Dr M relates how he spoke a little Hokkien as young doctor

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad today emphasised the need to be multilingual and shared how he spoke a little Hokkien when he was practising medicine.

"It is good for you to know some Chinese. I was once practising as a doctor and I could ask my patients in Chinese, in Hokkien of course," he said when speaking to about 500 Malaysian diasporas during a dinner held at the China World Summing Wing Hotel in Beijing.

The audience ruptured into laughter and applause when Mahathir shared his moments as a young doctor.

He was responding to a question by the audience on expanding education programmes in other languages aside from English and Bahasa Malaysia.

"We have to respond to the environment. If we are in China and you try to speak Malay, obviously the shopkeepers in China will not understand. So, you need some mastery of the language when in China," he said.

Mahathir also spoke about his experience meeting with Chinese business leaders during the working visit in Hangzhou and Beijing, that they were able to converse fluently in English during briefings.

"Although I couldn't speak Chinese and when I come here to meet the business leaders, they were all able to speak good English. In fact, they did the briefing in English.

"English is the universal language. Now, whether you go to Japan, China or Korea, knowing English helps you, not knowing English will not be easy for you to communicate," he added.

Mahathir also spoke on the need to master three languages and stressed on the ability to speak to each other in Malay and  English.

"I would say that in Malaysia, we need to actually master three languages.

"First, of course, is our national language, Bahasa Malaysia, so that we can converse with all Malaysians from the kampung or from the town. Secondly, we must master English. It is the universal language, wherever we go abroad, English will be useful.

"We must also master at least one of the Chinese languages or Tamil language because we have Chinese and Tamil people in Malaysia.

"We have to push through what is most useful in the school." -Mkini