More on languages

I am not sure if the Teochew language will be endangered in the near future but it definitely is in Singapore. I am overwhelmed by the surprised looks on the faces of some of my friends when I said that I speak a half-baked Teochew. I am actually proud of being able to speak my dialect (or this language, from some linguists' point of view) actually.

So I was really glad to find Teochew lessons link online.

Technology has definitely made foreign language learning much easier! I recall the days in PKU when I only had audio cassettes for learning Bahasa Indonesian. Till this day, I don't dare to claim that I know the language as I have forgotten most of the vocabulary and I am really not conversant in it. I could probably say more than what Obama did in his address in Indonesia,(see old post "Power of speaking their language" ) though there are speculations that he is really conversant in the language. However, I am able to understand simple sentences from reading, ie the passive skills. Add on a Indonesian-English dictionary and some extra time, I could probably translate quite accurately simple sentences too. But I am simply not conversant since I don't recall much daily life vocabulary.

Probably that explained the joy in my heart when I tried to converse in Malay with the Malaysian family whom I met in Spain. Think Cik was quite surprised that a Singaporean gal would be speaking to them in Malay. Her comment "yah, your sentence is grammatical" could be just a casual compliment (we all do that to new learners of our languages) but it was enough to send me to the skies. I guess, it is a reminder that compliments and encouragements are really important to students who are not confident of themselves. Every little sentence counts.