Sometimes I inadvertently create cool words with typos. Two of my favourites:
sustainabile – I consider this something like ‘green washing’.
climate chance – a new phrase to focus on the opportunities climate change presents. And no, I don’t mean increased agricultural production. But rather, incentives for massive investment in clean-tech and energy/transport efficiency in all countries (which are all continually developing).
An interesting lingua franca audio program about Australian’s attitudes towards Indonesia and Asia in general and discusses our low levels of foreign language studies.
Very interesting points raised however I would add that every Indonesian that I have talked to on my trip has been shocked when I had planned to learn Indonesian. Their reacting is usually something like, “what for? its useless!”. I kid you not. This has been the reaction of just about every Indonesian I’ve spoken to. Secondly, if I tell them I want to go there, they nearly always say that it’s dangerous and that they might ‘bully’ me there being a foreigner. Now, this should be taken in context since most – in fact all – of the people i’ve asked have been Chinese Indonesians. If you follow the situation in Indonesia you will know why this might impact on their attitudes towards Indonesia. Anyway, I should also add that just about every Indonesian I’ve met has been very very nice and friendly and most have very good opinions and attitutes towards Australia. To be honest, I think they are mostly shocked that we want to learn Indonesian since they all want to learn English. Oh, and I would also add – since they don’t mention it in the program – that if you can speak Indonesian you can get by very well in Malaysia since the languages are very similar. I still think it is a very useful language in the region just that perhaps it’s more useful in political circles than business ones.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/linguafranca/stories/2007/1878187.htm
Any thoughts on Indonesia by my many readers? That’s you Sim and Sarah….. 
My favourite word in Malayu: “Jam”. It means hour and works so well for convenience stores such as 7-Eleven…”24 Jam”! I laugh everytime I see it, it’s so full of energy and enthusiasm. I will take a photo sometime…
