The recent announcement where the govt wants to switch back the teaching of Science and Maths to BM or mother tongue puzzles me. If you look at today, most of the Science terms used are in English. The application of Science terms use in Chinese, Tamil or BM is very little.
Today we were discussing this in our office and one of my colleagues brought up a good point. He said when he heard the India IT outsource workers talk, they are speaking Hindi, Hindi, Hindi, CPU, Hindi, Hindi, Hindi server Hindi…. Some computer terms has weird meaning if it is translated to mother tongue.
Let’s take computer terms as computer is my field. Here is some of the translations I found and it really make laugh.
Mouse – Tetikus or Petunjuk
Click – Tekan
Double Click – Tekan-Tekan
Cut & Paste – Potong dan Gum Lekat
Save – Kemas Kini
Enter – Masuk
Ink Jet – Pancutan Dakwat (hehehehehe….LOL)
Database – Pangkalan Data
Access Denied – Laluan DiHalang
Sound Card – Kad Bunyi
Motherboard – Papan Ibu
Monitor – Ketua Darjah??!! (someone suggested)
Keyboard – Papan Kunci
Local Bus – Bas Tempatan
Joystick – Batang Gembira (try translating plug and play!)
Sound Blaster = Peletup Bunyi
Maybe these terms are not the official ones but it sure sounds funny to me.
Did you know that the public can feedback on PPSMI to Education Ministry through this phone number 03-77237070 or email to alimuddin.dom@moe.gov.my/kpkpm@moe.gov.my. They will give you a reference number once you email to them. Please help to spread the news.
Last time when I write project or exams, I ended up writing all the parts in English.
For example ,
Komputer ‘hardware’ terdiri daripada ‘mouse’, ‘keyboard’ dan ‘CPU’.
then we ask the lecturer, can we just answer all in English then she/he said ok lar….
Jac: I wonder does that help or they just create the feedback channel to satisfy us.