Languages

I was born with a Hokkien tongue, yes Hokkien is my mother tongue and Hokkien is a dialect of the Chinese language. Both my parents do not speak English and I wasn't sure when I was exposed to the English language. I attended an English medium school and everyone speak English in school. In Malaysia it is compulsory to study Bahasa Malaysia which is the national language of the country.

By the time I finished school I could only speak English, Bahasa Malaysia and Hokkien. In Malacca where my home is most Chinese speak Mandarin but Hokkien is acceptable to a certain level. Being educated in an English medium school and every one I know seems to speak English only, in my own little world I thought I was from England when I was a little kid .... hehe!!!

When I started working in Kuala Lumpur, the majority of people speaks Cantonese which is also a Chinese dialect which I couldn't speak a word of. Anyway I was able to get by with some kind of universal sign language and managed to learn a few word for my own survival in this vicious place. Then there was this Cantonese TV soap opera series "Man In The Net"which I have no idea how I got myself deeply interested in watching it. I don't even understand the language or dialect but I was watching it. With sheer determination I learned to understand and speak Cantonese, not to master the language but enough to get by. I was able to enjoy the Cantonese soap opera series more and continued to watch more soap operas ........ hehe!!!

My children all went to Chinese Primary School where the main medium of instruction is Mandarin and are very fluent with the language now. We parents were non speakers of this language mainly because we do not know how. Me, I had a little lesson while in primary school, very very little ...... just enough to write my own name and sometimes I even get it wrong ...blush! blush!

Recently my Princess who had just finished her final year university is back home with us and she had been speaking alot of Mandarin with me. I do not know how it started but we converse a lot in Mandarin and this really help me in improving my spoken ability for this language. I am now confidence enough to engage in a Mandarin conversation with anyone who can speak it. Princess had started blogging too, just click on Princess and you will get to her blog.

A language learned even though just spoken is very vast knowledge earned.