Twisted Tongue

For many Malaysians, most of us can speak at least two languages; Malay and English. I sometimes wonder how the brain works - switching between languages. When I was in Australia, some of my Aussie friends were surprised when I told them we Malaysian can speak more than one language fluently, when most of them can only speak and understand English.

Picture from Mr Google.

I am sure many of us have tried to read the tongue-twister phrases like this: She Sells Seashells On The Sea Shore. Some can read it out without getting their tongue twisted, while others may have difficulties making it right. While we always read English tongue-twister, it is also common to have your tongue twisted when saying things in your own language, let alone other foreign languages.

For example, let's get through these true stories...

Story one:

A family of three was traveling in a car from Putrajaya to KL. When passing by the UPM green grazing area, they saw a herd of big fat cows grazing in the field. Excited to see such big and fat cows, the father then said to his son, "Aiman, look on your left! Lemuk gumbunyaa!"

*I believe he wanted to say  'gemuknya lembu tuu'

Story two:

The same family was in a car traveling from Kuantan to KL. The son was sleeping all the way long, tired. It was quite boring driving in the highway. When they were going through the Karak highway, they saw the signboard saying 'Bukit Tinggi'. Breaking the silence, the father said, "Lama kita tak pergi Trauma Colpitaley kan!" Then their son, called Aiman, woke up because of the outburst of laughters.

*err... I reckon it was 'Colmar Tropicale'

Always making joke of her husband's twisted-tongue, the wife is compiling those 'new vocabularies' arisen from her husband's mouth, jotting down those words or phrases into her hand-phone. She even published some of them in her FB status, hahaha...

Well, try this fast and try not to get shit, hehe:

I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop.
Where she sits she shines, and where she shines she sits.