Last updated on January 1, 2019
Contributed and posted by ‘The Indonesian Way’, a textbook for the Indonesian language by George Quinn and Uli Kozok.
After the Second World War, Japan, Italy and several other countries were struck by raging inflation and the value of their currencies declined dramatically. We still feel the legacy of this today. Prices in Japaneseyen or Italian lira (before the introduction of the Euro) seem always to be very big numbers.
Indonesia too has experienced periods of out-of-control inflation. In the mid 1960s, for example, the inflation rate peaked at around 600% a year. You needed many thousands of rupiah – sometimes even millions – to buy everyday commodities. Indonesia’s currency has now stabilised but the effect of past inflation can still be felt. The rupiah value on banknotes is very big (see next page) even for notes that have a small absolute value. It might cost you more than 50,000 rupiah to buy a sandwich at an airport restaurant.
So it is important to get used to using very big numbers when you are speaking Indonesian, especially when you are talking about buying and selling.