馬拉

Chinese

		phonetic
trad. (馬拉)		馬	拉
simp. (马拉)		马	拉

Pronunciation

Cantonese (Jyutping): maa⁵ laai¹

Cantonese
- (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)⁺
  - Jyutping: maa⁵ laai¹
  - Yale: máh lāai
  - Cantonese Pinyin: maa⁵ laai¹
  - Guangdong Romanization: ma⁵ lai¹
  - Sinological IPA ^(key): /maː¹³ laːi̯⁵⁵/

Proper noun

馬拉

(Cantonese, attributive) Malay
(Cantonese, often attributive) Malaysia (a country in Asia)
- 馬拉好玩駛唔多　馬拉多女多帥哥　最正係我 [Cantonese, trad.]
  马拉好玩驶唔多　马拉多女多帅哥　最正系我 [Cantonese, simp.]
  From: 2019, 杜汶澤 (Chapman To) and 黃明志 (Namewee), 《走佬去馬拉》 (Pick Me Up to Malaysia)
  maa⁵ laai¹ hou² waan^4-2 sai² m⁴ do¹, maa⁵ laai¹ do¹ neoi^5-2 do¹ seoi³ go¹, zeoi³ zeng³ hai⁶ ngo⁵ [Jyutping]
  You don't need much to have fun in Malaysia; there are lots of girls and handsome guys in Malaysia, the best is I

Usage notes

Some people outside Malaysia or Singapore may incorrectly use this term to refer to the country Malaysia. Such usage is generally frowned upon by Malaysian Chinese because Malaysia is an ethnically diverse country and Malays are only one of the ethnic groups in the country. Therefore, usage of this term to refer to the whole country is deprecated.

Synonyms

(Malay): 馬來／马来 (Mǎlái)

Dialectal synonyms of 馬來西亞 (“Malaysia”) [map]

Variety	Location	Words edit
Formal (Written Standard Chinese)		馬來西亞
Northeastern Mandarin	Taiwan	馬來西亞, 大馬, 馬國
	Malaysia	馬來西亞, 大馬
	Singapore	馬來西亞, 聯邦, 州府, 馬國, 大馬
Cantonese	Hong Kong	馬來西亞, 大馬, 馬拉, 馬國
Eastern Min	Sitiawan (Gutian)	馬來西亞, 馬來亞
Southern Min	Xiamen	馬來西亞
	Quanzhou	馬來西亞
	Zhangzhou	馬來西亞
	Penang (Hokkien)	馬來西亞
	Singapore (Hokkien)	馬來西亞, 州府
	Manila (Hokkien)	馬來西亞
	Singapore (Teochew)	馬來西亞, 聯邦, 州府, 馬來亞
Wu	Shanghai	馬來西亞

Derived terms