“Subuh” in Indonesian refers to the dawn or pre-dawn time, used to indicate the early morning hours or the time just before sunrise. In Islamic…
Posts published by “Bahasa Kita”
BahasaKita is an Indonesian language online resource. A practical Indonesian language learning site which teaches the difference between daily spoken Indonesian and the formal language learned at schools or courses. Anyone can learn Indonesian from here.
The article si and sang have no equivalent in English. We use sang for presidents, princes, kings, and so on. As for si, it is used as respectful titles to describe the…
One of the most frequent and useful words in Indonesian is ada. Ada doesn’t have a single equivalent in English, so it is not easy to describe succinctly…
Yang is probably the most frequent word in the Indonesian language. It has quite a variety of functions and meanings. Basically yang is a connector…
To form the comparative and superlative in Indonesian, you add ”lebih” for comparative and ”paling” or ”ter-” for superlative. Making Comparisons and Judgements 1. Lebih…
Sudah tanggal dua belas!It is the twelfth already! Dia sudah datang.He/She has arrived. Dia sudah tua.He/She is old now. Dia sudah kawin.He/She is married. Dia…
Tidak Harus There is no *tidak harus” in Indonesian (or rather, *tidak harus occurs rarely and only in special contexts). So how do you negate harus? A quick glance at…
There is a fuzzy border between tidak and bukan. For example, what do you say if you want to answer “no” to this question? If…
Belum Belum(not yet) combines the meanings of bukan/tidak plus temporal marker sudah. Jangan In the presence of jangan prefix me-(active) and di-(passive) on transitive verb is optional. Adapted from Indonesian Reference Grammar…
Negation is a way to form a negative sentence. Generally the Indonesian language has two negations: tidak and bukan. But there are also belum and…
Imperative Sentence Translation Note Duduk! Sit. Command Ayo duduk. Come on, sit down. Command, invitation or offering in more informal way. Duduklah Do sit. Command,…
Negative Imperative Telling people not to do something, i.e. negative imperatives. We have a choice of words: jangan, dilarang, and tidak usah. Dilarang from the root…