Teaching to learn

Surprisingly, I learned a lot of Kelabit words on my first day. I must admit that it was difficult to learn those words. I was thinking that if it was difficult for me to learn Kelabit words, it would also be difficult for the Bario women to learn English. Hence, I thought that I would need to be more patient and find strategies to teach English to the Bario women. Most of the content in this post will consist of the Kelabit words that I had learned in Bario.

Below are a few words that I have learned in Kelabit on my first day:

Jonathan Ngadan Uih - My name is Jonathan.

Kuman - Eat

Mirup - Drink

Petabi De Dhtum - Good night

Petabi Rhedum - Good night 

Petabi Le ke thang - Good morning 

Numbers from 0-10 - Na'am, edtah, dua', teluh, epat, lima', enam, tuduh, waluh, iwah, puluh.

Uih - I 

Iko - You

Kayu - Tree

Some jungle vegetables and fruit vocabulary that I picked up over time:

Paku-pakis

Midin. Slightly smaller and finer compared to paku-pakis.

Buah kabar

Daun sup

                          

Daun Isip. Widely used to wrap Nuba' Laya' (soft rice)

                                                                   

I was assigned to Christina. Christina is a mother of four and is 28 years old. She looks really young. At first, she was shy to learn English so I built a strong relationship with her and eventually it was easier to teach her English. Hence, I realised the importance of relationship building before teaching an older person.

I must admit that I learned more Kelabit words from her as she already has quite a wide English vocabulary but just lacks the confidence to communicate in English. I learned Bahasa Kelabit from her and she learned the English from me. Both of us used Bahasa Malaysia as a medium of communication.

As we grew closer, she had to leave to Miri for some reasons. I thought Christina would forget about me when she left to Miri but I was so happy when she texted me! After she left, I was paired up with Violacea to teach Tepuq Ribet English. I rested for a few days before joining forces with Vio as I was ill. I came to a conclusion that unexpected things will happen when you are teaching and we must always be prepared to face these changes. 

Christina and her one year old daughter, Cherisha. I truly miss them a lot despite meeting them for only 3 days.

Below are the few words that Christina and I learned using the translation method:

Thank you - Terima kasih

You are welcome - Pa'ad

Sorry - Mutuhdoo

It is okay - Doo enah

Yes - Mo

No - Na'am

Water - Pa'

Food - Nukenen

Rice - Nuba'

Wind - Bario

Mountain - Pu'un

Up - Dita

Down - Benah

Right - Seno'ah

Left - Ka'bing

Cat - U'sing

Dog - Oko

Chicken - La'al

Fish - Luang

Wild boar - Baka

We - Tauh

They - Ideh

He/she - Ieh

Only after learning and practicing the Kelabit language hard, I found this...

I should have found this book earlier though...

I will wrap up this post with some Bahasa Kelabit fun facts:

• Did you know that the apostrophe sign is pronounced as 'k' if is it written at the end of a Kelabit word?
• Bahasa Kelabit does borrow some words from Bahasa Malaysia.
• There is no 'he' or 'she' in Bahasa Kelabit and both are referred to as 'ieh'.