Bab 5: Bahasa Pasar (Informal Speech)

Hello there guys and girls. How's your weekend going for you?

In this chapter, I will be introducing to you the difference between formal speech (between two unknown persons) and informal speech (between two familiar persons). However, you must remember that informal speech only applies to peers of your own age or younger. You have to remember that when applying informal speech to your elders, to use formal pronouns when referring to yourself or that person.

For informal speech, we usually use Bahasa Pasar, which is an everyday speech pattern that is truncated.

Example of informal speech between two friends:

A: Kau pi mana semalam? Penat aku telefon kau tak jawab-jawab.
B: Telefon aku matilah. Pening aku cuba fikir macam mana nak telefon kau.
A: Tulah kau. Siapa suruh kau tak caj?
B: Alah, aku lupalah.

Example of informal speech between a younger person(A - child) and an older person(B - mother).

A: Mak pi mana semalam? Penat saya telefon mak tak jawab-jawab.
B: Telefon mak matilah. Penat mak cuba fikir macam mana nak telefon kau.
A: Tulah mak. Kenapa mak tak caj telefon?
B: Mak lupalah.

English translation:

A: Where did you go yesterday? I tried calling you but you didn't answer.
B: My phone went dead. I was thinking of a way to call you.
A: See what happened (The closest translation to the above)? Why didn't you charge your phone?
B: I forgot.

For an example of formal speech, click here for Chapter 2.

Do you notice that for informal conversations between a mother and her child, the mother still uses 'mak' (mum) to refer to herself instead of 'aku' (I)? This is to soften her speech when talking to the child. Usually for men, they would use 'aku' instead.

Vocabularies:
1. Pi (formal - pergi) - to go
2. mana - where
3. semalam - yesterday
4. penat - to tire
5. telefon (formal - menelefon) - to call, to phone
6. tak (formal - tidak) - negation
7. jawab - to answer
8. telefon - telephone
9. mati - to die
10. cuba - to try
11. fikir - to think
12. macam mana (formal - bagaimana) - how
13. nak (formal - hendak) - to want
14. kenapa - why
15. caj - charge
16. lupa - to forget
17. mak (formal - emak) - mother

Also notice that a few words from the list above are truncated such as 'nak' (hendak), 'pi' (pergi) and 'tak' (tidak). There are many other words that are also truncated when used in informal speech. That will be introduced later.

But for now, I think that's enough for today.