Foreigners Master Bahasa Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur - Efforts to promote Bahasa Malaysia at the international level are bearing fruit.

This could be seen at the Deputy Prime Minister‘s International Malay Language Public Speaking Competition at Universiti Malaya, which began yesterday and will end on Friday.

Rebecca Soraya Leake, 22, from the United Kingdom, in an interview here today, said the competition gave contestants and the local community an opportunity to understand each other and exchange information.

"I enjoy such a competition because I can exchange views with people from various countries, as well as learn more about Bahasa Malaysia," she told Bernama.

Leake, who had never taken part in any public speaking competitions before, said she studied Bahasa Melayu for more than a year at the University of London and felt it was easy to learn.

A contestant from the Beijing Foreign Studies University China, Yan Ling, 21, said Bahasa Malaysia was not difficult to learn, but to study it indepth was challenging and required a great deal of comprehension before it could be practiced.

"I studied literature, politics and culture of the Malays and about Malaysia for more than two years.

"I feel that other communities should try to learn and master the language," said Yan, who fluently speaks standard Bahasa Malaysia.

Novavy Sleh, 18, a participant from Cambodia, said he started learning Bahasa Malaysia in school using books written in jawi, before he went on to master it at the Islamic Centre of Cambodia.

"I only needed five days to prepare my text, with the help of a lecturer in the competition," he said.

Meanwhile, according to Mazlena Mohamad Hussain, a judge from the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM), topic selection was seen as a problem for many contestants this time.

"They were better last year, but this year there are more participants. There are some new faces that have the potential to master the language in the future," she said.

She added that contestants were evaluated on content, style, body language, eye contact, sway, comprehension and variety in their delivery, such as singing or pantun.

Among the countries represented in the competition are Myanmmar,Netherlands, Japan, Pakistan, Egypt, South Korea, Russia, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Palestine, Romania, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, France and the United States.

Source: Bernama.com.my
Photo Credit: BCMLife.net

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