Some how by virtue of my brown skin and black hair, I fall in to the category of”ignoramous kampong lass”. Because of where i was born and the fact that the plantery constellation at the time of birth wasn’t favourable, I must not speak english. If I did, it shouldn’t be at the risk of making the matsalleh feeling ashamed.. If i could speak broken english and with a heavy accent, the matsalleh will be PLEASED.
He thinks only he should speak english and that too perfectly..
First question the ignorant matsalleh always asks me is “oh where did you learn your english?”
English is one of the easiest language to learn if you can master the silly grammer. Who really cares, if Rama killed the snake or if the snake was killed by Rama? The snake is dead.. End of story right?
I only learned english as a subject till I was 17.. My elglish teacher said once. you know you mastered English, when you dream in English.
The first time I spoke english in my life was at the med school. The first novel i read in my life was “third bunker” by Irwin Wallace at the age of 18. I read Freud and Kahlil Gibran before I was 20.
Mastering english language was the easiest thing I ever did it. believe me I have considerably less grey mattter than average human being.
And now at the age of 35 I dream my dreams in English.. and worst I made a matsalleh of my kids. I didn’t make any effort to teach my kids Malay. I don’t have any excuses, except that there were so many books in english for them to read. My 5 yr old told me yesterday he saw a humongous spider out side and I grinned.. not bad for an ignoramous kampong lass eh???
dont yaa feel proud now to having this gud standard in english, despite the fact that its not our mother tongue and other points u mentioned?
not so sure if i feel proud.. i had dreams of teaching my kids their mother tongue..that didn’t happen.. Now they will never know my language and the heritage and culture that I am proud off
you know what….I will only marry a girl who can speak & writes and read malayalam…I dont care if she doesnt speak english…but malayalam is a must….I want to make sure that ‘we’ both teach our kids malayalam and to speak the mother tongue at home….its a dream…I know that in real life its difficult to achieve, but some that we can try for..
I speak, write and read malayalam.. It still didn’t help!!!!
I still try to give the kids kaineetam for onam and vishu and they think they are getting lucky with more pocket money
but atleast you try…where as other modern “mummy” dolls hide out actual yourself and foster their kids new identity….I wish you good luck sister….say hi to little ones..