The end of Kelas Bahasa Malaysia with His Excellency

For about two months and half Bad and Nani taught His Excellency Ty Sokhun, the Under Secretary of State for the Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries of Cambodia. They taught him how to use the Malay language in a correct way such as the pronunciation system, basic Malay vocabulary encompassing parts of speech, duplicated words and numeral classifiers, reading and comprehending simple Malay written text, basic sentence patterns and sentence construction, common Malay affixes and Malay proverbs.

Every Thursday and Friday, Bad and Nani went to His Excellency’s office at the Ministry of Agriculture Forestry, and Fisheries by car. Their class started at 4 until 6PM and His Excellency personal’s driver will pick them up at home 20 minutes earlier.   

Honestly, it was very hard for them to explain some things in our language. Just imagine how they need to explain “kata nama am tak hidup bukan institusi” and translate it in English. For those who have qualification to teach Malay in English, they must know how to explain it but it was really hard for them with no experience in the particular field. But they did try their best to make sure that His Excellency understands it.

Nani said “His Excellency Ty Sokhun is very smart, a fast learner and a humble person. Now he can understand and have the idea about the structure of our language and surprisingly sometimes His Excellency can build sentences in Malay language by his own.”

On the last class, each of them took a picture together with His Excellency. They really hope that they can meet again with His Excellency someday, maybe in Malaysia or in Cambodia. We will really miss his slang.