學 華 文
你們 好! 你們會覺得很特色我要寫華文. 對馬?
I am sure you are wondering whether Miss Cheah has gone bonkers by blogging in Chinese. Right? Let me explain. When I sent my CPU to the shop yesterday for re-formatting I had asked the man at the shop to install a Chinese programme for me. What I had last time was just the tools for reading. I wanted to have a programme that types using Romanised Chinese or Han Yu Pinyin. So, I am actually testing out the programme installed.
But seriously, it does no harm if we know more languages. Instead it works to our advantage. In my case, when I first learnt to speak it was a mixture of English and Cantonese. Then when I was in school I learnt to read and write in English (at that time all the subjects taught were in English except for Bahasa Melayu). It was only later in secondary school when subjects like Civics, History and Geography were taught in Malay. In primary school, my dad sent me for POL (Pupil's Own Language) class where I learnt Mandarin from Standards 4 to 5. I continued to study Mandarin after Form 5 but at the same time I was taught to read and write using my own mother tongue, Cantonese. And that is why my spoken Mandarin is atrocious as there are influences from both English and Cantonese. I am not the only one with this problem, Wu Chun (remember him - the Brunei-born actor) also speaks Mandarin with a very pronounced English accent as he was English educated and studied in Australia. As his mother tongue is Hokkien, there is also influence from this dialect. By the way, he will be coming to Kuala Lumpur to promote his drama, "Hanazakarino Kimitachihe" or "HanaKimi" as it starts airing on TV8 tomorrow at 7.00 p.m. I would actually have liked very much to go and see him in person but the thought of being trampled by hordes of teenage girls screaming their heads off at the sight of him is really frightening. When I watched Rain perform in KL on January 27 this year, I watched it in peace and safety. There was no screaming, no pushing, no commotion and no crying. Most of the people who attended the concert were very grown-up. In fact, Tan Sri Zeti (yeah the Bank Governor) who went with her sons was sitting quite near to where I sat. There was also Reshmonu and Alif (One in a Million). There were people as old as seventy but mostly those fans who sat near me were twenty years of age and above. All of us went there to watch a very talented person perform. However, I have seen news reports of Chun fans in Hong Kong and Guang Chow in which some of the teenagers really work themselves into a frenzy and some got hurt. No way! I don't like him in such a way. Just like Rain, I admire him for his talent and also his devotion to his mum and his charity work.
Oops! I have digressed. Let me get back to my topic on learning languages. To all readers, my advice to you is to try and learn as many things as you can for learning is a never ending process. I find that I learn something new each and every day. For instance, this afternoon I learnt how to do a bit of maintenance from my student Sam. Don't feel shy to learn from younger people. They may be better at some things than we are. Alright!
Let me teach you one phrase that is very common among Chinese people, it is "jia yue". It means to work hard at something. 加油
你們 好! 你們會覺得很特色我要寫華文. 對馬?
I am sure you are wondering whether Miss Cheah has gone bonkers by blogging in Chinese. Right? Let me explain. When I sent my CPU to the shop yesterday for re-formatting I had asked the man at the shop to install a Chinese programme for me. What I had last time was just the tools for reading. I wanted to have a programme that types using Romanised Chinese or Han Yu Pinyin. So, I am actually testing out the programme installed.
But seriously, it does no harm if we know more languages. Instead it works to our advantage. In my case, when I first learnt to speak it was a mixture of English and Cantonese. Then when I was in school I learnt to read and write in English (at that time all the subjects taught were in English except for Bahasa Melayu). It was only later in secondary school when subjects like Civics, History and Geography were taught in Malay. In primary school, my dad sent me for POL (Pupil's Own Language) class where I learnt Mandarin from Standards 4 to 5. I continued to study Mandarin after Form 5 but at the same time I was taught to read and write using my own mother tongue, Cantonese. And that is why my spoken Mandarin is atrocious as there are influences from both English and Cantonese. I am not the only one with this problem, Wu Chun (remember him - the Brunei-born actor) also speaks Mandarin with a very pronounced English accent as he was English educated and studied in Australia. As his mother tongue is Hokkien, there is also influence from this dialect. By the way, he will be coming to Kuala Lumpur to promote his drama, "Hanazakarino Kimitachihe" or "HanaKimi" as it starts airing on TV8 tomorrow at 7.00 p.m. I would actually have liked very much to go and see him in person but the thought of being trampled by hordes of teenage girls screaming their heads off at the sight of him is really frightening. When I watched Rain perform in KL on January 27 this year, I watched it in peace and safety. There was no screaming, no pushing, no commotion and no crying. Most of the people who attended the concert were very grown-up. In fact, Tan Sri Zeti (yeah the Bank Governor) who went with her sons was sitting quite near to where I sat. There was also Reshmonu and Alif (One in a Million). There were people as old as seventy but mostly those fans who sat near me were twenty years of age and above. All of us went there to watch a very talented person perform. However, I have seen news reports of Chun fans in Hong Kong and Guang Chow in which some of the teenagers really work themselves into a frenzy and some got hurt. No way! I don't like him in such a way. Just like Rain, I admire him for his talent and also his devotion to his mum and his charity work.
Oops! I have digressed. Let me get back to my topic on learning languages. To all readers, my advice to you is to try and learn as many things as you can for learning is a never ending process. I find that I learn something new each and every day. For instance, this afternoon I learnt how to do a bit of maintenance from my student Sam. Don't feel shy to learn from younger people. They may be better at some things than we are. Alright!
Let me teach you one phrase that is very common among Chinese people, it is "jia yue". It means to work hard at something. 加油
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