FOREIGNERS MASTER MALAY LANGUAGE

KUALA LUMPUR, March 5 (Bernama) -- Efforts to promote Malaysia's official
language Bahasa Malaysia at the international level are bearing fruit.

This could be seen at the Deputy Prime Minister's International Malay
Language Public Speaking Competition at Universiti Malaya, which began Tuesday
and will end on Friday.

Rebecca Soraya Leake, 22, from the United Kingdom, in an interview here
Wednesday, said the competition gave contestants and the local community an
opportunity to understand each other and exchange information.

"I enjoy competitions such as this because I can exchange views with people
from various countries, as well as learn more about Bahasa Malaysia," she told
Bernama.

Leake, who had never taken part in any public speaking competitions before,
said she studied Bahasa Melayu (Malay language) for more than a year at the
University of London and felt it was easy to learn.

A contestant from the Beijing Foreign Studies University China, Yan Ling,
21, said Bahasa Malaysia was not difficult to learn, but to study it indepth was
challenging and required a great deal of comprehension before it could be
practiced.

"I studied literature, politics and culture of the Malays and about Malaysia
for more than two years.

"I feel that other communities should try to learn and master the language,"
said Yan, who fluently speaks standard Bahasa Malaysia.

Novavy Sleh, 18, a participant from Cambodia, said he started learning
Bahasa Malaysia in school using books written in jawi, before he went on to
master it at the Islamic Centre of Cambodia.

"I only needed five days to prepare my text, with the help of a lecturer in
the competition," he said.

Meanwhile, according to Mazlena Mohamad Hussain, a judge from the
International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM), topic selection was seen as
a problem for many contestants this time.

"They were better last year, but this year there are more participants.
There are some new faces that have the potential to master the language in the
future," she said.

She added that contestants were evaluated on content, style, body language,
eye contact, sway, comprehension and variety in their delivery, such as singing
or pantun.

Among the countries represented in the competition are Myanmmar,Netherlands,
Japan, Pakistan, Egypt, South Korea, Russia, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Palestine,
Romania, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, France and the United States.
-- BERNAMA