan membekalkan kertas tulis kepada calon peperiksaan. [Rule 2]
[The examination board supplies writing paper to candidates]

3 Keluarga Ali dibekali barang keperluan harian oleh pekedai itu. [Rule 3]
[Ali's family was supplied with things of daily need by the shop owner.]

4 Barang keperluan harian dibekalkan kepada kami oleh pekedai itu. [Rule 4]
[Things of daily need were supplied to us by the shop owner.]

5 Adik akan saya bekali kertas untuk membolehkannya menulis karangan tambahan.[Rule 5]
[I will supply my brother with paper to enable him to write additional essays.]

6 Kertas akan saya bekalkan kepada adik supaya dia dapat menulis karangan itu. [Rule 6]
[Paper will be supplied (by me) to my brother so that he can write the essay.]

Affixes meN_i and meN_kan Part 6

2011-01-17T22:40:00.000+08:00

Two more words will I use in this day’s post to construct six sentences based on the six rules I gave in my earlier post.

The first word is ‘nama’ [name]

1 Saya menamai anak saya Ali bin Hassan. [Rule 1]

[I named my son Ali bin Hassan.]

2 Mazlan menamakan Zaki bin Mazlan kepada anaknya. [Rule 2]

[I gave the name of Zaki bin Mazlan to my son.]

3 Kucing kesayangku dinamai Si Comel. [Rule 3]

[My favourite cat was named Si Comel.]

4 Si Comel dinamakan kepada kucingku. [Rule 4]

[The name of Si Comel was given to my cat.]

5 Anak sulungku akan saya namai Yong binti Hassan. [Rule 5]

[I will name my eldest daughter Yong binti Hassan.]

6 Zamri bin Rejab akan saya namakan kepada anak bongsu saya.[Rule 6]

[I will give the name of Zamri bin Rejab to my youngest son.]

The second word is ‘pinjam’ [borrow]

1 Saya meminjami Ali sebatang pen. [Rule 1]

[I lent Ali a pen.]

2 Johan meminjamkan buku ceritanya kepada anak jirannya.[Rule 2]

[Johan lent his story book to his neighbor’s son.]

3 Azmi dipinjami Hashim sebuah basikal. [Rule 3]

[Hashim lent Azmi a basikal.]

4 Sebatang pen dipinjamkan oleh Suresh kepada Nathan.[Rule 4]

[A pen was lent to Nathan by Suresh.]

5 Rashid akan saya pinjami buku ini.[Rule 5]

[I will lend Rashid this book.]

6 Sebuah pembaris akan saya pinjamkan kepada Susan.[Rule 6]

[I will lend a ruler to Susan.]

Affixes meN_i and meN_kan Part 5

2011-01-16T13:46:00.003+08:00

As promised, I will continue to construct sentences using two more of the 18 words given earlier. For today's post, I will use 'lempar' and 'serah'. 'lempar' means 'throw' while 'serah' means 'submit'.

The word 'lempar' with its affixes:
1 Penduduk kampung melempari pemimpin itu dengan telur busuk kerana ucapan menyinggung hati mereka. [Rule 1]
[The villagers threw rotten egss at the leader because his speech offended them.]

2 Saya melemparkan seketul batu ke arah buah mangga itu untuk menjatuhkannya. [Rule 2]
[I threw a stone at the mango to make it fall down.]

3 Pengemis itu dilempari batu oleh budak yang nakal itu. [Rule 3]
[A naughty boy threw a stone at the beggar.]

4 Seketul batu dilemparkan oleh Ali ke arah kolam. [Rule 4]
[A stone was thrown by Ali to the pool.]

5 Anjing itu akan saya lempari batu untuk menghalaunya. [Rule 5]
[I will throw a stone at the dog to drive it away.]

6 Seketul batu akan saya lemparkan ke arah anjing itu. [Rule 6]
[I will throw a stone at the dog.]

The word 'serah' and its affixes
1 Saya menyerahi pekerja itu tugas ringan itu.
[Saya gave the worker the light duty.]

2 Krishnan menyerahkan dompet itu kepada polis.
[Krishnan surrendered the wallet to the polis.]

3 Nazri diserahi tugas itu.
[Nazri was given the duty.]

4 Bungkusan itu diserahkan kepada kerani pos itu.
[The parcel was surrendered to the postal clerk.]

5 Adik akan saya serahi kunci keretaku.
[I will surrender my the keys of my car to my brother.]

6 Tugas itu sudah saya serahkan kepada abangku.
[I have surrendere the duty to my elder brother.]

Affixes meN_i and meN_kan Part 4

2011-01-15T11:14:00.003+08:00

I am glad to know that this is the 1001th post of my blog. As long as I am still around, more posts will appear in this blog.

In this post, I will construct 12 more sentences using the words 'kirim' and 'kurnia' in Part of the post entitled 'Affixes meN_i/meN_kan'. Here it goes.

The word 'kirim' [post (a letter /parcel etc)]
1 Saya mengirimi Ali sepucuk surat kelmarin. [Rule 1]
[I posted a letter to Ali yesterday.]

2 Hassan mengirimkan sebuah buku kepada abangnya tadi.[Rule 2]
[Hassan posted a book to his brother just now.]

3 Johari dikirimi kawannya foto-foto itu. [Rule 3]
[Johari's friend posted the photos to him.]

4 Poskad itu dikirimkan oleh Azmi kepada sahabat penanya. [Rule 4]
[The postcard was posted by Azmi to his pen-pal.]

5 Nazri akan saya kirimi surat ini. [Rule 5]
[I will post this letter to Nazri.]

6 Bungkusan itu akan saya kirimkan kepada Muthu. [Rule 6]
[I will post this parcel to Muthu.]

Now here are the six sentences I have constructed for the word 'kurnia' [endow] and its affixes.
1 Tuhan menguruniai Amimah seorang anak lelaki. [Rule 1]
[Aminah was endowed with a son by God.]

2 Tuhan mengurniakan seorang anak lelaki kepada Siti. [Rule 2]
[Siti was endowed with a son by God.]

3 Asmah dikurniai Tuhan seorang lelaki. [Rule 3.]
[Asmah was endowed with a son by God.]

4 Seorang anak lelaki dikurniakan oleh Tuhan kepada Zaharah. [Rule 4]
[Zaharah was endowed with a son by God.]

5 Johari akan beta kurniai gelaran J.P. [Rule 5]
[I (assuming I am the King) will bestow upon Johari the title J.P.]

6 Gelaran P.J.K. akan saya kurniakan kepada pemimpin itu. [Rule 6]
[I will bestow upon the leader the title of P.J.K.]

Some clarification about awalan meN

2011-01-14T13:15:00.003+08:00

I need to do a bit of explanation here as some readers may be wondering what meN refers to. Actually, meN is the collective term that refers to me, mem, men, meng, meny, and menge.

There are rules governing which one to use. The following is what meN pairs with:

me - pairs with words beginning with: l, m, n, r,w,y,z
mem - pairs with words that begin with: b, f (or with f dropped), p (or with p dropped),v
men - pairs with words with the initial letters: c, d, j, t (with t dropped)
meng - pairs with words beggining with: a,e,i,o,u,g,h, k (or with k dropped), q,x
meny - pairs with words that begin with: s (dropped)
menge - pairs with words of single syllabus:bom, cat, pos

Here are examples of the words for the above:
me - melompat, memakan, menanti, merasa, mewakili, meyakini, menziarahi
mem - membaca, memfokus, memahami, mempamerkan, memukul, memveto
men - mencari, mendapat, menjadi, mentadbir, menulis
meng - mengalih, mengelakkan, mengikut, mengolah, mengubah, menggunakan, mengkaji, mengarang, mengqada, mengX-ray
meny - menyusun
menge - mengebom, mengecat, mengepos

If you are unsure of the spelling, look up the latest edition of Kamus Dewan (4th Edition), the official reference for educational purposes.

Affixes meN_i and meN_kan Part 3

2011-01-13T23:41:00.003+08:00

Welcome back to Part 3 of this post. In this write-up, I shall deal with two more words of the group. They are 'hadiah' and 'jatuh'. Here they are.

The word 'sudah' with its suffixes.
1 Lina menghadiahi adiknya sebuah telefon bimbit. [Rule 1 ]
[Lina gave her brother a mobile phone as a present.]

2 Saya menghadiahkan sebuah buku cerita kepada adik. [Rule 2 ]
[I gave a story book to my brother as a present]

3 Nazri dihadiahi sebuah jam tangan oleh abangku. [Rule 3 ]
[Nazri was given a watch as a present by my brother.]

4 Sebatang pen dihadiahkan oleh Muthu kepada Ali.. [Rule 4 ]
[A pen was given by Muthu to Ali as a present.]

5 Adik akan saya hadiahi sebuah kamus. [Rule 5 ]
[My brother will I give a dictionary as a present or grammatically: I will give a dictionary to my brother as a present.]

6 Sebentuk cincin akan saya hadiahkan kepada kekasihku. [Rule 6 ]
[A ring will I give to my lover as a present or grammatically: I I will a ring to my lover as a present.]

As for the word 'jatuh' and its suffixes, look at the following sentences:
1 Hakim itu menjatuhi pengedar dadah itu hukuman mati. [Rule 1 ]
[The judge passed the death sentence to the drug pusher.]

2 Hakim itu menjatuhkan hukuman mati kepada pembunuh itu. [Rule 2 ]
[The judge passed the death sentence to the murderer.]

3 Pesalah itu dijatuhi hukuman penjara selama dua tahun. [Rule 3 ]
[The wrong-doer was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.]

4 Hukuman selama lima tahun dijatuhkan oleh hakim itu kepada penculik itu. [Rule 4 ]
[The judge passed a sentence of imprisonment for five years to the kidnapper.]

5 Pembunuh itu akan saya jatuhi hukumann mati. [Rule 5 ]
[The murder will I pass the death sentence or grammatically: I will pass the death sentence to the murderer. (I assume myself to be the judge in this case.)

6 Hukuman mati akan saya jatuhkan kepada pengedar dadah itu. [Rule 6 ]
[The death sentence will I pass to the drug-pusher or grammatically: I will pass the death sentence to the drug-pusher.]

I hope you have got the hang of constructing sentences using the 18 words based on the rules I give in my earlier post. If not, keep following this blog until you have the chance of reading all the 108 sentences I intend to make before concluding the post.

Affixes meN_i and meN_kan Part 2

2011-01-12T14:15:00.002+08:00

In Part 2 of affixes meN_i and meN_kan, I shall construct 12 sentences using two of the 18 words given. These are anugerah and beri.

The word 'anugerah' with its suffixes:

1 a) Sultan itu menganugerahi ketua kampung itu gelaran J.P. [Rule 1]
[The Sultan awarded the title of J.P. to the village chief.]

b) Sultan itu menganugerahkan gelaran P.J.M. kepada Pegawai Daerah itu. [Rule 2]
[The Sultan awarded the title of P.J.M. to the District Officer.]

c) Pengetua sekolah itu dianugerahi gelaran P.J.K. oleh Sultan itu. [Rule 3]
[The Principal of the school was awarded the title of P.J.K. by the Sultan.]

d) Gelaran A.M.N. dianugerahkan oleh raja itu kepada pemimpin itu. [Rule 4]
[The title of A.M.N. was awarded by the King to the leader.]

e) Ahli politik itu akan beta anugerahi pingat P.J.K. [Rule 5]
[I will award the title of P.J.K. to the politician.]
[Note: I cannot use 'saya' or 'awak' here because the word 'anugerahi' is used for royal families when used in the first person. Hence I used 'beta' as if the Sultan speaks through me as the Sultan uses 'beta' when he refers to himself.]

f) Gelarann A.M.N. akan beta anugerahkan kepada pemimpin itu. [Rule 6]
[I will award the title of A.M.N. to the leader.]

The word 'beri' with its suffixes
1 Saya memberi pengemis itu semangkuk nasi berlauk. [Rule 1 ]
[I gave the beggar a bowl of rice with dishes.]

2 Krishnan memberikan sebatangn pen kepada adiknya. [Rule 2 ]
[Krishnan gave a pen to his brother.]

3 Kakak diberi seratus ringgit oleh ayah. [Rule 3 ]
[My sister was given one hundred ringgit by my father.]

4 Sebuah komputer diberikan oleh ayah kepada abang. [Rule 4 ]
[A computer was given by my father to my brother.]

5 Leman akan saya beri buku lama ini. [Rule 5 ]
[Leman will I give this book or grammatically: I will give this book to Leman.]

6 Kek ini akan saya berikan kepada anak jiran. [Rule6 ]
[This cake will saya give to my neighbour's son or grammatically: I will give this cake to my neighbour's son.]

We shall meet again when you frequent my blog for Part 3 of the posts to come.

Affixes meN_i and meN_kan Part 1

2011-01-11T23:41:00.001+08:00

In the course of my study and teaching of the Malay language, I have discovered certain patterns in the usage of affixes such as meN_i and meN_kan which are added to words to form transitive verbs. I would like to share this finding in this blog of mine. This is the first part of my posts.

The words mentioned above are anugerah, beri, hadiah, jatuh, kirim, kurnia, lempar, serah, nama, pinjam, hujan, bekal, hidang, tugas, maaf, cucur, hubung, and cerita.

These are the rules for the above list.
1 meN_i + word is followed by person
Example: Sultan itu menganugerahi pemimin itu pingat P.J.K.
[The Sultan awarded the title of P.J.K. to the leader.]

2 meN_kan + word is followed by thing / matter
Example: Saya memberikan buku itu kepada Ali.
[I gave the book to Ali.]

3 person preceeds di_i + word
Example: Hashim dihadiahi sebuah album foto.
[Hashim was presented with a photo album.]

4 thing / matter preceeds di_kan + word
Example: Hukuman penjara selama lima tahun dijatuhkan oleh hakim itu kepada pencuri itu.
[Imprisonment of five years was sentenced to the thief by the judge.]

5 person preceeds saya / awak + i + word
Example: Abang saya kirimi buku yang diperlukan kelmarin.
[I posted to my brother the book he needed yesterday. Note: It will be odd to translate the above sentence into English. Hence I use the active voice instead]

6 thing /matter preceeds saya / awak + kan + word
Example: Batu itu saya lemparkan ke arah anjing itu untuk menghalaunya.
[I threw the stone towards the dog to drive it away.]

The wrong usage of 'dari'

2011-01-10T23:43:00.002+08:00

Last Sunday, I was travelling by bus to Balik Pulau. Inside the bus, I happened to catch sight of a notice bearing these words 'Kami mengalu-alukan sebarang cadangan / maklum balas dari anda untuk meningkatkan perkhidmatan RapidPenang.' [We welcome any suggestion / feedback from you to upgrade RapidPenang's service.]

The preposition 'dari' is wrongly used here. 'Dari' (from) can only be used for Arah (Direction), Tempat (Place) and Masa (Time). The following are sentences showing its correct usage.
1 Angin kencang bertirup dari timur ke barat. [Strong wind blew the east to the west.]
2 Lelaki itu datang dari Ipoh. [The man came from Ipoh.]
3 Pekerja itu bekerja dari hari Isnin hingga hari Jumaat. [The worker works from Monday to Friday.]

In the above notice, 'anda' (you) is a person. Hence, the correct preposition to be used is 'daripada' which can be used for persons.

The corrected notice should have been worded as follows:
'Kami mengalu-alukan sebarang cadangan / maklum balas daripada anda untuk meningkatkan perkhidmatan RapidPenang.]

Pressing acupuncture point 'he gu' to relieve sinus allergies

2011-01-09T10:45:00.000+08:00

I read of a way to alleviate sinus allergies whose symptoms include runny nose and heaps of sneezing. It is really very simple. All you need to do is to press the acupunture point called 'he gu' for 72 times daily.

To locate the point, just press you thumb against the forefinger. The tip of the raised portion is the intended point. Just press it withu your thumb until a sensation of numbness is experienced.

Another way to achieve the same effect is to put 10 'Xin Yi Flower' in a cup and pour boiling water into it. Drink this water regularly and the sinus allergy can be reduced.

Two civic-minded Malay girls

2011-01-08T10:05:00.000+08:00

I was travelling by bus with my brother when I was touched by the act of two teenage Malay girls.

We were on our way to Balik Pulau to see our 86-year-old mother who stays with our sister there. The bus was packed and we had to stand. After a while, the two girls in front of us rose from their seats and offered them to us. By the way, my brother and I are senior citizens and they must have known that acted accordingly to show respect to us in this way.

Moral education works better in real life situation.

Thank you girls, whatever your names are.

The slight difference in usage between 'baru' and 'baharu'

2011-01-07T10:28:00.000+08:00

Menurut Kamus Dewan Edisi Keempat, the word 'baru' and 'baharu' can be used to mean 'new'. For example, a new car can be rendered 'sebuah kereta baru' or 'sebuah kereta baharu.'

The word 'baru' is used when it means 'just'. For instance, 'I just e-mailed him the file he needed.' can be worded as 'Saya baru meng-e-melkan fail yang diperlukannya kepadanya.'

Recently in Malay is 'Baru-baru ini' and not 'Baharu-baharu ini.'

The difference between 'keturunan' and 'penurunan'

2011-01-06T21:35:00.000+08:00

In Malay, affixes are added to words to carry different meanings. For example, the word 'keturunan' means 'descendent' while the word 'penurunan' means 'fall or drop in something'.

Let me construct two sentences to show the difference in meaning between these two words.

1 Gopal berasal daripada keturunan India.
[Gopal is of Indian race.]
2 Penurunan harga komputer membolehkan lebih banyak orang memilikinya.
[The drop in the price of computers enables more people to own them.]

The mood of CNY is in the air

2011-01-05T23:35:00.003+08:00

You can always feel it - the approach of Chinese New Year.

The roadside stalls are selling CNY decorative items.

'Three for ten ringgit!" shouted one vendor as I passed his stall.

Ribbon cakes and arrow-head fries are already on sale although CNY only falls on 3rd February.

Soon you can see 'nian gao' - something like the Malay dodol being displayed on the stalls. This food is always offered to the Kitchen Dewa to bribe him so that he will report good things about the family.

CNY songs are also being played in some of the stalls at the market place.

I like to experience the cool breeze of the morning when the northerly wind is blowing.

He aced the test

2011-01-04T22:15:00.000+08:00

In English, you can economise the use of words. For example, instead of saying 'He got an 'A' in the test.', you can simply reword it as 'He aced the test.'

If you are ready to listen to someone, you need not say 'I am ready to listen to what you have to say.' Rather, just say "I am all ears."

If you laugh until you bend your body forward when you watch something really comic or funny done by someone, you need not say 'His comic act really made me laugh until I bent my body forward.' Just say 'His comic act had me in stitches.'

Practising our religion in our daily lives

2011-01-03T11:16:00.000+08:00

You can practise your own religion in your daily life. For example, if you are a Buddhist, you can always practise Buddhism quietly. For instance, the chanting of the name of Amitabha Buddha can be done mentally while waiting for a bus. You can also do it verbally while doing your work such as sewing, planting trees and so on.

You need not tell people that you are a Buddhist. By your good behaviour and compassion shown to people around, you are walking the path of the Buddha.

Keeping the ball rolling

2011-01-02T15:19:00.000+08:00

I regretted not being able to sustain my continuity of the posts in this blog last year and I hope to blog every day for this year except the time when I go travelling again.

Sometimes I had many things to say in this blog but at times my mind was blank and did not what to pen at all. This happened last year and I hope it won't repeat this year.

Keeping the ball rolling is to let an event such as a party continue by planning non-stop programmes. Blogging can be likened to this situation too. You need to write every day so that people will come to read something new from you.

Let us hope for the best for this year.

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T00:00:00.002+08:00

I wish all readers of this blog a very Happy New Year.

I really hope everything you wish for goes your way throughout the year.

For me, I wish to have good health, enough money to lead a decent life and happy all the time.

Spiritually I hope to be a better human being, caring and showing concerning to the needy as well as cultivate good karma.

It is Christmas again

2010-12-25T23:31:00.003+08:00

Today is Christmas Day - a day to remember the birth of Jesus Christ.Those who embrace his teachings are known as Christians.

Jesus Christ teaches universal love to all of us. If we can practise loving everyone around us, then the whole world will be a better and enjoyable place to live in.

Happy Christmas to Christians all over the world.

We are one year older when Dong Zhi comes again

2010-12-22T10:13:00.004+08:00

Today is Dong Zhi, the Winter Solstice for the Chinese. On this day, the Chinese all over the world will savour tang yuan (glutinous rice balls cooked in syrup) to usher in the arrival of winter as Dong Zhi means the arrival of Winter.

Yang yuan is round, symbolising harmony and reunion. The shape round is considered auspicious to the Chinese too. Dong Zhi can be a day of reunion for members of the family. They will come together to promote family unity. In ancient China, the daughter who was married off to someone had to spend her day in her own parents' house so that nothing unfortunate will befall her husband.

The Chinese are also considered one year older once they have tasted the tang yuan. Some people will not taste it because they want to be the same age all year round.

Happy celebrating Dong Zhi to Chinese all over the world.