Why Don't We Learn Mandarin and Tamil?

I watched a recent Astro ad for its TV IQ channels and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they showed malay kids who can speak tamil and mandarin.

I think it's a good idea to learn Mandarin or Tamil or Both. If Malaysian indians and chinese refuse to be fully commited in plans for racial intergration, the malays should enforce it by learning their languages.

The way I see it, language is the most powerful and effective barrier of intergration. B. Melayu has been the bridge of communication of all Malaysians for as long as I can remember but native languages are still preferred in households, schools, offices, and the list goes on....

I think all Malaysians should know how to converse in varying degrees of fluency in bahasa, mandarin and tamil. If you think that's hard, bare in mind that most europeans are fluent in at least three languages.

I just think its unfair that chinese and indians has a linguistic advantage over the malays. We cannot force the chinese and indians to forget their native languages but we can force the malays to learn mandarin and tamil.

I think I've to learn to speak both tamil and mandarin!

Starting today!

Vannakam!