Bahasa Malaysia

Internet Resources for Self Instruction

Internet Resources

This is a list of some helpful internet resources for learning Bahasa Melayu on your own. Some of these might be best at a beginner level other will be significantly useful for those at some intermediate and perhaps advanced levels. Take some time to browse and discover them for yourself!

  • BabaDada. Malaya bahasa Melayu – US English American English. babadada.com/topic/school/may/en-US.
    This is for all the visual learners that word better with pictures, a bilingual pictorial dictionary. This is ideal for those focusing on vocabulary for any level and the website offers words by theme or topic like school, restaurant, home, ect… As an added bonus it even as an added option for dialects though unfortunately not for Bahasa Melayu that I have found.
  • Dorairaj Nadason et al. Free Malaysia Today. www.freemalaysiatoday.com/.
    A Malay digital newspaper that offers different articles in both English and Malaysian however not together. Still, there is a large selection daily of various topics pertinent to life in Malaysia offering a window into daily life in Malaysia as well as an opportunity to practice reading Bahasa Melayu.
  • New York University. Bilingual Glossaries and Cognates. NYU Steinhardt, steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter/language-rbern/education/bilingual-glossaries-and-cognates.
    An excellent resource for those going into teaching overseas or for those working in a specified field with basic jargon for elementary-high school level topics from math to social studies. There a multitude of languages offers, including Bahasa Melayu for the various topics though not every topic has a Bahasa Melayu translation the lists that are provided are extremely comprehensive.
  • Tanya. Bahasa Melayu: Learning the Malay Language from Scratch. All Language Resources, 10 July 2020, www.alllanguageresources.com/learn-malay/.
    This is the origin site for a comprehensive and organized suggested resource list as well as tips and suggestions for learning Bahasa Melayu. The author includes digital resources like movies, podcasts, and Youtube vlogers as well as Bahasa Melayu author suggestions and reviews on other learning resources, all of them fairly recent. They are all compiled in a neat and organized article that also offers cultural information about Malaysia, Singapore, and Borneo.
  • Zaharah Othman. Colloquial Malay. Colloquials, routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/colloquial/language/malay.php.
    This is an audio recording series based on a book written by Zaharah Othman which dives into colloquial Malay, which may beneficial for those who like short lessons and a self-set pace. I have found for those struggling with pronunciation this can be a fantastic resource as you can hear the words you wish to pronounce as in tandem with the mini pronunciation lesson provided at the beginning of the series.


    Special suggestion

    The Bible. Alktiab Versi Borneo. Bible, www.bible.com/ms.  Faith Comes By Hearing. Bahasa Melayu Alkitab (besarkan) – Malay Bahasa Bible (Dramatized). PlayerFM, player.fm/series/bahasa-melayu-alkitab-besarkan-malay-bahasa-bible-dramatized-1517446.
    This is a dual entry of a Bahasa Malayu bible translation along with the dramatic reading of the entire New Testament from Mathew to Revelation. For those who love to study the bible and verse memorization, this might be a beneficial exercise to connect new words with meaning. Additionally, even with a limited Bahasa Melayu repertoire, I could read much of it

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Resources for Self-Instructional Learners of Less Commonly Taught Languages Copyright © by University of Wisconsin-Madison Students in African 671 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.