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Hi, welcome!
Bahasa Malaysia is Malaysia's national language and is formerly known as Bahasa Melayu (Malay language). It is not only spoken in Malaysia but is also widely spoken in Indonesia, Brunei and Singapore. Some people say that Bahasa Malaysia is an easy language. To a certain extent it is, but believe me, it is not so easy that you can afford to study it while listening to your favourite music at the same time! The truth is there is no EASY language in the world. Everything is relative so when people say that Malay is an easy language what they really mean is that it IS easy when compared to studying a language like English, French or Mandarin, for example. Thus if you might need to spend at least 300 hours studying English, French or Mandarin before you are able to use it in a simple conversation, you need only spend say, 100 hours studying Malay before you are able to do so. This is because in Malay there is no past tense or past participles of verbs to study as in English, the verbs are not conjugated as in French and you don't have to worry about getting the tones right in order to be understood as you have to in Mandarin. Lesson 22 Numbers (from 100 onwards)![]() Before you begin: If you have mastered counting up to 99 in Lesson 8 this final lesson on numbers in Malay will be plain sailing to you. You will now need to know only three more words (ratus, ribu and juta) to be able to count any number in Malay. Counting 3-digit figures in Malay is like counting them in English the word "hundred" being replaced by ratus. Similarly counting in thousands and millions in Malay is like counting them in English. You only have to replace "thousand" by ribu and "million" by juta. As examples speak better than words here are a few examples: Click to listen ![]() A second reading (by Muhammad Nor Ismat, a native speaker)
For those who want to know more: When satu is added to another word it is often contracted to se and tagged on to the following word. Thus "satu" ratus (one hundred) becomes seratus. This is also the case with one thousand (seribu) and one million (sejuta).
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