Learn Malay
How Learn Malay works
Learn Malay teaches the Malay that Malaysians actually speak — the Malay of the Grab driver, the mamak uncle and your partner's mum — to English speakers, wherever Malaysia is in your life. Here is how a day, a week and the whole thing work, and what every button does.
A day
- Today is where you land. It shows the episode for today, then the cards and drills that follow it. Do it in that order: listen, then cards, then drills. Twenty to thirty minutes.
- The episode is a short podcast, two hosts, English and Malay. Yellow lines are your turn: the hosts pause and you say the line out loud. Nobody is listening — the point is your mouth learning the shapes. Tap the transcript to read along; tap a word for what it means.
- Cards are the phrases from the episode. Flip, then say how it went — again, hard, good, easy. Honest ratings make the app schedule better. A card you find easy goes away for longer; one you miss comes back tomorrow.
- Drills put the words in order into a sentence. They come from the same episode, so nothing is new — it is the same Malay, seen from the other side.
A week
Six days of episodes, then Sunday: no new episode, a bigger deck of everything that is due, and a look back at the week. The first week is free in full. After that it is a subscription, one plan, monthly or yearly, and one subscription covers phone and web.
The whole thing
Roughly a thousand words and phrases, a few every day, in the order you will need them: greetings and ordering first, directions and money, then the small words — tak, dah, nak, lah — that make Malay sound Malaysian. You are not memorising a language; you are collecting the pieces you will hear this week.
Levels, streaks, badges
Every card you clear counts. Fifty clears is a level. A day with the episode and cards done keeps your streak; a missed day uses a freeze if you have one, and you earn freezes by keeping going. The badges are named after kuih. None of it is the point, and none of it is shown to anyone else — it is there so that a Tuesday feels like progress.
Classes with a tutor
When you want to speak to a person, book a class: 45 minutes on video with a Malay tutor, inside the app. Pick a tutor and a time, say what you want out of it in one sentence, and the app drafts a plan for the two of you. During the class the tutor writes the useful sentences on a shared canvas; tap a word for its meaning, tap the line for the English. The next morning those sentences are in your cards. A single class, a weekly slot (Kelas), twice a week (Intensif) or five a week by arrangement (Harian) — the prices are in the app. Move a class twice a month with a day's notice; cancel with a day's notice and it comes back as a credit.
Offline, reminders, pace
- Offline: the next few episodes download while you have a connection (Settings → Download ahead), so the plane and the MRT tunnel work.
- Reminder: one a day, at the time you choose. Nothing else.
- Pace: each level of the course is recorded at its own pace, and the next level is faster. The Malay 1× button in the player slows the Malay lines down or speeds them up, and the app remembers your choice. The gap after your turn — how long the hosts wait for you — is in Settings.
- Card direction: Malay first, English first, or both ways.
Your data
Settings → Privacy: turn nudge emails off, download everything we hold about you as one file, or delete your account outright. The privacy page says exactly what we keep and why.
Something wrong?
A clip that sounds off: tap Flag in the player and it reaches us with the line attached. Anything else: hello@learn-malay.com, or the support page.