CHILDREN learn fast when they're having fun. And that is why Scrabble, a game played with letter tiles, is such a popular game and a great aid to learning the English language.

Today, while parents are still encouraging their children to play Scrabble, more and more are turning to another game - Sahibba - the Bahasa Malaysia version.

Last week, the man who brought us Sahibba 12 years ago, watched with pride as schoolchildren filled the concourse of the KL Plaza to play the game during a school holiday promotion. Thanks to Mr Ting Sie Bing, children have found an interesting way of improving their Bahasa Malaysia. "Since there is a nation-wide campaign to promote Bahasa Malaysia, this is a good way of encouraging the children to learn Bahasa.

"We are also having Sahibba contests and a 50 per cent discount offer on the games. And there has been good support from the Ministries of Education and Youth, Sports and Culture and also the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. "The only problems facing us in having more such promotions is finance.

"Bahasa Malaysia is basically a subject to be learnt and children always enjoy studying in interesting ways," says this ex-teacher who now runs Syarikat Permainan Malaysian as its managing director. Mr Ting, 50, who has a diploma in the mechanical engineering trade from a local trade school, was a senior instructor with the Industrial Training Insititute for several years.

It was during his years there that he came up with a suggestion of creating the Bahasa version of Scrabbles, after seeing an instructor and some students-using Scrabbles to play a Bahasa version. He said it was impractical to use Scrabble for Malay words as the frequency of the alphabets used in both languages is different. For instance "a" is used more often (two and a half times) in Bahasa than in English.

It took him about three years of research and lots of hard work on a part-time basis before he came out with a proper version of Sahibba. "I faced many challenges, especially from language lecturers and teachers who told me that I would not be able to come out with the translated version," says Mr Ting.

"I had to determine how often each letter appeared and in which position, and also had to juggle around the alphabets to find out how often they appeared with each other in all the words. "Having worked in computer firms before was of great help too. "Initially I called the game Skrebel but the family of the inventor of Scrabble (of German origin) protested as they own the rights to the name of the game, so I changed It to Sahibba - "Sahib" means "Master and "ba" stands for Bahasa".

When Sahibba was launched 12 years ago by his firm, it was an immediate success. Since then, more than 100,000 of these sets have been sold in Malaysia. There are two varieties - a Bahasa Malaysia version and a bi-lingual version where players can play it in either Bahasa or Bnglish.

The box for one of the sets has a batik design on it to give it a Malaysian identity. His firm, set up in 1980, has so far released no less than 30 board games, making Mr Ting the first local inventor of such games. One of them is the Bahasa version of monopoly called Saidina, using the ringgit as the means of currency and local properties, the others are Sarjana (gin-rummy but using alphabets) and Mind Reader which is somewhat like Mastermind.

It was a slow start for a one-man show but Mr Ting's efforts are being recognised and slowly paying off. Last year, he received The Award for Product Excellence, 1987, by the Government for his invention of a quintuple game equipment cum table under the brand name "Queenie" (in the toys and sports equipment group).

This game comprises a snooker table set checkers, ping-pong and snakes and ladders plus the table. A father of two - a daughter, aged 21 and a son, aged 14 - he hopes his games will help instill national identity while promoting the use of the national language.