Lost in translation

There are times when I find having two language in one's mind be very very tricky. Even as I am typing this down, I feel slightly embarrassed that I sometimes struggle between translating between the two native tongues (English and Malay) I have practised all my 29 years of speaking.

When I was living in New Zealand, it was the English jargon and unfamiliar association of words to situations that I find myself getting confused when doing tasks or conversing with my local peers.I remember feeling terrible about how poor my English skills were until I meet other English speakers ( elsewhere including the English people) who seem to understand me just fine. I carried on fine afterwards, accepting that my accent was always going to be bit of an issue, but that really has nothing to do with my well being or whether there was anything wrong with me.Watching Sofia Vergara's character with her new family in "Modern Family" definitely made me remember the many times where my former boyfriend and I would get into silly situations because of our cultural differences. Sofia's thick Columbian accent combined with occasional misuse of English words confuses herself and the entire family whenever she tries to communicate, and I know how that feels. It can be very frustrating when you are feeling helpless and at wit's end and you know exactly what you really want to express but failed!

Now that I am back home in central Kuala Lumpur,just about everything from daily small talk to writing formal letters become even more confusing as the Malay language has its formal and informal texts and meanings. Sometimes there would be almost old Shakespearean-equivalent texts being used in formal documentations that I find myself question the way we do things in Malaysia. I have to now try see the the English translation makes sense before I can understand what the Malay text is saying. While I am proud to continously utilise my Malay voice, I believe there is a need to address to what extent it can be used.

So now, I question myself again if it really just me having these issues or does anyone with more than one language have this trouble? What about my fellow non-Malay friends who has three or four different dialects and work in this country? Why are we not not standardizing these still?

There is nothing wrong with using any language for professional work. I am simply stating that for formal documentations, any texts written in language that could be interpreted ambiguously in meaning would just not help us grow.