The fastest way to learn Malay is to spend most of your study time on Malay you can mostly understand. That kind of Malay is called comprehensible input. What you read and listen to should change as you improve, so the plan below shows what to do at each level and how to split an hour of study.
What to Do at Each Level
Find the level that sounds like you. Its bar shows how to spend an hour of study.
- Level 1
I'm just starting out or know only a few words.
Read and listen 35 min. Review 15 min. Speak 10 min.
Read short dialogues with audio and a translation, and listen to each one twice. Watch the short videos for beginners on I Learn Malay, and say a few lines out loud.
- Level 2
I can handle simple exchanges.
Read and listen 40 min. Review 10 min. Speak 10 min.
Hide the translation and look up only the words that stop you. Read the free Malay storybooks on StoryWeaver, which are sorted into four levels, and start short talks with a tutor or a friend.
- Level 3
I follow conversations on familiar topics.
Read and listen 40 min. Review 5 min. Speak 15 min.
Watch Upin & Ipin, a Malaysian cartoon its makers post free on YouTube, with the Malay captions on. Listen to each lesson once more without reading along, and talk about what you heard for longer.
- Level 4
I understand most content but miss some nuance.
Read and watch 45 min. Review 5 min. Speak 10 min.
Listen to SBS Bahasa Melayu, the short Malay news episodes from Australia's public broadcaster. Watch Ajar on YouTube, which explains science and general knowledge in Malay, one video a week.
- Level 5
I read complex topics but rare words slow me down.
- Level 6
I read at near-native level.
Read and watch 50 min. Speak 10 min.
Read Malay novels and newspapers, and talk about them, for their own sake. Look up new words in Kamus Dewan on PRPM, the free dictionary site from Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Malaysia's language agency.
Move up a level when your lessons start to feel easy, and move back down if you lose the thread by the third line.
How Long Does It Take to Learn Malay?
Malay takes about 828 class hours to reach professional fluency, according to the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. That puts Malay in its second group for English speakers, with Indonesian, German, Swahili and Haitian Creole.
| Language | FSI group | Full-time weeks |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish, French | Category I | 30 |
| Malay, Indonesian, German | Category II | 36 |
| Russian, Vietnamese | Category III | 44 |
| Korean, Japanese, Mandarin | Category IV | 88 |
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), the National University of Malaysia, teaches its intensive Malay course in six levels, from beginner to advanced, with 100 hours in each, including workshops and trips. Its first two levels take 200 hours, and all six take 600. Here is how long those take at different amounts of study a week:
| Study per week | UKM Levels 1–2 (200 hours) | All six UKM levels (600 hours) | FSI professional fluency (828 hours) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3½ hours | About 13 months | About 3⅓ years | About 4½ years |
| 7 hours | About 6½ months | About 20 months | About 2¼ years |
| 14 hours | About 3 months | About 10 months | About 14 months |
| 28 hours | About 7 weeks | About 5 months | About 7 months |
These are course hours, so treat them as a rough guide. Time you spend understanding Malay on your own counts too.
What Slows Learners Down
- Only Formal MalayThe Malay in books and the news is more formal than the Malay people speak, where tidak (not) often becomes tak. Listen to both kinds from your first weeks.
- Prefix Tables AloneMalay builds many words from one root, so makan (eat) gives makanan (food). A table of prefixes and suffixes is hard to use until you have met each form in many sentences.
- Content Far Too HardA Malay TV news show where you know one word in five teaches you very little.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Malay app should a beginner choose?
If you are serious about learning Malay, start with Bubblegum. Poppy writes lessons at your level about things you like. Our Malay app comparison covers courses, vocabulary apps and tutors too.
Can I learn Malay in three months?
You can learn enough Malay to greet people, order food and talk about your day. At 14 hours a week, three months is about 180 hours, which is a little less than two of UKM's 100-hour levels. UKM fits each level into four to five weeks of intensive classes.
How much should I study Malay each week?
Aim for three to five hours a week of Malay you understand, in sessions of at least 15 to 30 minutes. A longer session lets you get lost in a story, which teaches more than five minutes a day, and steady time each week matters more than a daily streak. Our post on deep sessions over daily streaks explains why.
Is Malay hard for English speakers?
It is in the middle, by the Foreign Service Institute's measure: Malay is in its second group, so it takes longer than Spanish and less time than Russian. Malay verbs don't change for who does the action or when it happens, and nouns have no gender, so most of the time goes into learning words, which you pick up fastest from Malay you understand.
Is Bubblegum free?
Yes. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn. It holds lessons that other learners asked Poppy for. A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so your first one is free, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons.
The Malay lessons on this site are also free and need no account.
Sources
- U.S. Department of State, Foreign Language Training (FSI language categories)
- Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Institute of the Malay World and Civilization (ATMA), Malay Language Proficiency Intensive Course brochure (six levels of 100 hours each)
- Kamus Dewan (PRPM): tak
- Kamus Dewan (PRPM): makanan
- Wikipedia: Malay grammar (verbs not marked for person or tense, no grammatical gender)
