Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Safety comes first
I was on my way to Pangkor this afternoon when our bus overtake two long trailers in a straight expressway. As I usually travel by car, it was a rare sight, a rare angle of view actually, seeing a huge trailer from a higher vehicle as our double-decker bus is. What I wanted to point out is, as our bus passed by the two lorries, both the driver was on the phone while driving the huge monster. Not talking, but worst, they were SMS-ing! Oh, come on Malaysian drivers, safety first!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Mind your language
When writing in Malay has become way too ordinary, I guess I could make a difference by speaking my mind in a different language. There's no particular topic occuring in my mind at the very moment but anyway, my aim is just to sharpen my command in English that I, quite alarmingly noticed, had withered with time.
When could one said to be 'well-versed' in a certain language? Is it when he could write well? or speak fluently for that matter? I don't think so. My argument is based on the fact that not all people who speaks well have the ability to write well. Some native speaker of a certain language could not even write in that language at all! Take a glimpse at my grandmother for an instance, true, she could very much converse pretty well but neither could she spell nor write.
Many Chinese and Indian youngsters nowadays also suffer from the same problem. They could speak in their respective mother tongue well because that had been exposed to that particular language since their early age but because they were not sufficiently encouraged to read and write in that language, the ability then soon wane off. And yes, people who can write well also can't be easily concluded as a fluent user of a language. There's so many people I know who can write tremendously well but when it comes to conversing in that language, they simply sucks!
So at the end, when could one said to be well-versed in a certain language?
Easy - when one could be able to dream in that language. Meaning that, not only their conscious mind is accustom to that language, but also their mind in its sub-conscious state.
Oh, and the hardest language in the world to learn is Polish. That, I learned recently from a very interesting article on the net :-)
When could one said to be 'well-versed' in a certain language? Is it when he could write well? or speak fluently for that matter? I don't think so. My argument is based on the fact that not all people who speaks well have the ability to write well. Some native speaker of a certain language could not even write in that language at all! Take a glimpse at my grandmother for an instance, true, she could very much converse pretty well but neither could she spell nor write.
Many Chinese and Indian youngsters nowadays also suffer from the same problem. They could speak in their respective mother tongue well because that had been exposed to that particular language since their early age but because they were not sufficiently encouraged to read and write in that language, the ability then soon wane off. And yes, people who can write well also can't be easily concluded as a fluent user of a language. There's so many people I know who can write tremendously well but when it comes to conversing in that language, they simply sucks!
So at the end, when could one said to be well-versed in a certain language?
Easy - when one could be able to dream in that language. Meaning that, not only their conscious mind is accustom to that language, but also their mind in its sub-conscious state.
Oh, and the hardest language in the world to learn is Polish. That, I learned recently from a very interesting article on the net :-)
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