Oh My English!

"Are you born in Britain?" my Romanian teacher once asked me.

"Is English your first language?" asked my British friend, Alex, a friend I made from my summer school.

"Did you go to any English tuition class?" asked Ong, my internship colleague.

Disclaimer: do not put a high expectation on me! I can assure you that my English is not that good... well, the fact that I had to repeat my IELTS last time is one of the proofs hehe

But I just feel like looking back at how I get to speak in English, (though not really fluently, just enough to be able to have a conversation with other people) given the fact that I am such a kampung girl and English is undoubtedly something very, very foreign to me.

My family speak full Malay at home. My dad speaks Perak dialect in his hometown, while my mum speaks Javanese with her family. So maybe for the sake of simplicity, all of us have been using standard Malay as our first language despite living in Terengganu for almost 20 years. As far as I can remember, I got my first English lesson in my kindergarten. I went there when I was five and we started to learn English using this book called 'Read Easy'; that is where I got my early vocabularies from.

I went to a normal daily public school (not an international school), every basics of English that I learned is totally from everything that was taught in class. Yes, I paid attention in my PnP lessons (PnP stands for Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran) but I did learn English in some fun ways outside the class too. Back then in primary school, I was a very quiet and timid girl. I didn't even talk a lot in Malay, let alone English! But when I was in Year 3, I joined the action song team. Basically 'action song' is an English song competition with some dance and small act (yes, I danced before guys don't judge). When I got into Tahap Dua (Year 4 to Year 6), I joined choral speaking competitions. Maybe those events had been able to train me in getting the right pronunciation for my English language. Apart from that, I participated in a few spelling competitions, but to be honest I can't remember how far it did help me with my vocabularies errr XD  I'm pretty sure it was very helpful; I still remember having to read so many magazines and answer so many spelling tests to prepare for all the tournaments!

Any extras? When I was younger, my mum bought small notebooks for my sisters and I to note; if we came across any new words while reading English books. She loves taking us to the public library on weekends, when she's free lah. As for my dad, he got me in touch with a guy, Mridul, from India on Facebook; in which my dad claimed that his level of English is not that high, so it's good enough for me to practice my language. He's the only 'pen pal' I have ever had, or maybe the more accurate term is cyber pal. He's 2 years older than me, if I am not mistaken. Since I went to a boarding school, I used to chat with him during school holidays because I'll be at home and that's the only time I got to have Internet access. Unfortunately, a few years later, we lost contact. Maybe by that time he already went to a university huhu

I went to an MRSM in Terengganu. I got Miss Erina as my English teacher for three years. Up until now, I can never forget this one useful practice she has always asked us to do.

Every single time she gave us stuffs to read, she will ask us to jot down all the words that we are not sure of their meanings. As expected, we are required to find out the definition of the words. But one thing that I find very useful is that, she will then ask us to construct a sample sentence from the word that we have found. I find that method very effective in helping me to understand the way to use the words any other time though sometimes I actually....use the Longman Essential dictionary and copy the sample sentence from that dictionary (at times I changed a few words from the sentence sebab takut kantoi huehue) because erm I am just a lazy kid actually XD (kerja sekolah buat elok2 ya jangan buat macam ni huhu) Sometimes, I did get it wrong. I mean, I used the word in a wrong way, like, using a verb as a noun or vice versa. But yeah, there's no harm in learning from your mistakes so don't be too afraid or shy in making one! Give it a try and you'll see that it will worth it in the end ;)

From my debate training, I finally got the chance to use English verbally; not only for writing. As time flies, I don't really mind being an emcee or having to give an announcement during the morning rollcall. Alhamdulillah my scholarship interviews went well, so I guess my English is....okay la hehe

Unfortunately, my 'okay English' is not 'okay enough' for me to survive... KYUEM isk isk

I didn't use English with my family or my friends at all before. But when I first got into KY, everyone that I met in KY speaks English! The first 6 months was a horrible period.  I got things like...

"What are you talking about?"

"What are you trying to say?"

...because I don't even know how to construct my sentence. Teruk kan, sometimes I do feel like giving up socialising at all huhu

But I think, I won't survive 18 months of being with a clingy batch-mates if I do it that way. So I keep walking with other people, though most of the times not speaking even a word, but just trying to listen how do they have daily conversations in English. You might think that...I use English for debates kan? But unfortunately, formal speeches are different. That's not the way people have casual talk with each other! XD

After around 8 to 10 months, alhamdulillah things got better. Some of my teachers are foreigners so I have no choice other than having to speak in English when I meet them to ask questions. I can talk to my friends in English now, though not much, but I think that's just because I am naturally an introvert person hehe. I learned quite a lot from my observation though.

For example, instead of saying "You're welcome" to reply someone's "thank you", some people do say "No problem!" , "No worries!", "My pleasure!" or "Nothing much really". I do use different types of reply depending on the situation hehe

Same goes to the way to reply when someone asked you "How are you?". I used to say "I'm fine, thank you" every single time. But then I felt quite embarrassed and bored of the same answer scheme when I get that question quite a lot of times hoho. So what I did was, I asked the same question to the person who asked me and see the way they answer it. Then, I started to learn different ways of doing it.... I would usually say "I'm good!" "not bad," "so far so good" or sometimes when I don't feel good and I can't be bothered to hide it, especially about my studies back then, I would say, "I'm surviving..." hahaha

So what happen after 18 months? I can converse casually in English now? Maybe, but still, not good enough to get along really well with... my British friends that speaks English damn fast with their British accent isk isk

Sometimes I think I'm just over-intimidated that I became speechless whenever they asked "How have you been?" or "How are you doing?" hahaha XD One thing for sure, speaking English with Malaysians and the English people are not the same at all.

For example, when you want to be nice and let someone to walk before you, they don't say "You can go first" but they say, "After you".

They don't ask, "What time is it?", but they will say "Do you have the time?"

They don't reply, "It's nine forty (9.40)" but they say, "It's twenty to (ten)". Half past, quarter past, quarter to, ten past, five to... I got confused countless times, no joke XD

Some of my friends use "Cheers!" to say "Thank you!", and I like the way they say "Have a good day!" instead of saying "Goodbye!" when we want to go home after we have finished our lectures for the day. Nonetheless, I'm still trying to get the grip of their idioms and terms that are way too many to remember actually.


You see, life is mean. It will never let you feel at ease *rolled eyes* hahaha jk

You know, life is not mean. It is a great friend and a great teacher. The only reason why it will never let you be in a comfort zone is just simply because it's telling you that you need to evolve. Life makes everyday a chance to get better with no excuse, no no. Life does not justify itself until you are able to retrieve the lesson at the end. It might be painful at the moment and you might not see where it leads you, but if it keeps on pushing you, then trust me dear self, there is a place that life wants you to reach at the end of the road ;)


Credits: special thanks to all my teachers for the English lessons in the classroom and also for your hard work and moral support for our extra curricular activities. May Allah bless all of you always ❤️