Have you tried registering for some language courses even free online language courses and yet still cannot complete the course? Strangely there are many people who failed to commit themselves to completing a foreign language course. There are many reasons for not completing it too. Too time consuming, too many other things to do which are more priority than the learning, the classroom is too far from your home, the course is boring, the teacher is boring, the course is too rigid, procrastination etc etc…

Even if you are very motivated to learn Malay because your girlfriend is from Kuala Lumpur, a lot of other commitments may take over your focus to work on your language learning.

So, how do you sustain your interest learning Malay?

We suggest you follow these 7 tips to ensure you get to your goals of being able to converse in Malay eventually!! We have these tips for you to motivate and sustain your interest but at the end of the day, you will have to be the driving force to your own goal.

1. Be realistic :There are many levels in Malay language. You may only want to learn it for travel purpose, for business communication, for studying requirements or just to impress the girl you knew or her parents who only speak Malay!!

Be realistic in your goals and know that if you are learning Malay for making conversation, it is not the same as learning for a course in Malay to pass an exam.

2. Explore Vocabs: You should know that learning the basis of the language is important ( sentence formation and perhaps grammar) but the most important point is to gauge a little bit of important vocabs to be able to converse with people.

Look at this  “ I m wrkng”Can you make sense of the sentence ( this is English, by the way!!). See, the point I want to make is, even if without the vowels you will get some clue of what the sentence is about. It is the same thing with learning Malay, you get to learn the vocab and worry about the sentence later. If you know what MAKAN , SAYA, MAHU. You will survive asking for food..even if you say “ Mahu saya makan” or “Makan mahu saya” or “saya mahu makan” ..in Malaysia, generally people will understand that all what you are saying is “I want to eat”. I am not saying it is OK to do this all the time, but if you are new to the language, your priority is to learn as many common words or vocabs in the language and practise it often through various means e.g. language exchange or with online chats.  Bear in mind though that when you speak with another person for a chat to learn Malay, more often than not they do not speak the proper Malay language as most chatters are using the sms format of typo. Language exchange can be better than just a normal Malay chat rooms as I doubt any of them will even bother teaching you the difference between “sepak”( kick ) and “sépak” ( slap).

3. Drill and Practise!!!: Practise makes perfect!! Practise often even if you are not in the midst of Malay people, you can speak in the language. Go to sites which offer language exchanges or one-on-one tutoring online ( text, voice, video whatever that suits you) and find a tutor to chat in the language. As always be wary about online video chats, especially if you are underage. You may end up learning more than necessary.

4. Pet yourself in the back: Based on proven learning models, we know that “drill and practise” is perhaps one of the best methods for language learning. This type of skill i.e. language acquisition can be done through the practice.

It is also useful to pet yourself in the back and get yourself a lot of positive reinforcement. When you reach certain level you will feel the satisfaction that you have overcome the hurdles. This will further enhance your motivation and sustain your interest to complete the course.

5. Moral Support:Get supports from those around you that you are learning Malay. This is useful but not as important as knowing what can get you motivated. In this era of globalisation, social networking plus Facebook you shouldn’t get much of a problem. You can use one of the social networking sites to network with the people with the same common motives and get their support.

6. Allocate Time : Allocate about 15 minutes a day to learn the language. Do activities like reading articles or books in Malay. You may not understand a laureate novel but it is worth a try to look up some lighter contents which you may look up online. Or read newspapers, magazines etc. Read some travel sites which are written in Malay and perhaps at the same time you will learn about new places making the learning more fun. Look up various online resource like Youtube where you can access for free the Malay movie or Malay programmes on online television channels or if you want to practise listening find some Malay songs to sing. Authentic materials which are related to real life situation are often more interesting than merely reading something which you cannot possibly imagine or visualise.

7. Subscribe to an online course Get a good online course to achieve this .

• It helps you to learn easily as the lessons are packaged in small chunks.
• There are a range of flexible lesson contents to choose from, depending on your entry levels
• use of authentic materials, contents are by native speakers ; also included are Malay folk songs, poems and animation of common situations.
  
• learning method based on proven learning model;
• practise and drill,
• get encouraging feedbacks through your practices,
• check and track your mastery level each time you reach the finishing line of each module.
• If you didn’t get high marks, review and learn through the errors
• learn anywhere anytime
• Perfect learning resource to support your learning.
• Needless travel or commuting
• Self learning is possible too but you can always use this to complement learning with your tutor (blended learning).

Sounds like the course we are offering you. Subscribe Now!