Zertifikat Deutsch

Finally, my German test is over. I have yet to know my result for my oral. I hope I can pass my oral. One of my friend happens to peek on the score sheet and discover 16.5 marks for one part. Well, i think that's definately not first part coz it's max 15 marks for that. So it's either second or third part which each part has maximum of 30. Even with that, 16.5 out of 30 is so few! I need a minimum of 45 out of 75 to pass. Looks like it's pretty far fetched. About my written test, well at least I managed to get pass. But if I do fail oral, that will be the end of the story. A lot of candidate is not having good score for Brief. Nope, that is not your under garment, nor it's something short. It's the letter writing, which four candidates failed to proceed for oral exam just because of the Brief. One of them, her Brief is too brief (short). I really hope I can pass for this exam, coz the fees for next sememster for the same course has increase, and it now cost RM1800, excluding the textbook, workbook and cassettes. Speaking of cassettes, they should ditched the cassette once and for all and start providing CDs instead. Well, I have yet to send my Germany penpals Christamas card, which one of them I initially want to send her birthday card-cum-Christmas card, which I think is too late. I think I better start writing, coz by next week, it's gonna be those type of week which I hate and another more week to go. To those of you who knows why, I hope I can end this fast. Til now I'm still pretty clueless each time I'm there. Someone told me it's an opportunity to learn, but I find it the days are so long plus the location of the washroom is made so inconvenient, that I have to go through two security-locked door, which I don't have an access card. I've been restricting myself my visit to the washroom and I really miss my place in office which offers easy access to the toilet. Finally, I hope I can survive there for another two weeks and praying harder not to be placed there again there after.

Kontaktaufnahme

Since I'm going for my Zertifikat Deutsch end of November, part 1 of the Mündliche Prüfung would be this introduce oneself part. For those of you who can comprehend German, you are lucky to know more about me as the following would be my script (yes, most likely I'm going to memorise this to sail through this part).

Guten Tag. Ich heiße Tan H.Y. und bin dreiundzwanzig Jahre alt. Kuala Lumpur ist mein Geburtsort, aber jetzt lebe ich in Petaling Jaya in einem fünfstöckigen Wohnblock bei meinen Eltern. Mein Haus ist im dritten Stöck und hat eine Balkon. Ich habe zwei Geschwister, einen Brüder und eine Schwester. Ich interesiere mich für Music, ins Kino gehen, fernsehen und Zeichentrickfilm, besonders japanische Zeichentrickfilm. Ich ...

If I were to pump in more ich, it would look so dull and uninteresting ... looks like I better plan ahead before meine Note ist nicht so gut !

Erklärung

Well, managed to dig out more loan words from the dictionary. In case you haven't notice, you might ask why do I cite more Portuguese words than Dutch words. Although Dutch has an influence in the language, but the effect of it, is more prominent in Indonesian. Kamus Dewan do keep track of those words but put in under IB (Indonesia-Belanda). For example words like Kantor, pelakat, the usage of such word is not common in Malaysia. Ok, here are some new words from Portuguese : peluru, boya, siar (as in stroll), cepiau, serdadu, paung. I also notice some more Tamil words : logam, ketumbar. I remember once reading through the newspaper that an ambassador took the trouble to look up Portuguese words in Malay. Hmm.... don't know whether there are ways for me to get a list from him :D

Austronesia

Nope, that's not a new country or territory but a language group which the Malay language is, which comes under a big family of Austris language. To read more about the language, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_language has a good article on it. Speaking of Wikipedia, the idea of such website is just so great! Me for example learned much stuff on it, even things that is everyday to me sounds so interesting. For those who want to "experience" it, try reading this article about Ringgit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringgit. Back to our topic today. Malay language itself has many foreign loan words, in which bulk of it comes from Arabic and Sanskrit. (Modern day Malay has more English loan words) For example : khemah, adil, ajaib, kerusi are from Arabic. What about Sanskrit, you may ask. Here you go : bahasa, bahu, bahaya, negara, muka, angsa, penjara, rugi, naga, kuasa, jambu, guru, jaga, jala, bumi and so on. But, what I want to draw your attention to today is the other group of loan words, those that of European origin : Portuguese and Dutch. See whether you notice these words are from Portuguese : palsu, biola, peniti, limau, bendera, keju, mentega, lampu, bomba, meja, garpu, lelong, Perancis, sekolah, boneka, jendela, markah, paderi, wizurai, dadu, gereja, kemeja. Dutch loan words are as follow : duit, balak, laci, engsel, pajak, senapang, dam. So who say you do not know any foreign language! Also, these are the loan words which it never cross my mind that it's Tamil until I read it up : nelayan, kuda, sate, kedai, kaldai, kanji, bagai, katil, kapal, jodoh, segala, gerudi, kawal, peti. In case you wonder where do I get all this information from, I actually read dictionary. Yes, you read it correctly, i do read dictionary, especially those that has etymology in it. I had bought an English dictionary (and a book) just for the etymology information. Very interesting and increase much knowledge! The etymology for this post comes from an old dictionary by R. J. Wilkinson.