Throughout the 2 years I've attended Uni, must have walked by the student info booth a million times. This is at the Student Union Building where one may find food, books, medication, clothes, air ticket, movie theatre, photocopying needs...basically anything a person could need.
Working there is a lady, I still do not know her name. But I have always wondered if she was perhaps Malaysian. And today finally, there was contact. She is from Malaysia after all. My intuition was right. You must understand why at this point our eyes lit up. In this entire city, there are so few Malaysians that we're still allowed to say - No Wayyyyy!! I'M from Malaysia too!!- without appearing too unsophisticated. So naturally there's an instant bond formed. She picked out my accent right away.
Many Malaysians and Singaporeans (with exception to those who were born or went to high school here) have the same difficulties in adapting to the North American pronunciation. This is especially true for certain words.
We cannot do the replacement of 'tt' with 'dd' very well.
The not-so-difficult ones:
Malaysian = komp-pew-ter
N.American = khemp- pew-dder
The kick-you-in-the-ass- I-can-never-say- it-right ones:
M= wat-ter
NA= wad-der
M= sent-ter
NA= sen-ner
M= general moe-toes
NA= general mow-ders
No comments:
Post a Comment