Bahasa Melayu · Malay
No tenses, no genders, and plurals you make by saying the word twice.
Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian)
Sounds
32 phonemes, 18 spelling rules. Trace any word letter by letter.
Words
284 concepts carry a Malay form. Switch Malay on at the top and browse any field.
Grammar
12 of 12 chapters written.
Sound snapshot
Malay spelling (Rumi) is young and clean — the current system dates from 1972 — and nearly one-to-one. The traps are few and famous: c is always /t͡ʃ/ (cinta = 'chinta'), sy is /ʃ/, ng is one sound /ŋ/ and ngg is two (dengan vs tinggal), final -k is usually a glottal stop /ʔ/ (tidak, nak), and the letter e hides two sounds — schwa /ə/ (the common one: besar, kereta) and /e/ (untranslated in spelling: merah, bela). Arabic loans bring kh /x/ and gh /ɣ/. Stress is light, roughly on the second-to-last syllable; there is no tone, no vowel length, no gender, and syllables are simple — which is why Malay is regularly called the easiest major language to pronounce.
Grammar chapters
Articles
the, a — definite and indefinite, and how they bend to gender and number.
Nouns & gender
Does the language sort nouns into classes, and can you guess which?
Plurals
How to make more than one.
Pronouns
I, you, he/she/it, we, they — subject, object, and the formal 'you'.
Present tense
Regular verbs now, and the handful of irregular ones you can't avoid.
Negation
Saying no: where the 'not' goes.
Questions
Yes/no questions and question words.
Word order
Where the verb goes, where adjectives go, what moves and why.
Past tenses
Finished vs ongoing, spoken vs written past.
Future & conditional
Will, going to, would.
Adjectives
Agreement, position, comparison.
Prepositions
In, on, at, to — the small words that never translate one-to-one.
Words by field
🏠Home
The house, room by room — the words you touch every day.
🌲Nature
Out of the city: landscapes, weather, creatures.
🧩Little words
Adverbs, prepositions, connectors — small words that carry the sentence.
🧱Essentials
The bedrock: numbers, yes and no — the words you need on day one.
🧰Trades & expertise
Jargon of people who do things with their hands — and their heads.
💭Concepts
Abstract words: feelings, ideas, character.
🎭Register
The same idea said in the street, at the office, or in a textbook.