The Difference Between Malay and

English
By Iskandar Suhaimi

Learning Malay is Simple. English? Not So.

Malay language is simple -- the lack of tenses, subject-verb agreement and singular-plural problems,
a dedicated foreigner could learn the language in month -- less if he or she spends some time
learning the language with a native.
The only reason why most foreigners do not pick the language is practicality. In a country where
many people speak understandable English, there's little motivation to know the native language.
But as I will show later, a Malay language speaker will find it hard to learn English because the
language has many complexities that do not exist in Malay.
As such, it is best for a Malay to enroll in an English class (Kelas Bahasa Inggeris) that is taught by a
native Malay who understands the difference between the two.

1. Malays Have No Tenses

The major reason why the Malays find it difficult to learn English is because of the tenses.
In Malay, there is no such thing as tenses.
So, if in English you say things like "I go to school" and "I went to school" to denote different times,
in Malay you simply say "Saya pergi ke sekolah" for both. Time makes no difference at all.
Inaccurate? Yes. Simple? You bet.
In Malay, the notion of time is not as important as in English and it doesn't alter the verb in any way.
If you want to use "had", just use the word "sudah" and you're done. There's no need to worry about
the state of your verb.

2. Malays Do Not Care About Subject Verb Agreement

The English language puts a particular emphasize on the subject-verb agreement. In fact, in some
schools you spend weeks learning this.
The reason why Malay speakers often make the subject-verb agreement errors is simple -- because
such thing doesn't exist in Malay.

So if you say "The student sings" but "Your kids sing" -- where a single noun has a single verb and
plural noun has a plural verb, you could simply say "Pelajar itu menyanyi" and "Anak
anda menyanyi".
And like I mentioned above, the verb stays the same even when it is past tense -- " Your kids sang"
still is "Anak anda menyanyi"
Because of this simplicity, Malay language students find it difficult to learn English, especially from
someone who is not a bilingual.

3. Malays Do Not Care About The Number of Speaker

In English, you say "I am", or "she is" or "they are" -- which means, who and the number of people
doing the action is important.
In Malay, there's no such thing. All the "verb be" above can be substituted as "adalah".
So :

I am = Saya adalah

She is = Dia adalah

They are = Mereka adalah

If you think that that is simple, here's another shocker. You could also eliminate the verb to be
altogether.
So :

"I am a student" could be just "I student" -- translated as "Saya pelajar".

"She is a student" becomes "She student" -- "Dia pelajar"

"They are students becomes "They student" -- "Mereka pelajar"

Look! No am, is or are at all.

4. Malays Do Not Have Confusing Singular-Plural Forms

The English language puts a great deal of emphasize of the singular or plurality of the noun. You
turn most singular nouns into plural simply by adding 's' to the end.
That is fine, until you get to certain nouns where things do not turn out to be that simple :I am not only talking about nouns such :

baby -- becomes babies

hoof -- becomes hooves

axis -- becomes axes

But I am also talking about other nouns like :

news - looks plural but is always singular as in "The news is depressing"

information - the plural and singular is the same.

This really confuses the Malays. Being simple people, here's how the Malay language treats the
singular and plural problem.
We just double the word.
For example :

news - Singular is "berita". Plural is "berita-berita"

baby - Singular is "bayi". Plural is "bayi-bayi"

potato - Singular is "kentang". Plural is "kentang-kentang"

It is simple. No wonder why Malays find English hard.

Adapted from http://lelaiskandar.hubpages.com/hub/The-difference-between-malay-and-english