Come Learn Some Useful Words

Here’s a great way to improve your mangled Malaysian English. Actually, the list is in no way complete, just a few that fly around my office everyday. And every other office in Malaysia…

Cinapek – I suppose its short for ‘Cina Ah Pek’. More polite version would be ‘Chinaman’.
Example: ‘Don’t want to go to UE3, lah. That place so cinapek, one’

Cinabeng – Same as above, slightly cruder. Short for ‘Cina Ah Beng’. Mostly used by non-Chinese folks.
Example: ‘Cinabeng-la lu.’

Cap Palang – So named from those TV ads from the 80’s testing products with ‘brand X’.
Example: ‘This car so cap palang one, throw away lah.’

Gostan – Move in reverse. One of the great mysteries of Malaysian English, it comes from ‘go astern’ (since nobody ever uses the original phrase).
Example: ‘Gostan a bit more.’

Leng Lui – Pretty girl. Hokkien version would be ‘swee char bor’ or ‘chio bu’.

Action – Arrogant.
Example: ‘Don’t want to talk to him, so action one.’

Kerek – Also means arrogant. Corruption of English word ‘character’. This is just my theory.
Example: ‘Alahai, kereknya Aminah tu…’

Sarbo – sabotage, see also ‘potong trip’.
Example: ‘You don’t sarbo me, I tell you first aah?’

Potong trip – sabotage, see also ‘sarbo’.

Lu – You.

Gua – Me.

Lu olang – You people.

Gua cayalah! – Er… how to explain?