Corrections: 0:39-0:51 1. The tone should be marked on "e" instead of "i", it's "shéi" instead of "sheí". 2. "casual" was misspelled as "causal". I put this in the description box a couple days ago, and it's supposed to pop out as a card at the exact time according to UA-cam new feature "correction", but somehow it didn't work, I sent feedback to the creator support and hope they'll fix this for me soon. I'm terribly sorry for the mistakes 🙇♀
Some Malaysians are good and bad at their languages, which depend their living environment since young. Such as one of my friend who speaking English very well in his mother tougue, but can't speak Chinese. So Uncle Roger is the best to speak chinese what I see, but he is now in western country living then we should understand his stuation about speaking Chinese.
as Singaporean Chinese, we might pronounce 谁 like how he pronounced it (almost like "shui" instead of "shei"), and remains consistent throughout. but if you were to test us idioms, i think only the higher chinese educated can answer. Also, if you haven't realised, she said "你很pandai!" which is clearly msian expression. this is how you tell apart msian and HK variants of cantonese.
Malaysian Chinese are actual quite multicultural, we learn mandarin in school, but many of us understand Cantonese and Hokkien quite well. A tiny minority can speak hakka, teochew and foochow. Not to mention, we also included English, Malay and Tamil in our vocab.
@@tarmaque Not showing off, it's actually true! "Only in Malaysia can be found 4 languages in one sentence and it is spoken by every Malaysian every day." "Ann Neh! Roti kosong dua, Dar pau, Please." 1.Ann Neh (Tamil) 2. Roti Kosong Dua (Malay) 3. Dar Po (Pack / Chinese) 4. Please (English). Ann Neh - Tamil for Brother Roti Kosong is plain roti canai, Dua is Two - so "Two Plain Roti Canai" Dar Pau or Tapau - pack the food to go
nigel studied in one of the most prestigious chinese private schools in malaysia, Kuala Lumpur Chong Hwa and was the top 3 in his graduation year. he mentioned once that all of his friends went on to become doctors and lawyers etc whereas he decided to take the path of a comedian. if my memory serves me right he used to work as a data analyst in the US for a few years while doing stand up on the side, after a while he decided to do comedy and stand up full time
He only went full-time comedian in the last few years. He was still working as a data analyst in the finance sector in the UK before he went full-time. Otherwise, how could he have afforded his London pad?
He speaks Hokkien, teochew, Hakka, hainanese, foo cow and Hwa yee too…also he can speak Malay, singlish and mangling. Also he knows a few words of Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, and Sikh. Uncle Roger not full Chinese but truly Asian
He is full Chinese in terms of race, physically he is a chinese, his ancestors are from china, but hes born and raise as a Malaysian citizen, so a chinese malaysian. Not half malay half chinese for example
Nigel's a smart guy, he was a top student in his Chinese school in Klang valley which is predominantly a Cantonese area. It's challenging studying in Chinese schools as every subject is taught in Chinese except for the language subjects. It's not surprising to me that he would be so good. The fact that he says he has to code-switch is because he's been overseas for many years fully immersed in English-speaking communities.
In Malaysia, the proper Mandarin pronunciation follows Beijing's hanyu pinyin, but due to strong Taiwan entertainment influence in local TV programmes, it is also very common that many locals were influenced to speak like Taiwanese, and in fact rather commonly a mixture of both, it would not be too surprising to hear a Beijing pronunciation and a Taiwan pronunciation in the same sentence, we also do that to English, mixing British and American accent and pronunciation as we speak, that makes Malaysians so unique.
Yep, supposedly we learned UK English officially but due to the amount of US shows we watch, we ended up sounding British to American and American to British. 😂 And Taiwan to mainlanders, mainland Mandarin to Taiwanese. 😐 The latter would get some not very friendly treatment though. 🤷 Learned the hard way why some Malaysian Chinese UA-camr overdoing their accents on camera. 😅
And you forgot a point that is also imporatant is that the anccestors of almost all ethnic Chinese people in Malaysia are from Southeast coastal area of China which is the same as the origin of people that in Hong Kong and Taiwan too. This means the mother tongue of the majority of Chinese Malaysian is also same as Hong Kong and Taiwan. It also means Chinese Malaysian sharing the same culture with both Hong Kong and Taiwan at earlydays although everyone have evloved to their unique culture they have today as times go by( So today the Malaysian Cantonese and Hokkien are different from HK Cantonese and Taiwan Taiwanese) . That's why the Mandarin Chinese Malaysian spoke is very similar to them. So, There're also some other important factors causing the result today besides the factors you have mentioned.
Don't think it's TV - it's the fact that most Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese historically come from South China, where they have a Mandarin accent similar to Taiwanese Chinese as well
As a Malaysian, I'm able to communicate in Mandarin, English, Bahasa (which is our national language) without issue. Besides that, most of us watched TVB drama series since we're still a kid, so we learned how to speak Cantonese as well. My family member does speak Hokkien, so yeah I'm able to speak in Hokkien too. That makes me able to communicate in 5 different languages. Welcome to Malaysia!
Malaysians are truly multilingual! 🎉🎉 Though, on that note, please stop using the term Bahasa only. Use bahasa Melayu/Malay instead of just “Bahasa”, because that would be incorrect 😊❤
Uncle Roger is educated in Malaysian Chinese Independent School till high school before he went off to study in the US. Mandarin is the medium of instruction in Independent Chinese schools. But he’s also from KL, where Cantonese is widely spoken. Most Chinese Malaysians can speak a few languages and dialects, but speaking all at his stand up fluency is not that common. 😂
Just letting you know that Malaysian Mandarin has its roots from the Minguo （民国）period and also many of our Chinese language educators teaching in the kind of schools that Nigel Ng and I went to-he’s my high school junior by many years-were educated in Taiwan. So it is very normal that we pronounce 鸡肋 as jī lè. Jī lèi sounds very strange to a lot of us.
But now, affected by TikTok's(抖音) culture or probably we mainly follow China's pronunciation, many youngsters I know actually pronounce it as jī lèi too. same as 肋lèi骨
@@helellwine well, naturally. Our generation and the current generation definitely have a divide. TikTok and Chinese TV shows are constant reminder of the Mandarin taught in our Chinese schools that is following Mainland China’s pronunciation. Anyway, pronunciations do change through time, that is without a question.
@@Pakiu1306 i haven't heard anyone saying la xi for years. I only heard it in the 90s or maybe 2000s. nowadays everyone says la ji especially the younger generation.
We learn at least 3 languages from young - Mandarin, English and Malay - and growing up in a multicultural country with hokkien, canto, hakka, theochew and so on surrounding us, we may pick up many languages at the same time. I love Malaysia :)
Many older Chinese Malaysian can speak more than 1 dialect such as Mandarin,Cantonese,Hokkien,Hakka,TeoChew,FooChow and others but younger one this day can only converse in Mandarin only, such a shame....to lost one mother tongue.
@@Zagaara I notice younger people responding in Mandarin when I speak in (Penang) Hokkien! And I don't think I'm that old lol. Unfortunately we don't teach our dialects formally so it's difficult for others to learn if they don't already speak it at home.
we malaysian chinese speak mandarin among ourself..cantonese is just dialect...and speak among minority chinese....coz in malaysia their are hokkien cantonese foochow and so on so mandarin is our common language
Nigel is actually ethnic Chinese of Hokkien (Fujian) descent. It's not surprising that he can speak Cantonese because Cantonese is a Chinese language that is widely spoken among Chinese in Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh & many other parts of Malaysia. And Malaysian Chinese can watch a lot of Hong Kong's tv dramas & programmes, that's where most Chinese of other descents learn their Cantonese.
@@rickysoong2871 ，Nigel Ng is Uncle Roger's real name. Uncle Roger is just like a character he created for his channel on UA-cam , he's actually a comedian. Nigel is only 31 years old but Uncle Roger is supposed to be a middle aged food critic on Internet.
In Malaysia, we mix a lot of things together. So like in this video you can hear quite a few languages in a single sentence. We not only mix our languages, we also mix culture, food, and mix marriages are also more common nowadays.
Uncle Roger was graduated from an independence High School which is a private school based on Chinese and English education system. He’s my junior, so… those “ Chinese questions” are kinda normal for us. As you can see and listen in the interview, the host ( who usually use Cantonese in her radio show ) is not that fluent in Chinese compare to Nigel as she was graduated in a Government High school which based on Malay education system. Also, depending on the region, Malaysian Chinese usually could speak more than just one language and dialects. Malay and English are compulsory for all Malaysian students ( doesn’t mean everyone can be speaking them fluently ), Malaysian Chinese mostly do learn Chinese in primary school, and maybe the dialects they growing up, such as Cantonese, Hokkiens, Hakka, Teochew, Hainan and etc. Im growing up with speaking Hokkien as mother tongue, learning Chinese, English, Malay during Kindergarten and primary school, learning Cantonese from TVB dramas and HK pop music during high school. So basically… the language starter pack for Malaysian Chinese is 3🤣 and we would mix them all in a sentence during daily use conversation.
Not really, there are 3 languages mainly used by Chinese Malaysian, which are Chinese, English and Malay. Depending on your upbringing, you could be fluent in one, but not the other. Nigel is definitely more fluent in English than Mandarin, but his Mandarin is undoubtedly really impressive.
@@welstnitmere3583 Chinese remained to be the native tongue to a good majority of Chinese, many will be speaking their own dialect as actual native language, but many younger generations are starting to speak Mandarin as their native language nowadays since dialects are not used in schools, but Mandarin is.
@@toujingyi9156 Yes, many Chinese can converse in Mandarin, but many of the ones I know, including myself, have poor to mediocre command in reading and writing in Chinese due to the lack of constant exposure to Chinese materials. This affects our fluency and we tend to cover our gaps in vocabulary with slangs / English / Malay, like you see with the host here. With Nigel, his Chinese has a banana tone to it, which indicates that he speaks the language less during his childhood & teenage years. But the fact that he's versed with idioms and phrases meant he's studied hard during school.
@@welstnitmere3583 I had not been writing Chinese for a long long time, so I can't remember how to write probably most of the characters nowadays, but reading is still fine, that is more related to the lack of need to physically write nowadays. Despite being a Chinese independent school graduate myself, I still frequently put in English and Malay terms into my daily speech, because that is how Malaysians speak, we tend to use the commonest term for a certain concept, and sometimes the English and Malay term is more popular. Similar to how other race may use some Chinese term in their speech as well even when no Chinese speakers are in place.
Nigel is just stay too long in western. I bet that If you give him back to hometown 3 months, he can start another uncle roger character with Chinese speaking without any foreign accent, and able to switch formal Chinese and strong accent slang. For me, he is really smart guy.
As a malaysian chinese, I think malaysian chinese accent is pretty funny compared to other native chinese speaker from China and Taiwan, it's a mix of southern chinese accent(Cantonese and Hokkien, sometimes guangxi).
Yes i heard he's from Kuala Lumpur. KL and its nearbys(except for Klang) Cantonese descents prevail that region's Chinese Malaysian society. You can easily hear people speaking Cantonese. So it's natural for him. If you go to regions outside of Selangor and southern Perak you'll get to hear people speaking Hokkien more often. Singapore same
Those from Klang normally know both. Hokkien +Cantonese. Because Klang valley majority Chinese ethnics use Cantonese but Klang area majority use hokkien. So Chinese ethnics Malaysian that live in Klang normally adapt to be able communicate both hokkien + Cantonese dialect.
@@MHSyaoran well you can say that too, but that doesn't means master non. First of all language the main purpose of language is for daily communication use . You some might understand normal use mandrin but don't understand mandrin in scientific vocab that is totally off the mark for normal communication. Even people author from china that without the scientific studies background could not understand those specific scientific vocabularies in mandrin. Then you consider those authors in Chinese don't master mandrin? You already mention about the words scientific/religion vocab.that is off mark of consider normal people use. Just like even people from china that don't relate in that religion eg Islam they also won't understand those "specific mandrin vocab' of Islam even it is written in mandrin. So you consider them as master non or not even single language too? Be logic when we say about know a language we stick too normal daily use .not consider those specific term that need specific knowledge. Even British people or Chinese people normal people /non scientific background unable to understands those specific scientific vocabularies that written in their own mother tongue . Give you example , you won't say 金庸 not master in mandrin if he unable to understand a book written in mandrin regarding how to make a nuclear that full of scientific vocab right? Now you know how ridiculous the example given by you when consider others as master non language if they " couldn't understand scientific term vocabularies in that language"…?
SG older chinese generation I think had to learn at least three dialects (Hokkien/Teochew/Cantonese) apart from just purely mandarin, but in the corporate context mandarin is still used. cantonese i believe is a minor dialect here, cos i often found myself surrounded by few cohort mates whose parents dialect was canto, and more often than not, their parents either spoke hokkien or just mandarin, if not english educated.
Have to agree with you. You are to going to get gaiyik in KL or greater KL and Ipoh, and should prepare to hear gaicheebong sometimes in other areas. 😂
This is such a wholesome episode. Thanks! We take the popularity of such comedians granted and become fixated on what they have and start wishfully thinking what we could do if we had what they have. Thanks to this episode I have a changed perspective and a lot more admiration for Nigel. Wishing him more and more successes
Most Malaysians can speak at least 3 languages (English, Malay and your mother tongue), many can speak a few dialects such as Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew and so forth.
Many malaysian chinese are split as follows: If your parents mainly speak mandarin and you attend a malaysian chinese school. Chances are the student will end up with fluent mandarin, +1 chinese dialect, and the national malay language, and maybe broken english. If your parents mostly speak english and you attend "kebangsaan" or national schools, most likely that student ends up with an above average to high command of english, broken level to average level mandarin, +1 chinese dialect, and the malay language. And the 3rd one being if both parents are not mandarin speakers and mostly use english while the student attends a school with few chinese speakers. You end up with a "banana" yellow on the outside, white AF on the inside. We get malay, a dialect our grandparents use, high command of english with room for improvement. Little to no mandarin nor cantonese. So we gotte struggle with learning it ourselves.
That’s me - I was English educated and spoke this language most of the time as well as BM and basic Mandarin in school… But I picked up my Chinese dialects at work (while also improving my Mandarin) and can now speak Hokkien as well as Cantonese with passable fluency!
And then there's the "Singapore influenced" I'm talking specifically me Studied in Chinese primary school, shit at the language Currently studying SMK, shit at BM For dialects im decent in Hokkien and Teowchiew cause they sound the same (minor difference)and I'm half of each and my direct family usually use those But I feel like my English is quite good (though probably not as good as the 3rd type you stated) because a lot of my cousins/relatives works/lives in Singapore and when they come back,we usually communicate in English,and I also consume a lot of English content. But please,someone tell me why the fuck we learning 古文
@@austinorsomeonealt it's because of Malay. Malay in general embraced traditional values. This is the reason why Chinese in Malaysia are still more Chinese than Chinese in another countries, because we prefer people who embraced the same value.
To be honest even as a local Malaysian Chinese school student here (also a Malay) it's kinda normal here 😂 we also can interchange between languages if you're a polyglot. And mix it too. And yeah most chinese here are polyglot with at lease 3-4 languages. Nowadays there's a lot of Malays can speak chinese mainly Mandarin. But there are also some cases with Hokkien or Cantonis depending on some state.
In one of his videos of chef Wang Gang he translated what the chef said through subtitles so it shouldn’t be too surprising he knows how to speak Chinese. But it’s one thing to understand and another to speak it lol. I would’ve been not surprised at all to see if he struggled with Chinese because typically people that speak basically native sounding English with no “foreign accent” and living in a western country usually means the mother language suffers. So he surprised me here with how fluent he is. Props to Nigel
Yep no surprise actually. Speaking one language with no foreign accent would mean the most recent environment one is in had that one language as the absolute language for communication. And language is one thing that requires practice everyday. Nigel's Mandarin is actually worse than average Malaysian Chinese around his age tbh, which I think it's a natural outcome and not his fault. I have experienced how was it like to speak only English for 2 days straight. And with that, I stuttered when I try to speak Mandarin on the third day. Mandarin is my mother tongue, my first language and the shock honestly did not help (poor uncle must been shaking his head thinking what's up with youngsters these days not learning their mother tongue well) 😂
@@onthepalehorse He has a native accent though. Malaysian is one of many native English accents (there is no such thing as "no accent" to be fair, everyone has an accent it's jsut whether it sounds native or non-native.)
I served in the US Army with a Malaysian-Chinese dude named Felix Tang. He was hella cool, and he spoke Mandarin, Cantonese, French, and English. He had immigrated to the US from Malaysia with his family in his sophomore year of high school. Dude spoke English with a flawless Southern California accent. Like, if he didn't tell you he grew up in Malaysia you would have thought he'd grown up in San Diego. Incidentally, your English is also quite good.
On Malaysia’s cinemas and TVs, we have subtitles as we hate the dubbed versions. So we were pretty exposed to multi-lingual environments in American, Chinese, Indian, HK movies/TVs since young.
It all depends on where you spent most of your time and the environment. Malaysian Chinese have no problem speaking their native Cantonese/ Mandarin, Malaysian Indians have no problem speaking their native Tamil and so on. It's because we keep on conversing in it. It's very different from chinese or indians that were born and raised in countries like the US- most of them can't converse in Mandarin because the main language is english.
It really depends on the effort you put into it. In Malaysia our main language is supposed to be Malay but a lot of us Chinese people here kinda ignore that fact and proceed to use our mother tongue for a lot of things(we get roasted for that too lmao). Especially Penang Chinese ppl where I'm from where the majority of us suck ass at Malay
@@nomotivay it comes down to how often the different ethnicities mix actually. I have friends from northern states asking why I speak English to my friend who is obviously Chinese and thinks my malay is above average for chinese. Malay friend confirms my bm is KL accent. Singapore customer thought I was from China when I speak Mandarin. The more diverse your social circle is the more chance you get to practice the languages.
@@newname3718 yeah, that also affects it. But then again even if they mix, the penang Chinese most likely will use English instead bc they're scared of embarrassing themselves. Personally I try my best to speak in full BM but my friends aren't a fan of that
@@josephc.9520 Yea I agree, not surprising since the population is overwhelmingly Chinese. But it's gonna change in the future with Chinese people migrating to Singapore or abroad in general. Also the rate of birth is lower.
Just sit led across your channel recently. It’s so helpful thank you! I’ve been learning mandarin but sometimes the sounds are hard to differentiate. You make it very clear for understanding sounds and nuance. Thank you~ ❤!
As a language-related UA-camr, learning cantonese is nothing wrong. But I would say normal people who are not able to speak cantonese wouldn't bother to learn a dialect. By the way in Malaysia, chicken rib is also pronounced as Ji Lei, for the most of Chinese Malaysians.
Of course he is native in mandarin, he studied in one of the most prestigious private chinese school in Malaysia. Talk about spending the first 12 years of your life speaking mandarin with your peers and using mandarin for all your study material lol
As an overseas Chinese who can't really speak Chinese but can speak English and Japanese only, I always feel left out by the Chinese community. Being friends with many Japanese but zero Chinese friends also intensifies the feeling. Heck, even my Japanese friends granted me an honorary Japanese status and joked with me 'just stop being Chinese, you're Japanese now'.
@@faustinuskaryadi6610 Of course since we use Mandarin at home on a daily basis. Similarly you wouldn’t be surprised if a Malay speaks better Malay than English.
Well, actually uncle roger aka nigel ng graduated from chinese independent high school in malaysia, whereby the syllabus are all in mandarin. Hence the mastery in mandarin :)
It is pretty common for a Malaysian especially Chinese to speak at least 4 languages (dialect included). We study Malay and English at school. Some Chinese (or even Malay and Indian) enrolled at Chinese school where the medium of teaching is in Mandarin and some enrolled at national school where the medium of teaching is in Malay. Don't be surprise when you heard a Malay or Indian speaks Mandarin as they may had enrolled at a Chinese school. Even those Chinese who went to national school will know how to speak Mandarin because they usually speak it at home or use it to socialize. Malaysia TV broadcasts HK TVB drama and movies without dubbing, so some Chinese learn Cantonese from the TV or big screens. Majority of Chinese in cities like Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh also speak Cantonese by default.
I think Chinese people from Malaysia and Singapore, they speak English and Mandarin + their dialect which can be Cantonese, Hokkien, Hainanese, Hakka, Teochew.
Mandarin was his first language officially, but he's also spoken English and Malay since childhood. But he's out of practice in Mandarin from living in the western world. I have a Cuban friend, and it's a similar story. Her first language was Spanish but she's known English since childhood. Now that she's far from home she sometimes makes mistakes in Spanish.
Malaysians, even more than Singaporeans, use anything they need to get their message across. I don't know the differences between Hokkien and Cantonese but you can guarantee that there is an auntie within earshot sprinkling one or more dialects into her 'English'. Thanks for the vid.
I am Chindian which my dad is Chinese and my mum is Indian...I can speak English, Malay, Cantonese, abit of Hokkien, Mandarin, abit of Tamil and Malayalam... 😂😂😂 but my Malay and English abit mess because my main language is Cantonese and Mandarin, so sometime my Malay and English is direct translation from Cantonese and Mandarin LOL
I guess thaats how you do it in Malaysia😂 But just a small question for ya: Does it make it easier for you to learn any of these languages except your main languages?
basically we study 3 languages in Malaysia which are mandarin , english and malay then depend on different family culture practice ,some chinese are banana , but still speaking cantonese or hokkien at home
as a german who is bored and is just watchng some videos,i can say that i got more than i expected in the nuances of chinese speech :D im not particularly good,i just learned english thorugh games and youtube, but i actually understood what you are trying to say,so good on you, you should be a teacher :D you get a like :3
Nigel NG is of Hokies descent, so his family came from Fujian. As others have noted, he will have picked up Cantonese as a part of general life and was probably taught Mandarin at school. He could even have a smattering of Hakka and Teochew/Chaozhou, but they are more likely to occur in Singapore than Malaysia. He would also have been taught Malay at school. Then there’s Manglish, which is a pidgin slang.
Nigel Ng graduated from private independant Chinese high school in Malaysia, of course his Mandarin is top-notch. I even heard that he was top student in the high school and the USA university he was studying in and also has been working as high salary IT engineer or so before he does full time on stand-up comedy. He is at English-speaking countries most of the time now, like for so many years, he might having some amnesia for what Mandarin vocabularies he learnt XDDDD Oh yea, most private independant Chinese high schools in Malaysia are using Taiwanese education syllabus if I'm not wrong. And if not wrong, Nigel Ng is from Kuala Lumpur and Cantonese has been the major medium among the local Chinese over there ;)
"Oh yea, most private independant Chinese high schools in Malaysia are using Taiwanese education syllabus if I'm not wrong." You are wrong. UEC syllabus is set by Dong Zong. Which is a local institute Some schools focus more on SPM, some on IGCSE
@@josephc.9520 I think because most of Overseas Chinese in South East Asia are Southerner, and influenced from Republican era Mandarin, the pronunciation is closer to Taiwanese one. I am Chinese Indonesian, and I can only speak Mandarin barely thanks to Mandarin education ban during President Seoharto Era, but my father was different. He was born in 1950, learned Mandarin up to 1966 on Private Chinese School before closed be President Seoharto. His Mandarin is closer to Taiwanese one despite he was pro Communist Party of China until his last breath. So, Republican Era Mandarin pronunciation is very influental among Mandarin speaking Overseas Chinese in South East Asia.
@@anakitiktokwi2939 He is bilingual, but I don't think he is native Mandarin speaker. I think his native language is Makassarese, but he can listen to CCTV 4 (China Central Television) without need to read Indonesian subtitle. He even can write proper letter in Traditional Chinese.
Wth? I thought at first he was a native chinese because of the english tone and character then was shocked when he speaks normal tone english and uncle roger is just a portraying character then today I learned he can actually speak chinese?! awesome.
Uncle Roger is from Kuala Lumpur and he did study in a Chinese Independent school that’s why his Chinese is really good. Whereas a Malaysian who did not study in a Chinese medium school will not know Chinese. Being from Kuala Lumpur the main Chinese dialect spoken is usually Cantonese. That’s where he probably picked it up from.
i thought it would be easy for uncle roger since he only migrated when he was a little bit older. he grew up and finished school in malaysia so his native tongue won't get rusty at all.
He's said Mandarin is his "official" first language, and he studied it in school. However, he is out of practice due to living in the western world, so he makes mistakes. He calls his Mandarin "mediocre at best" however he seems to be better than he thinks. He also claims to not be fluent in Cantonese but apparently, he is better than he thinks for that too.
He actually went to one of the most prestiged chinese school in the country, He was my junior back then. So that is kinda normal. From where he was from, cantonese is spoken on a daily basis, he might have another language spoken in the family, and he also knew Malay. Probably he can speak 5-7 languages fluently which is normal in the country.
as a malaysian chinese. i feel like im back to primary school lmao malaysian is literally multilingual. if you're born in this country, you're basically required to speak at least 2 to 3 language, excluding all the chinese dialects cause if we add that in... i have a friend that can speak hokkien, cantonese, malay, mandarin, english and malay. so....
As a Malaysian Chinese, I get this everytime when non-Malaysians notice that we are multilingual. The look on their faces are priceless lol !! Malay, English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka you name it 😂😂
Malaysian Chinese generally go to either Chinese schools (majority of Chinese) or Malay Schools in Malaysia. If go to Malay schools: their English are usually better than even average Americans'. But don't usually know much Chinese, and weaker in Math as well. If go to Chinese schools: their Chinese (simplified Mandarin) is no worse than average China/Taiwanese' Chinese. English, can score the with the average Americans. As for dialects, Cantonese (because of HK media) are more commonly used outside of schools. The others such as hokkien=闽南语, teowchew=潮州，Hakka, etc. are used depending on which state in Malaysia you're in. If you are to test an average Chinese-ed Malaysian, you will need to try high level 名句精华，四书五经，文言文，etc. Something like 三字经 is kindergarten level. Of course, I'm not talking about accents, which is obviously always different geographically for any language in the world.
HAIYA and FUIYOH have different meanings from the Mandarin's 哎呀(aiya) and 哎唷(aiyo). First, they are not considered formal Chinese words but expression sounds therefore there cant be written in Chinese letters. Secondly, they are used in very different context whereas in aiya and aiyo are more similar to each other. Haiya = an expression of annoyance, usually with a context of "what a waste of _____". Fuiyoh = an expression similar to "you lucky bastard" or "someone's gonna feel proud now (in contrast to the Chinese culture of staying humble)" *Only about 22.8% of Malaysians are of Chinese descent. As the minority, the Chinese strive harder to preserve their culture and language. Which is why we have Chinese schools and many other Chinese dialects were spoken and passed down too. I was under the impression that Nigel could be solely-English-educated (never attend Chinese schools), therefore it was definitely a surprise that he can actually speak Mandarin.
Many chinese in Malaysia are fluent speakers even though they aren't enrolled in Chinese schools. The mentality that you can only be a "real" Chinese if you enter private Chinese schools has caused a slight rift in the Chinese community
shui 谁 is more for southern accent, and shei 谁 is more commonly pronounced for Chinese from the north. Just like 风， the southern pronunciation is more like Fong, and northern Chinese is pronounced more as feng
I think our Malaysian Chinese brothers and sisters are the most multilingual. Most of them are able to speak mandarin, cantonese, hokkien, hakka, and other dialects depending on where they are from in Malaysia, on top of bahasa malaysia and english!
The dialects seriously depends. They're not even that useful since it's getting replaced by mandarin. personally it's ironic how I can't speak my own dialect but I can speak hokkien whereas my hokkien friend can't speak her own dialect. The one that deserves the title is our good ol Indian pals that choose to enroll in Chinese schools but also maintain their Tamil knowledge. Literally collecting languages like infinity stones.
@@nomotivay yes! I know a few indian buddies who speak very fluent mandarin and hokkien! Folks from penang really cool man. Knowing one's own dialect I think is very important - at least in the spirit of preserving it for future generations. Being Malay, I am jealous with my chinese and indian friends who are multilingual. Slowly picking up hokkien from my Penang buddy, wa kong ban tampok lah 😂
@XooX YooT true true, I'm from a Chinese school in Penang and boy it's bad when I say my friends are more terrible in Malay speech than I am. Atleast I can try to form some sentences and not sound overwhelmingly ching chong
@XooX YooT personally I just blame the kids for not putting more effort into it. Penang is very densely populated with Chinese people so there are not many chances to practice Malay and even if there are, they are scared of embarrassing themselves. A lot of the times for us it's either you're bad at your own language or bad at Malay. Hence if you choose to go to Chinese school you'll be bad at Malay, if you go to kebangsaan you'll be terrible at Chinese. Strategically it'll be better to be bad at Malay speech first (we can read and write perfectly, just bad at speaking) then you can learn and practice with non Chinese people. If you're bad at Chinese first then every other Chinese are also bad at it too, then eventually it dies out. I just hope they stop staying in their comfort zone and start speaking. I'm happy that a lot of the Malay people I practice with are very patient. They gotta realize that it's not embarrassing to make mistakes.
鸡肋 is actually a bit more sophisticated than that, the phrase was coined by Caocao from the three kingdoms era, it means something is too wasteful to throw away, but at the same time not that useful to keep, just like chicken rib (not much meat on it)
omg ur Chinese accent is the most proper. so nice and 你發的聲音很標準 and understandable. I find Shanghai accent and Beijing accent sometimes harder to understand when they speak very fast. ur accent is awesome and understandable.
Thank you Jessie for teaching us so much. In return, I would like to point out something you had mispronounced. At 2:53 you said "in Elon Musk's twit", the correct pronunciation should be "in Elon Musk's tweet" (it has the same phonetic sound as the word "sweet")
Both "tweet" and "twitter" are sounds that little birds make. And a "twit" is an idiot. That's why "Twitter" is the perfect name for that social media service.
Thank you for your comments on “谁” I have always been so confused when I hear it pronounced like it’s water or something 😭 I’m sitting there confused like no we 喝水 I said 他是谁! 😂😂
"Haiya" is actually the combination of the words Hai (from cantonese) & Aiya~ just to "upgrade" the meaning of aiya~ Fuiyoh is actually came from hokkien suiyo~ means beautiful~ and the front Fui word just to "upgrade" it and it sounds more superb~
For some reason I found cantonese better sounding. For me. :D I would really love to learn it, but I think it would be better to learn it by practicing with someone. Oh well.
Learning Chinese? I am up in tears over the fine differences in pronunciation (coming from Steven He Video). I can‘t hear hardly the differences. Now wonder that no Chinese speaker ever understood my „Xie Xie“ trying to say thank you.
Malaysia is the only country outside of Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau with a complete and organized Chinese education system from primary school to university, over 90% of Chinese Malaysian went to Chinese school and Mandarin Chinese is the most spoken language in Malaysia after Malay and English.
that is pretty awesome, ty for the info. I met a woman from Malaysia about 15 years ago, I had no idea they spoke any Mandarin there, I know she spoke Malay and English well. next time I see her I need to see how well she speaks Mandarin. If she can understand my limited weak vocabulary and Taipei and Fuzhou accents from my ex-gf lol.
@@michaelmunno Well, it is awesome in a way, but the promotion of Mandarin has largely been via the exclusion of other Sinitic languages (eg: at school, and even at home), including Hokkien, Cantonese, and others, and so these have seen a marked decline in the younger generations.
@@Aeybiseediy You're saying that it's a "shame" that some people in Malaysia are polyglots who speak Malay, English, and Chinese? Don't polyglots get praised all the time for their abilities? Wouldn't them being trilingual (or more) reflect very well on the country?
my ex-gf gave me a rice cooker 2 years ago, IDK how I cooked rice before that, in a pot on the stove? /sad /shame lol. I keep debating learning to use the instant-pot to cook rice and cut down on the appliances, but the rice cooker is just so perfect and easy.
Corrections: 0:39-0:51 1. The tone should be marked on "e" instead of "i", it's "shéi" instead of "sheí". 2. "casual" was misspelled as "causal".
I put this in the description box a couple days ago, and it's supposed to pop out as a card at the exact time according to UA-cam new feature "correction", but somehow it didn't work, I sent feedback to the creator support and hope they'll fix this for me soon.
I'm terribly sorry for the mistakes 🙇♀
Wait a sec... Shui is not the correct prononciation..... right...?
@@dy0415 Shui and shei are both the correct pronounciation.
Some Malaysians are good and bad at their languages, which depend their living environment since young. Such as one of my friend who speaking English very well in his mother tougue, but can't speak Chinese. So Uncle Roger is the best to speak chinese what I see, but he is now in western country living then we should understand his stuation about speaking Chinese.
In Taiwan, only shei, never shui.
as Singaporean Chinese, we might pronounce 谁 like how he pronounced it (almost like "shui" instead of "shei"), and remains consistent throughout.
but if you were to test us idioms, i think only the higher chinese educated can answer.
Also, if you haven't realised, she said "你很pandai!" which is clearly msian expression. this is how you tell apart msian and HK variants of cantonese.
Malaysian Chinese are actual quite multicultural, we learn mandarin in school, but many of us understand Cantonese and Hokkien quite well. A tiny minority can speak hakka, teochew and foochow. Not to mention, we also included English, Malay and Tamil in our vocab.
That is so cool!
"Inculcated"? Now you're just showing off! (Auto-correct can be hilarious.)
@@tarmaque Not showing off, it's actually true!
"Only in Malaysia can be found 4 languages in one sentence and it is spoken by every Malaysian every day."
"Ann Neh! Roti kosong dua, Dar pau, Please."
1.Ann Neh (Tamil) 2. Roti Kosong Dua (Malay) 3. Dar Po (Pack / Chinese) 4. Please (English).
Ann Neh - Tamil for Brother
Roti Kosong is plain roti canai, Dua is Two - so "Two Plain Roti Canai"
Dar Pau or Tapau - pack the food to go
@@tarmaque yeah, just noticed it. meant to write 'included'.
Kuala Lumper is supposed to be ”muddy confluence” in a Chinese dialect, maybe Cantonese or Fukanese. 😃😃😃😃😃
nigel studied in one of the most prestigious chinese private schools in malaysia, Kuala Lumpur Chong Hwa and was the top 3 in his graduation year. he mentioned once that all of his friends went on to become doctors and lawyers etc whereas he decided to take the path of a comedian. if my memory serves me right he used to work as a data analyst in the US for a few years while doing stand up on the side, after a while he decided to do comedy and stand up full time
Yup. Likely nigel has better command of mandarin than most of the ppl who are supposedly, testing him
He only went full-time comedian in the last few years. He was still working as a data analyst in the finance sector in the UK before he went full-time. Otherwise, how could he have afforded his London pad?
Ohhh my junior…
majority of us malaysian chinese do speak Chinese, no doubt he speaks well
Nigel is a sicko preying on girls in London clubs such as Thai square
He speaks Hokkien, teochew, Hakka, hainanese, foo cow and Hwa yee too…also he can speak Malay, singlish and mangling. Also he knows a few words of Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, and Sikh. Uncle Roger not full Chinese but truly Asian
tbh singlish and malaysian english i think almost like brother-brother like that.
Even Taishanese
Foo cow is fuzhou dialect? No way he can speak Foo cow then. I will challenge him on foo cow!
He is full Chinese in terms of race, physically he is a chinese, his ancestors are from china, but hes born and raise as a Malaysian citizen, so a chinese malaysian. Not half malay half chinese for example
There is no language called sikh
Nigel's a smart guy, he was a top student in his Chinese school in Klang valley which is predominantly a Cantonese area. It's challenging studying in Chinese schools as every subject is taught in Chinese except for the language subjects. It's not surprising to me that he would be so good. The fact that he says he has to code-switch is because he's been overseas for many years fully immersed in English-speaking communities.
Shh... 😂
In Malaysia, the proper Mandarin pronunciation follows Beijing's hanyu pinyin, but due to strong Taiwan entertainment influence in local TV programmes, it is also very common that many locals were influenced to speak like Taiwanese, and in fact rather commonly a mixture of both, it would not be too surprising to hear a Beijing pronunciation and a Taiwan pronunciation in the same sentence, we also do that to English, mixing British and American accent and pronunciation as we speak, that makes Malaysians so unique.
Yep, supposedly we learned UK English officially but due to the amount of US shows we watch, we ended up sounding British to American and American to British. 😂
And Taiwan to mainlanders, mainland Mandarin to Taiwanese. 😐 The latter would get some not very friendly treatment though. 🤷 Learned the hard way why some Malaysian Chinese UA-camr overdoing their accents on camera. 😅
That's why all Malaysian are like rojak, mix language 🤣.
And you forgot a point that is also imporatant is that the anccestors of almost all ethnic Chinese people in Malaysia are from Southeast coastal area of China which is the same as the origin of people that in Hong Kong and Taiwan too. This means the mother tongue of the majority of Chinese Malaysian is also same as Hong Kong and Taiwan. It also means Chinese Malaysian sharing the same culture with both Hong Kong and Taiwan at earlydays although everyone have evloved to their unique culture they have today as times go by( So today the Malaysian Cantonese and Hokkien are different from HK Cantonese and Taiwan Taiwanese) . That's why the Mandarin Chinese Malaysian spoke is very similar to them. So, There're also some other important factors causing the result today besides the factors you have mentioned.
Don't think it's TV - it's the fact that most Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese historically come from South China, where they have a Mandarin accent similar to Taiwanese Chinese as well
@@newname3718 We don't sound British or American to anyone lah please 😅 and I say this as someone who lived in the US for years!
As a Malaysian, I'm able to communicate in Mandarin, English, Bahasa (which is our national language) without issue. Besides that, most of us watched TVB drama series since we're still a kid, so we learned how to speak Cantonese as well. My family member does speak Hokkien, so yeah I'm able to speak in Hokkien too. That makes me able to communicate in 5 different languages.
Welcome to Malaysia!
Learn Spanish and now you have access to most of the planet with English Mandarin and Spanish
i am malaysian and can only speak english 😭😭
Malaysians are truly multilingual! 🎉🎉
Though, on that note, please stop using the term Bahasa only. Use bahasa Melayu/Malay instead of just “Bahasa”, because that would be incorrect 😊❤
@@eggbo1 no bahasa melayu at all?
@@anastasianikolaevnaromanoffno, i know some
Uncle Roger is educated in Malaysian Chinese Independent School till high school before he went off to study in the US. Mandarin is the medium of instruction in Independent Chinese schools. But he’s also from KL, where Cantonese is widely spoken. Most Chinese Malaysians can speak a few languages and dialects, but speaking all at his stand up fluency is not that common. 😂
Just letting you know that Malaysian Mandarin has its roots from the Minguo （民国）period and also many of our Chinese language educators teaching in the kind of schools that Nigel Ng and I went to-he’s my high school junior by many years-were educated in Taiwan. So it is very normal that we pronounce 鸡肋 as jī lè. Jī lèi sounds very strange to a lot of us.
But now, affected by TikTok's(抖音) culture or probably we mainly follow China's pronunciation, many youngsters I know actually pronounce it as jī lèi too. same as 肋lèi骨
@@helellwine well, naturally. Our generation and the current generation definitely have a divide. TikTok and Chinese TV shows are constant reminder of the Mandarin taught in our Chinese schools that is following Mainland China’s pronunciation. Anyway, pronunciations do change through time, that is without a question.
Most Malaysians also don't say 垃圾 lè sè anymore, anyway. And use la jī instead.
@@leezhieng là xì in regular speech, lā jī for newscasters
@@Pakiu1306 i haven't heard anyone saying la xi for years. I only heard it in the 90s or maybe 2000s. nowadays everyone says la ji especially the younger generation.
We learn at least 3 languages from young - Mandarin, English and Malay - and growing up in a multicultural country with hokkien, canto, hakka, theochew and so on surrounding us, we may pick up many languages at the same time. I love Malaysia :)
Yeah I'm half hokkien and half teowchiew and I feel like both are the same lol,there is some difference but if u understand one u understand both
Not surprised Nigel is fluent in Cantonese - many Chinese Malaysians are. But he's fluent in Mandarin too? That's awesome!!!
We have Chinese vernacular schools in Malaysia. Mandarin is the medium used there, and iirc Nigel went to one.
Nigel went to Chinese school, both primary and secondary.
Many older Chinese Malaysian can speak more than 1 dialect such as Mandarin,Cantonese,Hokkien,Hakka,TeoChew,FooChow and others but
younger one this day can only converse in Mandarin only, such a shame....to lost one mother tongue.
@@Zagaara I notice younger people responding in Mandarin when I speak in (Penang) Hokkien! And I don't think I'm that old lol.
Unfortunately we don't teach our dialects formally so it's difficult for others to learn if they don't already speak it at home.
we malaysian chinese speak mandarin among ourself..cantonese is just dialect...and speak among minority chinese....coz in malaysia their are hokkien cantonese foochow and so on
so mandarin is our common language
Nigel is actually ethnic Chinese of Hokkien (Fujian) descent. It's not surprising that he can speak Cantonese because Cantonese is a Chinese language that is widely spoken among Chinese in Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh & many other parts of Malaysia. And Malaysian Chinese can watch a lot of Hong Kong's tv dramas & programmes, that's where most Chinese of other descents learn their Cantonese.
Back then HK shows are popular among Malays too. Now it's Korean era
I seem to be lost here but who is this Nigel you're talking about?
@@rickysoong2871 ，Nigel Ng is Uncle Roger's real name. Uncle Roger is just like a character he created for his channel on UA-cam , he's actually a comedian. Nigel is only 31 years old but Uncle Roger is supposed to be a middle aged food critic on Internet.
@@yoshidayui7774 yup, you're right. I like Stephen Chow too. He's very famous here.
Cantonese is one of the Chinese dialects, not a language.
Excellent weejio with just the right amount of MSG.
Great job Auntie Jessie!!!
In Malaysia, we mix a lot of things together. So like in this video you can hear quite a few languages in a single sentence. We not only mix our languages, we also mix culture, food, and mix marriages are also more common nowadays.
My favourite thing about Malaysia is the food, especially Nasi Goreng 😊
And they also mix up their political ethics and religious believes
Uncle Roger was graduated from an independence High School which is a private school based on Chinese and English education system. He’s my junior, so… those “ Chinese questions” are kinda normal for us.
As you can see and listen in the interview, the host ( who usually use Cantonese in her radio show ) is not that fluent in Chinese compare to Nigel as she was graduated in a Government High school which based on Malay education system.
Also, depending on the region, Malaysian Chinese usually could speak more than just one language and dialects. Malay and English are compulsory for all Malaysian students ( doesn’t mean everyone can be speaking them fluently ), Malaysian Chinese mostly do learn Chinese in primary school, and maybe the dialects they growing up, such as Cantonese, Hokkiens, Hakka, Teochew, Hainan and etc.
Im growing up with speaking Hokkien as mother tongue, learning Chinese, English, Malay during Kindergarten and primary school, learning Cantonese from TVB dramas and HK pop music during high school.
So basically… the language starter pack for Malaysian Chinese is 3🤣 and we would mix them all in a sentence during daily use conversation.
It feels a little weird to ask how good his Chinese is considering he’s a native speaker lol
Not really, there are 3 languages mainly used by Chinese Malaysian, which are Chinese, English and Malay. Depending on your upbringing, you could be fluent in one, but not the other. Nigel is definitely more fluent in English than Mandarin, but his Mandarin is undoubtedly really impressive.
@@welstnitmere3583 Chinese remained to be the native tongue to a good majority of Chinese, many will be speaking their own dialect as actual native language, but many younger generations are starting to speak Mandarin as their native language nowadays since dialects are not used in schools, but Mandarin is.
@@toujingyi9156 Yes, many Chinese can converse in Mandarin, but many of the ones I know, including myself, have poor to mediocre command in reading and writing in Chinese due to the lack of constant exposure to Chinese materials. This affects our fluency and we tend to cover our gaps in vocabulary with slangs / English / Malay, like you see with the host here.
With Nigel, his Chinese has a banana tone to it, which indicates that he speaks the language less during his childhood & teenage years. But the fact that he's versed with idioms and phrases meant he's studied hard during school.
@@welstnitmere3583 I had not been writing Chinese for a long long time, so I can't remember how to write probably most of the characters nowadays, but reading is still fine, that is more related to the lack of need to physically write nowadays.
Despite being a Chinese independent school graduate myself, I still frequently put in English and Malay terms into my daily speech, because that is how Malaysians speak, we tend to use the commonest term for a certain concept, and sometimes the English and Malay term is more popular. Similar to how other race may use some Chinese term in their speech as well even when no Chinese speakers are in place.
Nigel is just stay too long in western. I bet that If you give him back to hometown 3 months, he can start another uncle roger character with Chinese speaking without any foreign accent, and able to switch formal Chinese and strong accent slang. For me, he is really smart guy.
As a malaysian chinese, I think malaysian chinese accent is pretty funny compared to other native chinese speaker from China and Taiwan, it's a mix of southern chinese accent(Cantonese and Hokkien, sometimes guangxi).
Of course, most of Malaysian Chinese ancestors are from southern China.
We embraced most ethnic, language and culture around us in our daily lives on how we speaks, eat, and think.
Definitely more hokkien than canto, and it’s kinda funny lol😂
Yes i heard he's from Kuala Lumpur. KL and its nearbys(except for Klang) Cantonese descents prevail that region's Chinese Malaysian society. You can easily hear people speaking Cantonese. So it's natural for him. If you go to regions outside of Selangor and southern Perak you'll get to hear people speaking Hokkien more often. Singapore same
Those from Klang normally know both. Hokkien +Cantonese. Because Klang valley majority Chinese ethnics use Cantonese but Klang area majority use hokkien. So Chinese ethnics Malaysian that live in Klang normally adapt to be able communicate both hokkien + Cantonese dialect.
@@MHSyaoran well you can say that too, but that doesn't means master non. First of all language the main purpose of language is for daily communication use . You some might understand normal use mandrin but don't understand mandrin in scientific vocab that is totally off the mark for normal communication. Even people author from china that without the scientific studies background could not understand those specific scientific vocabularies in mandrin. Then you consider those authors in Chinese don't master mandrin?
You already mention about the words scientific/religion vocab.that is off mark of consider normal people use. Just like even people from china that don't relate in that religion eg Islam they also won't understand those "specific mandrin vocab' of Islam even it is written in mandrin. So you consider them as master non or not even single language too?
Be logic when we say about know a language we stick too normal daily use .not consider those specific term that need specific knowledge. Even British people or Chinese people normal people /non scientific background unable to understands those specific scientific vocabularies that written in their own mother tongue .
Give you example , you won't say 金庸 not master in mandrin if he unable to understand a book written in mandrin regarding how to make a nuclear that full of scientific vocab right? Now you know how ridiculous the example given by you when consider others as master non language if they " couldn't understand scientific term vocabularies in that language"…?
SG older chinese generation I think had to learn at least three dialects (Hokkien/Teochew/Cantonese) apart from just purely mandarin, but in the corporate context mandarin is still used. cantonese i believe is a minor dialect here, cos i often found myself surrounded by few cohort mates whose parents dialect was canto, and more often than not, their parents either spoke hokkien or just mandarin, if not english educated.
Have to agree with you. You are to going to get gaiyik in KL or greater KL and Ipoh, and should prepare to hear gaicheebong sometimes in other areas. 😂
Yea bro Penang people speak Hokien. Ipoh people speak Cantonese. I think Sarawak sabah is teochew. Kl people is Cantonese too.
This is such a wholesome episode. Thanks! We take the popularity of such comedians granted and become fixated on what they have and start wishfully thinking what we could do if we had what they have. Thanks to this episode I have a changed perspective and a lot more admiration for Nigel. Wishing him more and more successes
Jessie你的英文真好，你把中文成语和歇后语的灵魂都用英文翻译出来了。
Most Malaysians can speak at least 3 languages (English, Malay and your mother tongue), many can speak a few dialects such as Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew and so forth.
Many malaysian chinese are split as follows:
If your parents mainly speak mandarin and you attend a malaysian chinese school.
Chances are the student will end up with fluent mandarin, +1 chinese dialect, and the national malay language, and maybe broken english.
If your parents mostly speak english and you attend "kebangsaan" or national schools, most likely that student ends up with an above average to high command of english, broken level to average level mandarin, +1 chinese dialect, and the malay language.
And the 3rd one being if both parents are not mandarin speakers and mostly use english while the student attends a school with few chinese speakers. You end up with a "banana" yellow on the outside, white AF on the inside. We get malay, a dialect our grandparents use, high command of english with room for improvement. Little to no mandarin nor cantonese. So we gotte struggle with learning it ourselves.
That’s me - I was English educated and spoke this language most of the time as well as BM and basic Mandarin in school…
But I picked up my Chinese dialects at work (while also improving my Mandarin) and can now speak Hokkien as well as Cantonese with passable fluency!
And then there's the "Singapore influenced"
I'm talking specifically me
Studied in Chinese primary school, shit at the language
Currently studying SMK, shit at BM
For dialects im decent in Hokkien and Teowchiew cause they sound the same (minor difference)and I'm half of each and my direct family usually use those
But I feel like my English is quite good (though probably not as good as the 3rd type you stated) because a lot of my cousins/relatives works/lives in Singapore and when they come back,we usually communicate in English,and I also consume a lot of English content.
But please,someone tell me why the fuck we learning 古文
@@austinorsomeonealt so you won't forget your root
@@eone2345 I don't think even the mainlanders or the Taiwanese are learning this
@@austinorsomeonealt it's because of Malay. Malay in general embraced traditional values. This is the reason why Chinese in Malaysia are still more Chinese than Chinese in another countries, because we prefer people who embraced the same value.
To be honest even as a local Malaysian Chinese school student here (also a Malay) it's kinda normal here 😂 we also can interchange between languages if you're a polyglot. And mix it too. And yeah most chinese here are polyglot with at lease 3-4 languages. Nowadays there's a lot of Malays can speak chinese mainly Mandarin. But there are also some cases with Hokkien or Cantonis depending on some state.
In one of his videos of chef Wang Gang he translated what the chef said through subtitles so it shouldn’t be too surprising he knows how to speak Chinese. But it’s one thing to understand and another to speak it lol. I would’ve been not surprised at all to see if he struggled with Chinese because typically people that speak basically native sounding English with no “foreign accent” and living in a western country usually means the mother language suffers. So he surprised me here with how fluent he is. Props to Nigel
He was Chinese educated for 12 years back in his school days.
He definitely has an accent in English though. Some people are just good at hiding their accents.
Yep no surprise actually. Speaking one language with no foreign accent would mean the most recent environment one is in had that one language as the absolute language for communication. And language is one thing that requires practice everyday. Nigel's Mandarin is actually worse than average Malaysian Chinese around his age tbh, which I think it's a natural outcome and not his fault. I have experienced how was it like to speak only English for 2 days straight. And with that, I stuttered when I try to speak Mandarin on the third day. Mandarin is my mother tongue, my first language and the shock honestly did not help (poor uncle must been shaking his head thinking what's up with youngsters these days not learning their mother tongue well) 😂
@@onthepalehorse I don’t think he is hiding his accent, that’s just how Malaysian speak English.
@@onthepalehorse He has a native accent though. Malaysian is one of many native English accents (there is no such thing as "no accent" to be fair, everyone has an accent it's jsut whether it sounds native or non-native.)
I served in the US Army with a Malaysian-Chinese dude named Felix Tang. He was hella cool, and he spoke Mandarin, Cantonese, French, and English. He had immigrated to the US from Malaysia with his family in his sophomore year of high school. Dude spoke English with a flawless Southern California accent. Like, if he didn't tell you he grew up in Malaysia you would have thought he'd grown up in San Diego. Incidentally, your English is also quite good.
On Malaysia’s cinemas and TVs, we have subtitles as we hate the dubbed versions. So we were pretty exposed to multi-lingual environments in American, Chinese, Indian, HK movies/TVs since young.
@@wolger That's awesome!
@@wolger haha I rmb when I was young I use to read the Malay subs to learn Malay. I think most of my Malay came from there.
Fyi that is a Malaysian Chinese radio station DJ host interviewing Uncle Roger. Yeah we have several Mandarin/Cantonese radio station in Malaysia.
At 2:43 you can hear the host say "pan nai", a term unique to Malaysian Chinese. It's a loanword from Malay and means smart or clever :)
Thanks! Is it written as "pan nai"? Like if I text it to Malaysia Chinese they'll know what I mean right?
Just text the actual word (pandai) for sake of clarity.
@@khawarUAIj Thank you! I learned a new word 😊
@@ChinesewithJessie It comes from the word "Pandai"
@@ChinesewithJessie I'm pretty sure any Malaysian Chinese would know it. And it's more fun if you spell it as "pan nai" :)
It all depends on where you spent most of your time and the environment.
Malaysian Chinese have no problem speaking their native Cantonese/ Mandarin, Malaysian Indians have no problem speaking their native Tamil and so on.
It's because we keep on conversing in it.
It's very different from chinese or indians that were born and raised in countries like the US- most of them can't converse in Mandarin because the main language is english.
It really depends on the effort you put into it. In Malaysia our main language is supposed to be Malay but a lot of us Chinese people here kinda ignore that fact and proceed to use our mother tongue for a lot of things(we get roasted for that too lmao). Especially Penang Chinese ppl where I'm from where the majority of us suck ass at Malay
@@nomotivay it comes down to how often the different ethnicities mix actually. I have friends from northern states asking why I speak English to my friend who is obviously Chinese and thinks my malay is above average for chinese. Malay friend confirms my bm is KL accent. Singapore customer thought I was from China when I speak Mandarin. The more diverse your social circle is the more chance you get to practice the languages.
@@newname3718 yeah, that also affects it. But then again even if they mix, the penang Chinese most likely will use English instead bc they're scared of embarrassing themselves. Personally I try my best to speak in full BM but my friends aren't a fan of that
@@nomotivay Penang is literally Chinatown lol
@@josephc.9520 Yea I agree, not surprising since the population is overwhelmingly Chinese. But it's gonna change in the future with Chinese people migrating to Singapore or abroad in general. Also the rate of birth is lower.
Uncle Roger 毕业于隆中华独中，是当地的数一数二名校。据说 Uncle Roger 的数学极好，是校队代表，参加过奥林匹克数学比赛、华罗庚数学比赛等。
I can see how much you adore him through your eyes and facial expressions without listening to what you say. 😀
Just sit led across your channel recently. It’s so helpful thank you! I’ve been learning mandarin but sometimes the sounds are hard to differentiate. You make it very clear for understanding sounds and nuance. Thank you~ ❤!
As a language-related UA-camr, learning cantonese is nothing wrong. But I would say normal people who are not able to speak cantonese wouldn't bother to learn a dialect. By the way in Malaysia, chicken rib is also pronounced as Ji Lei, for the most of Chinese Malaysians.
I think I need to stop using ChatGPT, I read the first few words as “As an AI language [model]”
Of course he is native in mandarin, he studied in one of the most prestigious private chinese school in Malaysia. Talk about spending the first 12 years of your life speaking mandarin with your peers and using mandarin for all your study material lol
Overreacting indeed.
As an overseas Chinese who can't really speak Chinese but can speak English and Japanese only, I always feel left out by the Chinese community. Being friends with many Japanese but zero Chinese friends also intensifies the feeling. Heck, even my Japanese friends granted me an honorary Japanese status and joked with me 'just stop being Chinese, you're Japanese now'.
Lol
Chinese hate Japanese...
Hirohito time
Honourary race,hmmm Ive heard of those before
Erika intensifies
I'm far too limited to learn Chinese, but this lady can be my teacher any day.
He studied in Chinese school, I don't know why there are many people who's so surprised by his level of Chinese / Mandarin language...
A lot of people dont know malaysian chinese study mandarin since child
@@Ssss-zm1gsMost Malaysian Chinese speak Mandarin better than Malay.
@@faustinuskaryadi6610 Of course since we use Mandarin at home on a daily basis. Similarly you wouldn’t be surprised if a Malay speaks better Malay than English.
First video of yours i see and I love your style. Great jacket! It's always good to find people who motivate to speak Chinese.
Being a Three Kingdoms fan make me proud that I recognise that the poem in 2:46 was the one composed by Cao Zhi to Cao Pi.
Well, actually uncle roger aka nigel ng graduated from chinese independent high school in malaysia, whereby the syllabus are all in mandarin. Hence the mastery in mandarin :)
It is pretty common for a Malaysian especially Chinese to speak at least 4 languages (dialect included). We study Malay and English at school. Some Chinese (or even Malay and Indian) enrolled at Chinese school where the medium of teaching is in Mandarin and some enrolled at national school where the medium of teaching is in Malay. Don't be surprise when you heard a Malay or Indian speaks Mandarin as they may had enrolled at a Chinese school. Even those Chinese who went to national school will know how to speak Mandarin because they usually speak it at home or use it to socialize. Malaysia TV broadcasts HK TVB drama and movies without dubbing, so some Chinese learn Cantonese from the TV or big screens. Majority of Chinese in cities like Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh also speak Cantonese by default.
I think Chinese people from Malaysia and Singapore, they speak English and Mandarin + their dialect which can be Cantonese, Hokkien, Hainanese, Hakka, Teochew.
Mandarin was his first language officially, but he's also spoken English and Malay since childhood. But he's out of practice in Mandarin from living in the western world.
I have a Cuban friend, and it's a similar story. Her first language was Spanish but she's known English since childhood. Now that she's far from home she sometimes makes mistakes in Spanish.
Jessie you are awesome. Fascinating from a linguistics perspective!
Malaysians, even more than Singaporeans, use anything they need to get their message across. I don't know the differences between Hokkien and Cantonese but you can guarantee that there is an auntie within earshot sprinkling one or more dialects into her 'English'. Thanks for the vid.
I am Chindian which my dad is Chinese and my mum is Indian...I can speak English, Malay, Cantonese, abit of Hokkien, Mandarin, abit of Tamil and Malayalam... 😂😂😂 but my Malay and English abit mess because my main language is Cantonese and Mandarin, so sometime my Malay and English is direct translation from Cantonese and Mandarin LOL
Wow wow
I guess thaats how you do it in Malaysia😂 But just a small question for ya: Does it make it easier for you to learn any of these languages except your main languages?
Uncle Roger is Divine
hey, Ray!!
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*.✧ Jessie reviewing Uncle Roger's way of speaking mandarin and it's very cute to watch. The two of you must collab in the future.
Great video, i love uncle roger, nice to see a shared appreciation!!
我是台灣人。我們這邊也是有些人會把“肋”唸作lei，但我比較常聽到le，我自己也習慣唸le。
原来是这样，谢谢！
在台湾是说，两le插刀？还是两lei 插刀？
这明显是个错误读音，只有不认识这个字，才会读半边音。
@@vennsim71 我問了一下我身邊的人，兩le插刀和兩lei插刀都有人說。我自己第一個反應是兩lei插刀，不過其他時候還是唸le😂，像le骨、le排、雞le。
希望有幫助到你😅
@@adamsmith5735 这世上本没有鸡le说的人多了也就有了鸡le
basically we study 3 languages in Malaysia which are mandarin , english and malay then depend on different family culture practice ,some chinese are banana , but still speaking cantonese or hokkien at home
Nigel Ng graduated from independent high school, which is a higher level than IGCSE Chinese as First Language.
🤔 not speaking any Chinese . But, I heard my favorite Chinese / British pop singer, Fifi Rong singing in Chinese . It sounds so soft and magical 🔥
Never thought Mandarin was soft nor magical because was forced to study in school but I guess it could be.
as a german who is bored and is just watchng some videos,i can say that i got more than i expected in the nuances of chinese speech :D
im not particularly good,i just learned english thorugh games and youtube,
but i actually understood what you are trying to say,so good on you,
you should be a teacher :D
you get a like :3
Nigel NG is of Hokies descent, so his family came from Fujian. As others have noted, he will have picked up Cantonese as a part of general life and was probably taught Mandarin at school. He could even have a smattering of Hakka and Teochew/Chaozhou, but they are more likely to occur in Singapore than Malaysia. He would also have been taught Malay at school. Then there’s Manglish, which is a pidgin slang.
Auntie Jessie, you rock😆 Very informative clip, thank you!
Nigel Ng graduated from private independant Chinese high school in Malaysia, of course his Mandarin is top-notch.
I even heard that he was top student in the high school and the USA university he was studying in and also has been working as high salary IT engineer or so before he does full time on stand-up comedy.
He is at English-speaking countries most of the time now, like for so many years, he might having some amnesia for what Mandarin vocabularies he learnt XDDDD
Oh yea, most private independant Chinese high schools in Malaysia are using Taiwanese education syllabus if I'm not wrong.
And if not wrong, Nigel Ng is from Kuala Lumpur and Cantonese has been the major medium among the local Chinese over there ;)
"Oh yea, most private independant Chinese high schools in Malaysia are using Taiwanese education syllabus if I'm not wrong."
You are wrong.
UEC syllabus is set by Dong Zong. Which is a local institute
Some schools focus more on SPM, some on IGCSE
@@weldon29 Correct. Doesn't change the fact Malaysians normally follow Taiwanese pronounciation (as well as traditional Chinese)
@@josephc.9520 I think because most of Overseas Chinese in South East Asia are Southerner, and influenced from Republican era Mandarin, the pronunciation is closer to Taiwanese one.
I am Chinese Indonesian, and I can only speak Mandarin barely thanks to Mandarin education ban during President Seoharto Era, but my father was different. He was born in 1950, learned Mandarin up to 1966 on Private Chinese School before closed be President Seoharto. His Mandarin is closer to Taiwanese one despite he was pro Communist Party of China until his last breath. So, Republican Era Mandarin pronunciation is very influental among Mandarin speaking Overseas Chinese in South East Asia.
@@faustinuskaryadi6610 is your father a mandarin native?
@@anakitiktokwi2939 He is bilingual, but I don't think he is native Mandarin speaker. I think his native language is Makassarese, but he can listen to CCTV 4 (China Central Television) without need to read Indonesian subtitle. He even can write proper letter in Traditional Chinese.
I am also from Malaysia I use to live in Kuala Lumpur and I love it seen people from Malaysia makes me happy
Wth? I thought at first he was a native chinese because of the english tone and character then was shocked when he speaks normal tone english and uncle roger is just a portraying character then today I learned he can actually speak chinese?! awesome.
Since I do speak Cantonese I would like to say uncle Roger said it very perfectly ❤
Uncle Roger is from Kuala Lumpur and he did study in a Chinese Independent school that’s why his Chinese is really good. Whereas a Malaysian who did not study in a Chinese medium school will not know Chinese. Being from Kuala Lumpur the main Chinese dialect spoken is usually Cantonese. That’s where he probably picked it up from.
i thought it would be easy for uncle roger since he only migrated when he was a little bit older. he grew up and finished school in malaysia so his native tongue won't get rusty at all.
He's said Mandarin is his "official" first language, and he studied it in school. However, he is out of practice due to living in the western world, so he makes mistakes. He calls his Mandarin "mediocre at best" however he seems to be better than he thinks. He also claims to not be fluent in Cantonese but apparently, he is better than he thinks for that too.
He actually went to one of the most prestiged chinese school in the country, He was my junior back then. So that is kinda normal. From where he was from, cantonese is spoken on a daily basis, he might have another language spoken in the family, and he also knew Malay. Probably he can speak 5-7 languages fluently which is normal in the country.
as a malaysian chinese. i feel like im back to primary school lmao malaysian is literally multilingual. if you're born in this country, you're basically required to speak at least 2 to 3 language, excluding all the chinese dialects cause if we add that in... i have a friend that can speak hokkien, cantonese, malay, mandarin, english and malay. so....
Your hair and makeup looks really good here, Jessie❤
As a Malaysian Chinese, I get this everytime when non-Malaysians notice that we are multilingual. The look on their faces are priceless lol !! Malay, English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka you name it 😂😂
That is pretty impressive
he's malaysian, i'm proud of that
its also fun to see people get surprised by our normal culture
As a Malaysian, yep this level of language speaking is normal 😂
sometimes i really do forget that english is your second language. really impressive ❤️
Love it! I didn't realise by watching Uncle Rodger I was learning Mandarin. Even how to interact with people and dinning etiquette.
FUI YOH!!!!
Your a very cool teacher. I am a fan and will learn from you. Thanks
Haha. He's a funny man. Oh, and I love Shaolin Soccer (Kung Fu Hustle too). 🤣🤣
Malaysians normally speak many languages fluently. As a former Malaysian now in Europe, I speak 8 languages fluently and another 3 badly.
M'sian Chinese: Hai Yah
M'sian Indian: Ai Yo Yo
M'sian Malay: Haiiish
Lain-lain: Gosh
I'm Chinese, i found it much easier to learn English through this channel.
OMG it is my first time hearing uncle Roger speak Mandarin. It's so crazy!!! I am not so accustomed to it
Malaysian Chinese generally go to either Chinese schools (majority of Chinese) or Malay Schools in Malaysia.
If go to Malay schools: their English are usually better than even average Americans'. But don't usually know much Chinese, and weaker in Math as well.
If go to Chinese schools: their Chinese (simplified Mandarin) is no worse than average China/Taiwanese' Chinese. English, can score the with the average Americans. As for dialects, Cantonese (because of HK media) are more commonly used outside of schools. The others such as hokkien=闽南语, teowchew=潮州，Hakka, etc. are used depending on which state in Malaysia you're in.
If you are to test an average Chinese-ed Malaysian, you will need to try high level 名句精华，四书五经，文言文，etc. Something like 三字经 is kindergarten level.
Of course, I'm not talking about accents, which is obviously always different geographically for any language in the world.
HAIYA and FUIYOH have different meanings from the Mandarin's 哎呀(aiya) and 哎唷(aiyo).
First, they are not considered formal Chinese words but expression sounds therefore there cant be written in Chinese letters.
Secondly, they are used in very different context whereas in aiya and aiyo are more similar to each other.
Haiya = an expression of annoyance, usually with a context of "what a waste of _____".
Fuiyoh = an expression similar to "you lucky bastard" or "someone's gonna feel proud now (in contrast to the Chinese culture of staying humble)"
*Only about 22.8% of Malaysians are of Chinese descent. As the minority, the Chinese strive harder to preserve their culture and language. Which is why we have Chinese schools and many other Chinese dialects were spoken and passed down too. I was under the impression that Nigel could be solely-English-educated (never attend Chinese schools), therefore it was definitely a surprise that he can actually speak Mandarin.
Many chinese in Malaysia are fluent speakers even though they aren't enrolled in Chinese schools. The mentality that you can only be a "real" Chinese if you enter private Chinese schools has caused a slight rift in the Chinese community
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He had studied in one of the best Chinese language education school in Malaysia and he's definitely not stupid for sure.
I think Japanese students learning mandarin also have an advantage over western students when it comes to learning how to read and write.
谢谢jessie，有趣的课
shui 谁 is more for southern accent, and shei 谁 is more commonly pronounced for Chinese from the north. Just like 风， the southern pronunciation is more like Fong, and northern Chinese is pronounced more as feng
And 血 xue xie
I'm Indonesian
And I wish could talk native mandarin like this
I think our Malaysian Chinese brothers and sisters are the most multilingual. Most of them are able to speak mandarin, cantonese, hokkien, hakka, and other dialects depending on where they are from in Malaysia, on top of bahasa malaysia and english!
The dialects seriously depends. They're not even that useful since it's getting replaced by mandarin. personally it's ironic how I can't speak my own dialect but I can speak hokkien whereas my hokkien friend can't speak her own dialect. The one that deserves the title is our good ol Indian pals that choose to enroll in Chinese schools but also maintain their Tamil knowledge. Literally collecting languages like infinity stones.
@@nomotivay yes! I know a few indian buddies who speak very fluent mandarin and hokkien! Folks from penang really cool man. Knowing one's own dialect I think is very important - at least in the spirit of preserving it for future generations. Being Malay, I am jealous with my chinese and indian friends who are multilingual. Slowly picking up hokkien from my Penang buddy, wa kong ban tampok lah 😂
@@luqmanaziz good luck mate! That Indian buddy of yours should continue with Cantonese then not many people can talk shit behind his back muahahahaha.
@XooX YooT true true, I'm from a Chinese school in Penang and boy it's bad when I say my friends are more terrible in Malay speech than I am. Atleast I can try to form some sentences and not sound overwhelmingly ching chong
@XooX YooT personally I just blame the kids for not putting more effort into it. Penang is very densely populated with Chinese people so there are not many chances to practice Malay and even if there are, they are scared of embarrassing themselves.
A lot of the times for us it's either you're bad at your own language or bad at Malay. Hence if you choose to go to Chinese school you'll be bad at Malay, if you go to kebangsaan you'll be terrible at Chinese. Strategically it'll be better to be bad at Malay speech first (we can read and write perfectly, just bad at speaking) then you can learn and practice with non Chinese people. If you're bad at Chinese first then every other Chinese are also bad at it too, then eventually it dies out.
I just hope they stop staying in their comfort zone and start speaking. I'm happy that a lot of the Malay people I practice with are very patient. They gotta realize that it's not embarrassing to make mistakes.
鸡肋 is actually a bit more sophisticated than that, the phrase was coined by Caocao from the three kingdoms era, it means something is too wasteful to throw away, but at the same time not that useful to keep, just like chicken rib (not much meat on it)
Uncle Roger trilingual and still very fluent in all three languages, very impressive uncle roger.
I guess he is a Polyglot (can speak 3 or more different languages)?🤔
as a malaysian，it is a casual practice to speak multilanguage every day.
omg ur Chinese accent is the most proper. so nice and 你發的聲音很標準 and understandable. I find Shanghai accent and Beijing accent sometimes harder to understand when they speak very fast. ur accent is awesome and understandable.
Thank you Jessie for teaching us so much. In return, I would like to point out something you had mispronounced. At 2:53 you said "in Elon Musk's twit", the correct pronunciation should be "in Elon Musk's tweet" (it has the same phonetic sound as the word "sweet")
I actually thought it's written as "twit" since it's "Twitter" lol, thank you so much for pointing this out!
Both "tweet" and "twitter" are sounds that little birds make.
And a "twit" is an idiot.
That's why "Twitter" is the perfect name for that social media service.
Thank you for your comments on “谁” I have always been so confused when I hear it pronounced like it’s water or something 😭 I’m sitting there confused like no we 喝水 I said 他是谁! 😂😂
"Haiya" is actually the combination of the words Hai (from cantonese) & Aiya~ just to "upgrade" the meaning of aiya~ Fuiyoh is actually came from hokkien suiyo~ means beautiful~ and the front Fui word just to "upgrade" it and it sounds more superb~
We don't speak shui in Taiwan, shui sounds like a cute speaking way that we do in particular occasions.
For some reason I found cantonese better sounding. For me. :D I would really love to learn it, but I think it would be better to learn it by practicing with someone. Oh well.
Learning Chinese? I am up in tears over the fine differences in pronunciation (coming from Steven He Video). I can‘t hear hardly the differences.
Now wonder that no Chinese speaker ever understood my „Xie Xie“ trying to say thank you.
Im sorry to hear that but that's what tonal language is😂
Malaysia is the only country outside of Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau with a complete and organized Chinese education system from primary school to university, over 90% of Chinese Malaysian went to Chinese school and Mandarin Chinese is the most spoken language in Malaysia after Malay and English.
This is 101% correct
that is pretty awesome, ty for the info. I met a woman from Malaysia about 15 years ago, I had no idea they spoke any Mandarin there, I know she spoke Malay and English well. next time I see her I need to see how well she speaks Mandarin. If she can understand my limited weak vocabulary and Taipei and Fuzhou accents from my ex-gf lol.
@@michaelmunno Well, it is awesome in a way, but the promotion of Mandarin has largely been via the exclusion of other Sinitic languages (eg: at school, and even at home), including Hokkien, Cantonese, and others, and so these have seen a marked decline in the younger generations.
Its a shame to the native country really
@@Aeybiseediy You're saying that it's a "shame" that some people in Malaysia are polyglots who speak Malay, English, and Chinese? Don't polyglots get praised all the time for their abilities? Wouldn't them being trilingual (or more) reflect very well on the country?
For malaysian chinese, capable to speak mandarin + hokkien / cantonese / hakka / teowchew + malay + english is normal
In Taiwan, "誰" we pronounce "Shei' " instead of "shui' ". It's quite big different.
Good video, by the way. Thanks Jessie.
Yes, aiya is used by mainlander. Haiya and Fuyoh are used more in Malaysia and Taiwan
Shaolin Soccer is my jam. Also, Uncle Roger taught me to stop being a foolish American and buy a rice cooker.
my ex-gf gave me a rice cooker 2 years ago, IDK how I cooked rice before that, in a pot on the stove? /sad /shame lol. I keep debating learning to use the instant-pot to cook rice and cut down on the appliances, but the rice cooker is just so perfect and easy.
@@michaelmunno RIght! lol It's embarrassing just thinking about how I used to do it and often fail.
yay! yay! finally 😂😂😂😂😂 I luv you 2 so much ❤❤❤❤❤❤