Malay is the official language of Malaysia and is spoken by over 80% of the population. Fortunately for us English speaking tourists, English is also widely spoken, particularly in business and government.
In addition, English frequently appears alongside Malay on restaurant menus, billboards, product packaging and the like. This fact makes Malay a relatively easy language to pick up, compared to say, learning Italian while living in Mexico.
Take for example this diagram of KLCC park, a lovely urban greenspace in the centre of KL, right next to the Petronas Twin Towers. Zoom in and I'll bet you'll be pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to learn the word for toilet in Malay. Even without zooming, you'll have likely picked up that taman means park. See? Wasn't that easy?
In other situations however, we must rely on context to understand what a given word means. Street signs, for example, are only in Malay. It only took us a day or two to figure out that jalan means road or street (Jalan Alor is the famous food street/night market; Jalan Robertson is the street our hotel is on, etc.). And we knew instantly what this sign said...
But at other times, we don't have a clue what the correct translation for a word is. This is often compounded by the fact that, depending what type of restaurant one is in (Thai, Indian, Chinese, etc) Malay and/or English may or may not appear along side, or in combination with, other languages.
Fortunately, pictures are almost always a prominent feature of restaurant menus, so in cases where no English appears, we usually just rely on the "point and smile" method, then wait to see what actually shows up on the breakfast table to learn what the word on the menu referred to. So far, so good!
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