The Malaysian Star newspaper published two reports today that show that Khairy Jamaluddin, the deputy youth leader of Malaysia’s ruling United Malays National Organisation (Umno), speaks faulty English. Khairy graduated from Oxford’s St Hugh’s College with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE).
I’ve underlined the mistakes. Can you bloggers out there say what’s wrong with Khairy’s “Oxford” English? Please note that the Star reports are poorly written in broken English.
Umno needs Net presence, says Khairy
KUALA LUMPUR: Umno and the Barisan Nasional have not made full use of the Internet, a situation that Umno Youth deputy chief Khairy Jamaluddin hopes could be rectified soon.
He said cyberspace was both a medium of communication and a political strength and the party would lose support among the young if it does not have an Internet presence.
Khairy said Umno faced the challenge of conveying “the truth and the real news” and to overcome the public tendency to be influenced by sensational and unsubstantiated news.
“If we do not have Internet presence, we will lose support among the young, who only see the world through the Internet,” he said here yesterday.
Khairy was commenting on the DAP’s e-campaign to reach out to the net-savvy community in the next general election.
“We view the opposition’s campaign through the Internet seriously,” he said, adding that Umno was ready to take them on.
“We have a website and the writers for it. But, unfortunately, the phenomenon on the Internet is still to sensationalise news.
“So, we need a correction mechanism. It is difficult to find credible sources, compared to the traditional media,” he said.
On the threat by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to sue him over his alleged remarks that the former deputy prime minister is a Jewish agent and a traitor to the Malay cause, Khairy said he would not apologise for anything he had said.
Be trilingual to do well, grads told
KUALA LUMPUR: Graduates need to be proficient in at least three languages to make it in today’s workforce, said Umno Youth deputy chief Khairy Jamaluddin.
He said being bilingual was nothing unusual and today’s employers would view a potential employee who knew three languages as someone who could be chief executive officer or vice-president of a company. (Good news for the janitor who can speak Malay, Tamil and Cantonese!)
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Raring to go: Foreign students undergoing tertiary education in Malaysia with Khairy after he launched a career and education fair in MidValley yesterday. |
“It is important to master languages. While I do not want a discrimination of languages, do not forget the need to be fluent in certain languages. You have to value language as a communication tool,” he told reporters yesterday after launching the My Career & Education Fair 2007.
It is being held at the MidValley Exhibition Centre until Sunday.
Khairy said graduates needed to ensure they were fluent in a few languages instead of complaining about the strict conditions a company might impose on them requiring them to speak certain languages.
He was asked to comment on whether being proficient in Mandarin was now seen as an advantage in the working environment.
Khairy also reminded fresh graduates not to be fussy when seeking their first or second jobs, as these were the ones that would provide them the experience and knowledge to get their “dream job” in the future.
He said the problem facing the employment market was matching the existing skills of a worker with the available jobs.
Khairy said those who graduated with a Master’s degree should not immediately assume that they would be employed, as their qualification may not match the job they applied for.
He said they should “start from the bottom” and go for on-the-job training.
Earlier in his speech, he said globalisation was not just a threat but also offered many opportunities where large foreign corporations had a “fierce desire” to market their services to Malaysians besides using the country as a hub for other Asean countries.
[Perhaps Malaysiakini has a better written report?]
19 August 2007 at 1:23 pm |
On that note, I think I’d better stop reading Malaysian papers and stick to the Guardian…
20 August 2007 at 6:35 am |
hi, i think u asked if khairy speaks english well…hahahahaha! that should answer your question
21 December 2007 at 5:08 am |
Trivial, petty. Kind of things little minds -especially those suffering from anglophillic (er ..phallus) would pick on. So he’s an oxford graduate, so what ? Big deal.Not his mother tongue and this is not England.Pathetic -is living in Malaysia but many cant even speak nor write the National Language fluently. Malaysia is the only country in the world where you have 4th /5th generations immigrants who find it charming saying that they are not able to speak the national language and get away with it. Pot calling the kettle black.
25 February 2008 at 5:45 pm |
Could anyone please correct these underlined mistakes. I am majoring in English. However, I couldn’t give rationales behind all the the underlined mistakes.
1. He said cyberspace was both a medium of communication and a political strength and the party would lose support among the young if it does not have an Internet presence.
2. Khairy said Umno faced the challenge of conveying “the truth and the real news” and to overcome the public tendency to be influenced by sensational and unsubstantiated news.
3. “If we do not have Internet presence, we will lose support among the young, who only see the world through the Internet,” he said here yesterday.
4. “We view the opposition’s campaign through the Internet seriously,” he said, adding that Umno was ready to take them on.
5. “We have a website and the writers for it. But, unfortunately, the phenomenon on the Internet is still to sensationalise news.
6. “So, we need a correction mechanism. It is difficult to find credible sources, compared to the traditional media,” he said.
7. On the threat by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to sue him over his alleged remarks that the former deputy prime minister is a Jewish agent and a traitor to the Malay cause, Khairy said he would not apologise for anything he had said.
8. He said being bilingual was nothing unusual and today’s employers would view a potential employee who knew three languages as someone who could be chief executive officer or vice-president of a company.
9. “It is important to master languages. While I do not want a discrimination of languages, do not forget the need to be fluent in certain languages. You have to value language as a communication tool,” he told reporters yesterday after launching the My Career & Education Fair 2007.
10. Khairy said graduates needed to ensure they were fluent in a few languages instead of complaining about the strict conditions a company might impose on them requiring them to speak certain languages.
11. He was asked to comment on whether being proficient in Mandarin was now seen as an advantage in the working environment.
12. Khairy also reminded fresh graduates not to be fussy when seeking their first or second jobs, as these were the ones that would provide them the experience and knowledge to get their “dream job” in the future.
13. He said the problem facing the employment market was matching the existing skills of a worker with the available jobs.
14. Khairy said those who graduated with a Master’s degree should not immediately assume that they would be employed, as their qualification may not match the job they applied for.
15. Earlier in his speech, he said globalisation was not just a threat but also offered many opportunities where large foreign corporations had a “fierce desire” to market their services to Malaysians besides using the country as a hub for other Asean countries.
A million thanks for those who could explain these mistakes.
9 March 2008 at 5:00 pm |
Curious, all the 15 sentences is about SENSE and LOGIC. Its all as simple as that. Go figure =)
19 July 2008 at 3:20 pm |
cyberspace was both a medium of communication and a political strength and the party would lose support among the young if it does not have an Internet presence
SHOULD BE:
cyberspace is a medium of communication and political strength. the party will lose support from the young if it does not have an Internet presence.
7 August 2008 at 12:12 pm |
I am confused. Is the author of this blog trying to point out that the authors of the newspaper articles have faulty English? Only those quotes from Khairy should be evaluated and not the whole content of the articles.
By the way, I’d evaluate Khairy’s quote and found his English to be fine.
3 February 2009 at 9:49 pm |
well said patrick