It is hard for English speakers to imagine a language that has no verb “to have”. Indonesian expresses the meanings and grammatical functions covered by “to have” in English with ‘-nya’ or ‘ada’.
The verb “to have” is one of the most frequent in English. It is hard to say anything in English, even a few sentences, without using the verb “to have”. Try it! See how much – or perhaps how little — you can say without using the verb “to have” in one or other of its various forms: have, has, had and having.
One of the principal functions of “to have” in English is to help you talk about the characteristics, attributes and qualities of people, things and places. For example, in English you say:
- Hannah and John have two children.
- Canada has really cold winters.
- She has a good voice.
- This house has two bathrooms.
- Sumatra island has a lake called Lake Toba.
- Do you have any room?
So ubiquitous is “to have” that it is hard for English speakers to imagine a language that has no verb “to have”. Yet Indonesian is such a language (well… almost such a language). Check the entry “have” in George Quinn’s “Learners’ Dictionary of Today’s Indonesian” for two pages of information and examples showing how Indonesian expresses the meanings and grammatical functions covered by “to have” in English.
The immediate impulse of English speakers who want to express these notions in Indonesian is to look for an Indonesian counterpart of “have” and “has”. The word that many will come up with is punya and its more formal twin mempunyai. If you use either of these in trying to express the above notions, native-speaker listeners will probably understand, but they will make a mental note: “This person’s Indonesian is not really idiomatic”.
So how can you express these notions in a more idiomatic way, without using punya or mempunyai? There are two common strategies, and you should get used to using both of them.
1. Use ‘-nya’
The use of -nya – often in tandem with itu or ini. The structure of such sentences looks like this.
noun + itu / ini + noun-nya + adjective / number
- Hannah dan John itu anaknya dua. OR Hannah dan John anaknya dua.
- Hannah and John have two children.
- Kanada itu musim dinginnya dingin sekali. OR Kanada musim dinginnya dingin sekali.
- Canada has really cold winters.
- Dia itu suaranya bagus OR Dia suaranya bagus.
- She has a good voice.
2. Use ‘ada’
‘Ada’ often in combination with the preposition di. Here’s what this structure looks like.
di + noun (name of a place)+ ada + noun (giving information about the place)
or
ada + noun (giving information about a place) + di + noun (name of the place)
- Ada dua kamar mandi di rumah ini.
- This house has two bathrooms.
- Di Pulau Sumatra ada danau yang bernama Danau Toba.
- Sumatra island has a lake called Lake Toba.
- Ada tempat?
- Do you have any room?