Learning Languages

Funny how MM and Precious Moment were both talking about learning new languages, I was just online helping another blogger friend with her translation work. She was translating an English Language recipe book into Bahasa Malaysia. Being a non recipe reader, she was finding it tough going. I was glad to help.

This got me thinking. We live in Malaysia, and on any given day, we speak Bahasa Malaysia, English and Mandarin at the same time and we frequently throw in Cantonese, Hokkien or some other dialect for good measure. If one knows Tamil, or Iban or Kadazan then even better.

Growing up in this kind of environment has made me take for granted the wealth of languages my beloved country has. It was when a Japanese lady remarked to me that it constantly amazes her the ease in which Malaysians switch from one language to another, that it hit me, that yeah, we are kind of special that way, aren't we?

So I'm going to do my patriotic duty now and urge everyone to pick up your neighbour's mother tongue. When we seek to learn another's language, we also seek to understand them and their culture at the same time, because you can't separate one from the other. And in my humble opinion, there's no better way to show Christ's love.