After writing my rather smug little blog post yesterday about how easy it is to pick up Bahasa, I noticed that I had received a Facebook message from my local area’s Facebook page. Glancing at it, I saw the name of my condo – Villa Flora – so I read it more closely.
Now, I know that ‘bomba’ is fire brigade – so what exactly was the problem that required a fire engine? Obviously something to do with a pipe … leaking pipe? … broken pipe? And why all the exclamation marks – was it a flood of truly Biblical proportions, or just a drama queen getting hysterical about a trickle on the floor?
As I live in the high rise, I thought that I should find out what ‘ada ular masuk’ means, although living on the fifteenth floor, I’m unlikely to get washed away someone’s leaky plumbing.
Since my newfound bilinguality seemed to have let me down, I had to resort to Google Translate –
I’m clearly not quite as fluent as I thought I was – and if I’d been bitten by the snake, then serve me right for showing off.
But, on the plus side, I have learnt a very useful new word, and if I hear anyone shouting ‘ular! ular!’ in the future, I shall turn around and sprint in the opposite direction.