A tongue-twisting session

To break the monotony of my tuition class, I introduced one tongue-twister in Hokkien for my students this evening and it had them in stitches for quite some time. Let me share this tongue-twister with readers. It goes like this 'kong kong kong, kong kong kong, kong kong, kong kong kong'. You have to listen to me read them to be able to master it.

To make it easy for readers I will add in the intonation, Here it goes:
'kong3 kong kong4, kong kong4 kong4, kong3 kong, kong4 kong kong4'
Remember that all these sounds are in Hokkien.

To make it meaningful, this is what is contained in the above tongue-twister:
'kong3 kong kong4 means 'my grandpa (kong3 kong) says (kong4) [Note: An example in the use of kong4 is 'lu kong4 ha mi': You (lu) say (kong4) what? (ha mi?)]
'kong kong4 kong4' will mean 'the can (kong kong4) says (kong4)
'kong3 kong' means 'grandfather' in Hokkien.
'kong4 kong kong4' means 'hits (kong4) the can (kong kong4).

The whole tongue-twister simply means 'My grandfather says that the can says that my grandfather hits the can.'

How do you like my unique tongue-twister?

Some common mistakes in English committed by Malaysian students

In the course of teaching English to students in Malaysia, I find that my students have the tendency of constructing sentences based on their own mother tongues. I shall elaborate such types of errors in the following paragraphs.

A very common error committed by Malay students is the use of a preposition in front of 'there'. An example is "We had a lot of fun at here." The correct sentence should be "We had a lot of fun there." This mistake is most probably caused by the Malay structure 'di sana' [literally: at there].

Another error is the use of 'send'when 'take' is intended. For example, some of my students will write "I sent my brother to the nearest clinic immediately." which is wrong. The correct sentence should be 'I took my brother to the nearest clinic immediately." This error must have been influenced by the Malay word 'hantar' (send) which can be used for this purpose.

As for my Chinese pupils, they will make mistakes such as the ones below:
"My mother called me to buy her a kilogram of sugar." In Hokkien it is uttered as 'Gua ei ma kieo gua bay hor hee chi kilo ei th'ng." where 'kieo' is the equivalent of "call". However, standard English should be worded as "My mother asked me to buy her a kilogram of sugar."

A classic error committed by Chinese students here is the use of 'there have' when 'there are' should be used. For example, they will write a sentence such as the one below:
There have many types of food sold in the supermarket.
The correct sentence should be: 'There are many types of food sold in the supermarket.'

A good way to convert amipro files to word

I am sure many of you still have amipro files with you because it was once very popular. For me, I have a lot of files in amipro. The WordPort is very expensive and when I tried the trial version, I had to correct the letters purposely made wrong by the program. The I searched the Internet for a solution and I found one. I would like to share this with readers.

This is what you have to do:

1 Go to this site to look for amipro word converter: http://www.gmayor.com/downloads.htm

2 Unzip the file amipro332.zip.

3 Copy the unzipped file amipro332.cnv to C:\Programs\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\TextConv subdirectory.

4 Restart Word.

5 Try to open any amipro file and it will be displayed exactly as entered.

I have tried it and it works perfectly.

The odd boy out

I started to conduct my first lesson of Form 4 Malay when I realised that there was a boy who simply refused to do anything. He did not bother to take down the exam scope which I wrote on the board. With things to expect in an exam, pupils will have some aim in doing the exercises given because they have a bearingn on the real exam.

Then I gave a written exercise for my boys and girls to do. Again I found that the same boy just stared at the exercise given and did nothing too. Usually I will ask questions to make sure that my pupils attempt the exercise given, then I will ask for answers. I will pick at random someone to answer, and if he gives a wrong answer, I will explain how to get the correct one.

When I gave another exercise to my pupils to do, I invited the boy I mentioned earlier out for a heart-to-heart talk to see why he refused to co-operate in class. To my surprise, the boy told me that he could not understand my instruction and could not follow the lessons. Then I asked him for his PMR results for Malay, and he told me that he got a 'D' which is very poor. No wonder he could not comprehend a thing in class.

For such type of students, we have a foundation class of three months to drill them on basic grammar and increase their vocabulary so that they can join a normal class again. If he still cannot make it, then we have to ask him to go for personal tuition elsewhere.

Recollecting Chinese words through mobile phones

I have not been writing Chinese for many years. This results in my not being able to write out the words correctly. Hence I am now trying to relearn the strokes so that I can remember them. Sometimes I need to write the Chinese equivalent of the English or Malay words to my lower form students especially those from Form 1.

I find that I can use my mobile phone to help me recall the words. Luckily I know pinyin - a system of denoting Chinese words by sound. This can also be used to key in to produce the Chinese words displayed on the screen of my mobile phone. In fact, it helps me pronounce the Chinese words correctly, particularly those words with 's' or 'sh' sound, 'c' or 'ch' sound and 'z' or 'zh' sound.

In Malaysia I find that people don't bother to pronounce Mandarin accurately. They take the easy way out, that is pronouncing all 's' and 'sh' words with 's' sound only. For example, "Wo3 shi4 xue2 sheng1' [I am a student.] is simply pronounced as 'Wo3 si4 xue2 seng1.'

Make use of your mobile phone to learn Mandarin. It is worth the effort.

About a special child and handwriting

I was reading the newspaper when I was touched by the plight of an seven-year-old girl, Ooi Zhao Qian, who entered primary 1 this year. She is a special girl because she had no limbs when she was born. Yet she was trained by her mother to write with her right leg which has only four toes. Her uncle had made a custom-made wheelchair for her so that she can move around in school.

The newspaper report also showed her handwriting of her name. It is very neatly written. When it comes to handwriting I am very angry at the poor handwriting of my pupils especially the boys. The a's are not closed, the e's has no space as if c is intended and the n's look like h's. All these poor handwriting makes reading their essays more like deciphering what they are writing rather than knowing exactly when they have written.

The Chinese pride themselves in writing properly and forcefully. There are even kungfu exponents who practise writing as a form of kungfu. This happens when they write on the rocks or on papers with Chinese brushes.

Writing properly is a form of discipline and a way of showing that we want to do a job properly. Poor handwriting makes lives of teachers horrible.

Let us write properly if there is still a need to write now that we key in words with our keyboards.

The difference between 'disinterested' and 'uninterested'

For today's post, I will talk about the difference between 'disinterested' and ' uninterested'.

If you are not interested in something that meets your eyes, you are uninterested in it.
For example, you can write a sentence such as the one below:
Pupils often are uninterested in History lessons because they are usually boring.

As for disinterested, it means 'impartial' or 'neutral'. Let us say a football match is held and we need a judge, we should choose someone outside the two competing teams to do the job. A sentence to illustrate this point will be as follows.
We invited a disinterested man to judge our football match.

So much for 'disinterested' and 'uninterested'.

How to use 'pinjam' with its affixes correctly

Mastering affixes in the Malay language is good way to write grammatically correct essays.

I shall try my best to make readers have a better grasp of words with affixes or 'kata berimbuhan'.

In this post, I shall deal with one word 'pinjam' [borrow] and add affixes to it and see how these words should be used in sentences.

1 By itself, the transitive verb 'pinjam' should be used in the passive voice.
e.g. Buku cerita ini saya pinjam daripada Ali. [Literally: This story book I borrowed from Ali. It is better to be rendered as 'I borrowed this story book from Ali.]

2 When meN...i is added to 'pinjam', it becomes 'meminjami' which should be used according to the following formula: 1st person + meminjami + 2nd person + thing loaned to the 1st person
e.g Hamid meminjami Ali sebatang pen. [Hamid lent Ali a pen.]

3 With the addition of 'meN...kan', 'pinjam' becomes 'meminjamkan'. You can use it correctly by following the rule below.
1st person + meminjamkan + thing to be loaned + kepada + 2nd person
e.g. Susan meminjamkan sebuah novel kepada Lina. [Susan lent a novel to Lina.]

4 By adding suffix 'i' to 'pinjam', the verb 'pinjami' is formed. The usage is bit tricky here. Just follow this formula: Person + saya / awak + pinjami + thing to be loaned
e.g. Suresh saya pinjami basikalku kelmarin. [Literally: Suresh I lent my bicycle yesterday. It is better translated in the active voice, that is 'I lent my bicycle to Suresh yesterday.]

5 If the suffix 'kan' is added to 'pinjam', 'pinjamkan' is formed. Based on the rule below, you can use it correctly.
Thing to be loaned + saya / awak + pinjamkan + kepada + person
e.g. Nota Sains itu awak pinjamkan kepada Ahmad dua hari yang lalu. [Literally: The Science notes you lent to Ahmad two days ago. It is better to be rendered as 'You lent the Science notes to Ahmad two days ago.]

6 When you add the prefix 'meN' to 'pinjam', the derivative verb 'meminjam' formed should be used in the following way.
Person + meminjam + thing loaned + dari / daripada + place / person
e.g. Saya meminjam buku ini dari perpustakaan. [I borrowed this book from the library.]
Dia meminjam pen itu daripada Azmi. [He borrowed the pen from Azmi.]

7 The word 'dipinjam' is formed when the prefix 'di' is added to 'pinjam'. You should use it according to the rule below.
Thing loaned + dipinjam + oleh + person + dari / daripada + place / person
e.g. Buku ini dipinjam oleh adik dari perpustakaan. [Literally: This book was borrowed by my brother from the library.]
Disket ini dipinjam oleh Abu daripada kawannya. [This diskette was borrowed by Abu from his friend.]

8 If you add affix 'di...i' to 'pinjam' you get the word 'dipinjami'. This is how you use the word in sentences.
1st person (the recipient) + dipinjami + 2nd person (the owner) + thing loaned
Zamri dipinjami Muthu cakera padat video. [Muthu lent a video Cd to Zamri.]

9 When the affix 'di...kan' is added to 'pinjam' to form 'dipinjamkan' you can use it in the following way.
Thing loaned +dipinjamkan + oleh + 1st person (owner) + kepada + 2nd person (recipient)
e.g. Buku itu dipinjamkan oleh Johari kepada Mazlan. [This book was borrowed by Johari to Mazlan.]

I do hope by using rules and formulae readers will be able to remember how to use the above derivative verbs of 'pinjam' better.

Essay clinic - Saya terima satu surat

For today, I am going to do something different. I will write a paragraph inMalay and it is full of grammatical errors. Then I will correct them, giving reasons for the errors committed. Here it goes.

Saya terima satu surat dari sahabat penaku kelmarin. Dia ingin tahu tempat-tempat tertarik di Malaysia. Saya pun memberitahu semua fakta-fakta yang perlu dia ketahui. Saya berharap dia memahamkan apa yang saya huraikan itu.

Let me correct the first sentence. The use of 'terima' is wrong here. According to Malay grammar, the transitive verb in a statement should be preceded by the prefix meN (me, mem, men, meng, meny, menge). Hence 'menerima' should be used. Satu surat is grammatically wrong too because the absence of 'penjodoh bilangan' (numerical coefficient) renders the noun phrase incorrect. You should write 'sepucuk surat' where pucuk is the numerical coefficient for surat. As sahabat is a person, the kata sendi nama (preposition) 'dari' (from)used in front of it is wrong. The correct preposition to be used is 'daripada' (from) which is used for persons. To end the correction for the first sentence, here is the correct way of expressing it:
Saya menerima sepucuk surat daripada sahabat penaku kelmarin. [I received a letter from my pen-pal yesterday.]

As for the second sentence, there are two errors incurred. The first one is 'tahu' which should be followed by the preposition 'akan'. 'Tertarik' which means 'attracted' should be replaced with 'menarik' which carries the meaning of 'interesting'. Hence, the correct sentence should be:
Dia ingin tahu akan tempat-tempat menarik di Malaysia. [He would like to know about the places of interest in Malaysia.]

Now I will deal with the third sentence. Three errors can be found in this sentence. The use of 'memberitahu' here is wrong. This is because 'memberitahu' (tell) should be followed by a person such as Ali. For example, 'Saya memberitahu Ali tentang hal itu.' [I told Ali about the matter.] If something follows it, then the suffix 'kan' should be added to it to become 'memberitahukan'. For instance, 'Saya memberitahukan hal itu kepada Ali.' is grammatically correct. The next mistake is 'semua fakta-fakta' [all facts]. As semua denotes plurality, the word that follows it need not be duplicated. You just need to write 'Semua fakta'. The last error in the sentence is 'yang perlu dia ketahui' which should have been rendered as 'yang perlu diketahuinya.' [which he needs to know]. This is the rule for passive form involving the third person. The correct sentence then is:

Saya pun memberitahukan semua fakta yang perlu diketahuinya. [I then told him all the facts that he needs to know.]

There are three errors too in the last sentence. The intransitive verb 'berharap' should be followed by 'agar'. The transitive verb 'memahamkan' means 'to make someone understand' is wrongly used here. The correct one should be 'memahami' [to understand] The last error is 'apa' which is a question word. Here 'apa-apa' [whatever] should be put in its place. The final corrected sentence is:
Saya berharap agar dia memahami apa-apa yang saya huraikan. [I hope he understands what I have explained.]

Let us learn correct English and Malay

Happy New Year to all readers of this blog. Thank you for visiting my blog. Your perusal of my posts means a lot to me as I know that my effort in penning things here is appreciated. I really feel proud to be of help to those who want to master English. By reading the posts labelled 'Tips on English' you will learn the finer points of the language. I learnt them the hard way and I will be too willing to share my experience with all of you.

For those who would like to learn correct Malay, I have some posts on 'Tips in Malay'. Learning English and Malay as well as teaching them now enable me to realise the difficulties encountered by students in learning these two languages. I am lucky because I was taught by good teachers who aroused my interest in both and even now I still find learning languages fun. It pays to look at how words are used in sentences and how they are spoken so that you can articulate them correctly and grammatically correct. Remember to use the dictionary regularly.

New Year is the best time to start anything. So, if you still want to improve on your English and Malay, read all the posts labelled 'Tips on English' and 'Tips on Malay'. I will be adding more posts this year too in the hope that more people will use English and Malay correctly.

May all of you have a fruitful year ahead.