Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian Language) Cont

Part 4

 

Singular Pronouns

I                                saya (formal)
                                 aku (informal)

You (singular)        Anda (formal) >> also formal plural
                                 kamu (informal)

he, she, it                ia (formal)
                                beliau (formal, addressing an elder person)

                               beliau—closed e
                              dia


Plural Pronouns


We                           kami (I and my friend)
                                 kita (I, my friend and you)

You (plural)            Anda (formal) >> also formal singular
                                 kalian (informal)

He, she, it               mereka


Indonesian singular and plural nouns are easy to recognize.

buku                                 a book

buku-buku                       some books

komputer                         a computer

komputer-komputer       some computers

But be careful; repeated words not only express plural form, but they also mean other things. Sometimes, prefixes/suffixes/circumfixes are added, or the letters/sound are changed.

Meaning                     word                                         meaning                                      note
look-a-like          mobil-mobilan                       not a real car; just a car toy       mobil: car           
frequnciness      memukul-mukul                   to hit a few times                        pukul: to hit
reciprocal            berpandang-pandangan      to gaze at each other          pandang: to gaze                 
slightly                 kemerah-merahan              nearly red; pink-red                     merah: red           

Actually there are some other functions of the repeated words, but since we need more knowledge about the language (even we Indonesians still have to study about these forms), I decided not to give them yet. But if you find any Indonesian sentences that you feel difficult to translate, just send me an e-mail and I’ll contact you.

Articles
Actually, Indonesian does not have articles. But we have different ways to say ‘a/an/some’ and ‘the’ for person/s, thing/s, or animal/s.

The rule is to add ‘se’ (which means one, a/an) plus a special word.


Singular               Plural
Person:                   seorang                         Persons:             beberapa orang
Thing:                     sebuah                          Things:               beberapa buah
Animal:                   seekor                           Animals:            beberapa ekor

*What have you learnt? Good. ‘beberapa’ can be translated as ‘some’.

Kakakku adalah seorang guru
My sister/brother is a teacher

Saya mempunyai beberapa ekor kelinci
I have some rabbits

*Notice: beberapa ekor kelinci >> ‘beberapa’ showed the plural form, so you don’t have to say ‘beberapa ekor kelinci-kelinci’.


There are several other indefinite articles. They are specialized:

Secarik/selembar kertas                    a (piece of) paper

Sebutir telur                                        an egg

Sebulir air mata                                  a tear (liquid comes from the eye)

Sepotong roti                                       a (piece of) bread

Setetes air                                           a dip of water

Actually there are still lots of articles like those, but those are the most common.
I’ll tell you that Indonesian does not have the verb ‘to be’. But sometimes, it’s similar to the Indonesian word adalah. Only for several situation:

Saya adalah pelajar.

I am a student.


Ini adalah buku saya.

This is my book.


Itu adalah kesalahan besar.

That is a big mistake.


However, in informal situation (mostly in spoken Indonesian), we can omit the word adalah.

In formal/written language, this word is just sometimes omitted.

And remember that adalah CAN’T be used as ‘to be’ when:


-telling time

-showing adjectives

-passive sentence, e.g. I am called.

Indonesian only has two ways to say this, these, that, or those:

this, these                ini

that, those               itu

Note: The demonstratives are placed after the noun, i.e:

kursi ini                       this chair

meja itu (médja)         that table

kursi-kursi ini            these chairs

meja-meja itu           those tables

*In the informal spoken language, we can place the demonstrative before/after the noun.

Source: Indo-European Languages