[Watch] African Man’s BM Proficiency During Grab Ride Surprises Many

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There is this belief that learning the language of the country you are working in will help your career.

This was demonstrated through a video shared by a Grab driver recently.

The Grab driver picked up a passenger of African descent who was working at a construction site and found that the foreigner was able to converse fluently in Bahasa Melayu.

The video was uploaded on TikTok by @Joeoh333 who described himself as a Grab driver and a part-time lawyer from Johor.

In the video, Joe asked his passenger if he could speak in the Malay language.

To Joe’s surprise , the passenger spoke fluent Malay.

The passenger said most of the immigrants here, from Myanmar, Vietnam, and Indonesia, use BM to communicate. Some can’t speak in English so the common language they shared was BM.

He said he has been here for over six years so naturally he can speak BM.

“If I don’t understand (BM) then this head would go haywire (kepala rosak),” he joked in the video.

He remarked that some people have been living in Malaysia for 30 to 40 years but still were not able to speak BM.

This is where the Grab driver intervened, jokingly mentioning his own race (Chinese).

In the caption he attached in the video, Joe said many Chinese students scored an A in Bahasa Melayu but were not able to converse properly.

Nevertheless, the conversation continues where the African man said that once you enter the construction industry, you are forced to learn the language as it is the language used by many.

Many who saw the video were impressed by the African man’s ability to speak BM fluently and found Joe’s comments funny.

Learning an extra language will always come in handy and if the language is the national language of the place you are working in, it becomes a very helpful tool.

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