Learning Malay, just like any other foreign language, takes time and commitment. The reasons below may convince you to start learning Malay ( or referred as Bahasa Malaysia or BM by the locals) and subscribe with us.

Broadly speaking there could be various reasons for one to learn a foreign language which may be related to practical, emotional, intellectual and reminiscing one’s own cultural inheritance.

The most important aspect however is to have a good tool to motivate you to progress and enhance your learning experience. This is important as research has shown that motivation is an important factor for foreign language learners as learning language can be easily deterred from completing the course for various reasons. It is not an easy task to acquire the skills unless you have a big motivation such as being in a relationship with a person who is a native speaker of that language; but that even is not guaranteeing result unless you are committed to the goal. Using multimedia can engage and motivate you as learners which is an important aspect to acquire the language skill. Having it online as a plus as you are accessible to the course anytime anywhere with your progress is tracked throughout the course. More, it is cheap and very reasonable at USD14.90 for our promotional price which is effective beginning the launch in August 2009 (till the date to be announced.)

Among the reasons to learn Malay include:

1. It's the National Language of Malaysia:

Malay is the first official language of  Malaysia. It is a national language for Brunei, Indonesia , one of the most used languages in Singapore, Thailand and Philippines. Being Malaysian, it is such an embarrassment not to know how to speak your own national language. Our course are targeted for novice learners who doesn’t know anything about the language and provide common situation scenarios for a crash course particularly for tourists.

1Malaysia 's need one language to unite them all;

The 1Malaysia aspiration can only be achieved with the races being able to see themselves living in one country and bonded by one language despite the diversity of mother tongues. A language unites people in a culture by allowing people within that culture to communicate with each other. Shared values are necessary for a culture to exist. The phrase  “living in the diversity” is plausible if backed up by the line, "shared through common language."  It's time the magical power of common language is put to work to unite all people of different backgrounds. Its mysterious, transcendental bonding power would help bring unity to the country. The 1Malaysia notion should not be politicized that everyone should only be speaking their own mother tongue when they live under the same moon, breathe the same air, eat the same roti canai, nasi lemak and koey teow ( Malaysian food). The power of using  one language is for those who can speak the same language they tend to have a common bond. This common language is a bonding agent among the people of Malaysia.

If you have been speaking Cantonese, Tamil, Kelantanese, Javanese or any dialect that is different from the national language at home, yet you want your children to learn the language, you may also practice using e-Kata and use the skill to interact among your family so learning Malay can be fun plus you can pass the skill to your children and it is best to know more than one language.

2. Cultural Identity of the Malay people: The most important distinguishing characteristics of a culture are usually contained within its language. Malay thus plays a paramount role in the  national cultural identity and is priceless repository of all that is truly Malaysian.

3. There are more than 350 million Malay language speakers: It was reported that 350 million people speaks one Malay dialect. It was also once a lingua franca when people were trading and speaking in Malay. It is also one of the languages used for localization of major search engines, web application and in browser interfaces.

4. The Government Policy: Attitudes towards the language is improving that more efforts are being done to enhance Malay as the national language. The effort by the national language regulator, Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka to make one million words and terminologies available for Malay language to be used in higher education and academia have further strengthen the position of the language.

More guide, reference books, mass media such as newspapers and magazines have been published in Malay in the past century than in the entire history of the language.Most of these are also available online for learners to apply their acquired skill. Examples are www.utusan.com.my, www.bharian.com.my are the urls of the most popular main stream online Malay newspaper.

5. Malay in the computer age: The Malay language is one of the language used in any major search engine localization and top domains. Check out Google, Yahoo and Twitter where they have translation to Malay. There are millions of chat rooms, websites and forums now exist.  You may also get broadcasts through radio and television depending on your location on Malay contents. The most easily accessible would be the internet television, you can watch movie in Malay and listen to news in Bahasa as well.

6. Malay literature, folklore and proverbs: Malay is one of the languages of South East Asia that have an extensive surviving literature. It is also studied at all major universities through out Europe, Hawaii, China, Russia and Australia. Malay has the lots of collection of folklore and proverbs of which the vast majority is only available in Malay.

7. Study or research This is related to Number 6, that you may find that information about subjects you're interested in is published mainly in Malay language. Learning the language will give you access to the material and enable you to communicate with fellow students and researchers in the field.

8. Increase support policy in educational institutions, National primary and secondary schools: All Malay primary and secondary schools are to use Bahasa Malaysia across Malaysia and most educational institutions have some kind of emphasis in Malay language course.

9. Malaysia needs its identity in Asia: Bahasa Jiwa Bangsa. The language is the soul of the culture. The language is the key to maintain an identity of Malaysia and can be its unique characteristic.

10. Moving to Malaysia e.g Malaysia My Second Home When you move to a different country or region, learning the local language will help you to communicate and integrate with the local community. Even if many of the locals speak your language, for example if your L1 is English and you move to Malaysia, it's still worth your while learning the local language. Doing so will demonstrate your interest in and commitment to your new country.

11. Family and Friends : if your partner , relatives or friends speak Malay, learning the language will assit you to communicate with them. It also give you better understanding of their culture and thinking. Although Malaysians are known to be very accommodating , they can be very  appreciative when someone foreign speak their language. If you made friends with Malaysians,  they will know that you appreciate the friendship more if they know you are learning their language. Everyone knows that learning language is not a simple thing to do as it requires commitment and dedication.

12.Work Working in Malaysia you may find it OK to speak in any language you desire ( Malaysian speaks many many languages e.g Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, English etc) but doing work in context of Malaysia which is majority of the people speak in Malay, having to be in contact with speakers of the language, it will be an added advantage to be able to talk to them in their own languages will help you to communicate with them. Your chances of winning their admiration is a step towards achieving sales and successful negotiations as doing business in Malaysia requires a lot of informal rapport with the clients.

Eventhough you may prefer to hire translators during  business negotiation, it will be imperative to know the Malay language as you will be able to understand the separate discussions they have during your meetings. Thus, you will be aware of whatever they are saying and give you an added advantage as you will also understand any “hidden” conversation as sometimes, locals prefer to use the language to discuss among themselves if they know that you do not understand it.

13. Travel It is often easy for English speaking tourist to go on a holiday without added knowledge of the locals’ language as many expects people around the world speak in that language. However, when you are in Malaysia, if you want to venture to life like the locals e.g in homestays or agro tourist resort, where the location are remote from the urban area, it is more common for people to speak Malay regardless if they are Chinese or Indians.

A lot of signages and menus are also in Malay language so it is very often useful for you to learn at least conversational Malay language to enjoy the holiday.

With this ability to converse in the language, you can have come up with great conversations with people you meet during your travel and will be an interesting adventure or break from your normal routine. Getting immersed in another’s culture help revamp your spirit and be ready to get back to work after you come back from holiday.

When a tourist or a traveler to Malaysia learns the language, it shows a lot of respect to Malaysia and most locals irrelevant of race appreciate this.

14. Studying   You may want to learn the language as you are required to study it in school, college or university.  Normally the institution will provide preparatory courses to improve your language skills and some contact hours throughout the course.

15. Culture  Sometimes, certain things may attract you to learn Malay. Maybe you just bumped into a Malay song and thought it was beautiful. Maybe you enjoy the Malay animation Upin and Ipin but you have no clue what they are saying. Reading subtitles can be boring and you will lose the satisfaction to appreciate the storyline. Or you heard a poetry by Usman Awang which you find mesmerizing. Or you may heard a rock song that kept on haunting you. But unfortunately you don’t understand the movie, the song, the music or the poetry.  This can be one of the motivation to learn Malay language in order to gain a better understanding of the contents of the creative products.

If you are like me, I enjoy music regardless of language, but to better understand what the chap is saying so you can sing it more affectionately, it will be best to know the language. Malaysia has a rich culture and plenty of catchy folk traditional songs that you may end up liking once you get to listen to them.

16. Food  Being able to taste the food in Malaysia has been one of the unforgettable experience by many travelers. This is one reason many returned for repeated visits. A lot of great cook books are in the Malay language. Learning the language can be an added advantage to experience the best recipes from Malaysia.

17. Sounds/looks good to me Malay language  can be written in two ways; roman and jawi. Before you venture the jawi writing it is good to start with the basics which is closer to those who understand roman writing. Jawi is Arabic in nature and Malay is well-known for beautiful artistic “khat” scriptures.

18. Healthier brain with second language!

Learning a second language has been proven to delay the onset of dementia. More recently, scientists have discovered that bilingual adults have denser gray matter (brain tissue packed with information-processing nerve cells and fibers), especially in the brain’s left hemisphere, where most language and communication skills are controlled. The effect is strongest in people who learned a second language before the age of five and in those who are most proficient at their second language. This finding suggests that being bilingual from an early age significantly alters the brain’s structure. (Neuropsychologia. 2007 Jan 28;45(2):459-464. Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of symptoms of dementia. Bialystok E, Craik FI, Freedman M.)  Learning Bahasa Malaysia with e-Kata can be a step to becoming bilingual.

19. To communicate better with your spouse or partner

Committing oneself to learn the other half ‘s native language will mean better communication and understanding between the couple. Thinking in another’s language often opens up different way of perspective.

20. To foster peace and understanding between people

By understanding the language of the nation, one can communicate better with the people and by understanding another’s culture there will be hope for peace. Language is one part of a culture. By learning the language it  helps you to understand how the people think, and to get a general understanding of our world and the varying type of people and cultures that exist.

If you feel like agreeing or disagreeing with these, why not leave your comments. Or if you have any more suggestions, please feel free to drop a line or two.