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 word ‘larang’ means it’s prohibited. The prohibition is usually issued by authority or law.
Jangan simply means ‘do not’ and is neutral in terms of politeness and formality. Depending on how formal or urgent we want our sentence to be, we can also add ‘tolong’ to make a polite prohibition, or ‘ya’ and ‘dong’ to create a sense of informality.
- Dilarang parkir di sini. Don’t park here.
- Jangan parkir di sini. Don’t park here.
- Tolong jangan parkir di sini. Please don’t park here.
- Jangan parkir di sini ya. Please don’t park here, OK?
- Tolong jangan parkir di sini ya. Please don’t park here, OK?
- Jangan parkir di sini dong. Can you please not park here, OK?
- Tolong jangan parkir di sini dong. Can you please not park here, OK?
Warning
We use the word ‘awas’ to warn people.
- Awas ada anjing! Beware of dog.