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Language
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The national language of Malaysia is
Bahasa Malaysia.
It's an old language, with early roots in the central and south Pacific, and simple enough to learn. In practice, you'll be able to get by with English in all but the most remote areas. As a general rule, older Malaysians speak better English than younger ones, as English used to be on the curriculum in schools, but is rarely these days.
Nouns have no genders and don't require an article, while the plural form is constructed just by saying the word twice; thus "child" is
anak,
while "children" is
anak anak.
Doubling a word can also indicate "doing"; for example,
jalan jalan
is used to mean "walking". Verbs have no tenses either. Sentence order is the same as in English, though adjectives usually follow the noun. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Malaysia |