French granny has Malaysians in stitches with her attempts to pronounce local place names on TikTok

KUALA LUMPUR: Emphasising on the vowels to get the pronunciation right, a French grandmother’s take on Malaysian states and words has locals amused.

The videos uploaded on TikTok by a content creator and multi-media artist who goes by @malay_frenchie_explorer, shows the French grandmother and his family members attempt to pronounce the names of local delights including Apam Balik, Cucur Udang and Seri Muka among other local delights.

The family members were seen breaking out into laughs as they attempted to say the words garnering the video over 1.2 million views.

Another video titled “I asked my French grandma to pronounce Malaysian villages/cities Part 4” had just the grandmother attempting to pronounce names of states and cities in Malaysia which had caught the attention of locals.

The grandmothers take on pronouncing Muar emphasising on the vowels as she drags it to sound like “Moouar” before giggling had locals in stitches in the comment section.

The video, which had subtitles, showed her saying “Shadiran” while trying to say Shah Alam.

She then corrected herself before saying Shah Alam perfectly.

She tried to say Alor Setar, before sharing that it sounded similar to the word late in French, before pronouncing it correctly.

Her other attempts included Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Kuantan which she aced.

She then seemed proud of herself for saying Kuching correctly.

One user who goes by @WR said “She really tried hard to pronounce Muar, so cute.”

@noran1957, said, “I feel bad for the grandma as she has to pronounce all these places. I am not going to laugh, as others may laugh at us when we mispronounce a word in a foreign language.”

@Noone said “As a Kedahan, I would say she pronounced Aloq Setar correctly.”

@Nana on the other hand said, “why do French people pronounce it so well?”

@Mummaganas said “The way she pronounced the vowels is spot on. It is Eepoh and not like how many Westerners pronounce it I-poh,” she said.

The video which has garnered over 1.2 million views as well as thousands of comments is part of a series of videos where the creator has his French grandmother and family members attempt to pronounce Malay words.

@malay_frenchie_explorer Part 4