When you travel to a foreign country for the first time, one of the main attractions is the restaurants. Even if you start with something familiar like a fast-food chain, foreign restaurants always have something intangibly different about them.

That makes them excellent places to practice your language skills.

Besides satisfying your cravings, ordering food in a foreign language is the perfect hurdle to clear on your way toward proficiency. It’s authentic language usage, but in a small and controlled environment where you can be forgiven for making mistakes.

In this article, you’ll learn about the many tasty Indonesian foods on offer, as well as some practical restaurant phrases to help you get by.

Table of Contents

1. What is Indonesian Food Like?
2. Must-Try Dishes in Indonesian Restaurants
3. Unique Indonesian Food
4. Food-Related Vocabulary
5. Bonus: Simple Recipes to Make Authentic Indonesian Food at Home
6. Conclusion

1. What is Indonesian Food Like?

Unless you’ve looked out for one, you’ve probably never seen an Indonesian restaurant. Although there are tens of thousands of Indonesians living outside Indonesia, they don’t tend to open up restaurants. Whatever the reasons may be for that, it just makes the experience all the better when you actually get to one.

Indonesian food is, of course, quite diverse, as the culture of each province can differ significantly throughout the archipelago. In this article, we’ll focus largely on the food found in the most populous cities of Java, the most populous of the islands.

Generally speaking, Indonesians like spicy food with rice and vegetables, often without any additional sauce and frequently fried.

In the largest cities, you can find a wide range of restaurants catering to any budget size. The smallest places are called warungs, and they tend to be quick counter-serve restaurants with similar menus and few house specialties (if any).

Moving one step up, you’ll find larger rumah makan, or restaurants serving their own specialties made with a bit more creativity than warungs offer. That’s not a mark against the tastiness of food from a warung, mind you!

Finally, the nicest restaurants are in the downtown areas or in the malls. These are often part of chains, and some offer food from around Asia. It’s easy to find excellent Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Thai food all in the same food court.

But let’s imagine you’re in a highly recommended rumah makan. What can you expect from authentic Indonesian cuisine? What’s on the menu?

2. Must-Try Dishes in Indonesian Restaurants

If your chef comes from Central Java, they’ll probably be including gudeg on the menu. This is the classic dish of the city of Yogyakarta, and it’s made with slow-simmered jackfruit and coconut milk to create a rich and creamy stew. It definitely takes quite some time to cook, but they say it’s part of the Javanese outlook on life.

Another slow-cooked dish is rendang, a dry curry. First you take some tender beef and boil it in a coconut milk curry—and then you keep boiling it until the curry dries into a paste. Then it gets fried, and the outcome is a perfectly tender and spicy rendang.

Next is a spicy salad with peanut sauce known as gado-gado. Peanuts actually aren’t particularly common in Indonesian cooking (they’re much more associated with Thai cooking), and neither are salads. That doesn’t stop gado-gado from being a very filling, very spicy, and very nutritious meal!

Most people know about something called satay, which is pretty widely known in Southeast Asian cooking as a Malaysian dish. It can be spicy or sweet, and you can get it with beef (sate sapi) or goat (sate kambing). Also note that it’s spelled sate in Indonesian.

Finally, nasi goreng literally translates to “fried rice.” This Indonesian rice dish is different from traditional Chinese fried rice because of the spices used and how it usually doesn’t include as many vegetables. You can always tell a plate of nasi goreng from other fried rice because it’s patted into a sort of ball and sprinkled with fried shallots.

3. Unique Indonesian Food

The foods mentioned above are definitely staples of the Indonesian diet, but they can often be found in Singapore or Malaysia as well. As it happens, there are also plenty of beloved foods in Indonesia that can really only be had in-country.

First among these is an unassuming jus alpukat, literally “avocado juice.” Since avocados are naturally creamy, it ends up being more of a milkshake than a juice. The secret to an excellent jus alpukat is to add a bit of sugar, a bit of cream, and to drizzle the inside of the cup with chocolate syrup before adding the blended avocado.

Next up is martabak, a classic late-night food to be had while cruising the streets on your motorbike. Anybody who’s spent time in the Middle East might be familiar with this crepe-like folded pancake, but in Indonesia it takes on a new twist. Typical for Indonesia, this traditionally savory dish is turned into a sweet one. You can often tell a martabak stall from other snack stalls by the cans of condensed milk stacked up to the ceiling!

Indomie is a beloved instant noodle brand that, fortunately, can be found around the world, even where there are no Indonesian restaurants for miles. It’s a staple in small warungs, where the noodles are boiled for moments before being flash-fried into a savory and crunchy dish.

Last on the list is ayam geprek, a twist on fried chicken that’s popular among university students for its convenience. It’s a breaded chicken breast beaten to a pulp with peppers mixed in, easy to eat as finger food and easy to share with friends!

4. Food-Related Vocabulary

Now that you’re all ready to eat, it’s time to learn exactly what to say throughout the course of your restaurant visit.

First off, you should be able to easily ask about whether the food you want is spicy or sweet. To call a waiter over, you’ll use the word permisi, so let’s start there.

• Permisi, apakah ayamnya manis? / “Excuse me, is the chicken sweet?”

Indonesian food is often rather manis, but foreigners don’t usually mind. What they mind a lot more is pedas (“spicy”). Cooks and waiters may try to hit you with a fast and short phrase:

• Mau pedas nggak? / “Do you want it spicy?”

Or they may simply say:

• Berapa cabe? / “How many peppers?”

Indonesian spices are different from the more international Mexican or Chinese spices, so tread carefully!

Indonesia is a country with several different religions and cultures co-existing, especially between the mostly Muslim island of Java and the mostly Hindu island of Bali. Everyone is familiar with some kind of dietary restriction or another, so feel free to ask:

• Apakah ini ada sapi/babi? / “Does this have beef/pork?”

Finally, after you’ve eaten your fill, feel free to compliment the chef.

• Enak sekali, Bu/Pak! / “It was delicious, ma’am/sir!”

5. Bonus: Simple Recipes to Make Authentic Indonesian Food at Home

No plans to travel to Indonesia soon? You can still experience something quite close to real Indonesian cuisine at home with these fast recipes.

→ Don’t forget to see our vocabulary list on Cooking for some useful everyday words!

A- How to Make Indomie Sosis

You can order it online or find it in an Asian grocery store, but just make sure you get the mi goreng (“fried noodles”) flavor of Indomie. As a bonus, the packages all have instructions in Indonesian!

First, cook the noodles. Instant noodles cook fast (that’s the point) but you have to be careful not to let them soak up too much water. When they’re about half-cooked, take them out, let them dry a moment, and immediately put them into some hot oil for frying.

As they’re cooking, add the sauce packet from the Indomie packet so that the noodles get cooked in the oil and the kecap (sweet soy sauce).

Next, put the powdered flavoring at the bottom of an empty bowl and add the noodles on top. Layer on a fried egg (telur) or hot dog (sosis), and now you’ve got the perfect warung snack!

B- How to Make Ayam Geprek

This crispy chicken dish is both unique and extremely simple.

First, create an egg and flour batter for a chicken breast and deep-fry it to your own taste. Add a bit of salt and pepper to the batter for extra flavor, and make it a relatively thick breading, too.

Then put a couple of fresh or pickled chili peppers in a mortar and pestle, place the freshly fried chicken on top of them, and beat it to a pulp. The breading will break apart, and the chili juices will flavor both the breading and the white meat.

Be careful, though. If you’re using actual Indonesian peppers, this can be an extremely potent dish. Many foreigners start with just half a pepper and work their way up.    

6. Conclusion    

Of course, there’s a lot more to the Indonesian language than just food words.

With IndonesianPod101, you can start from scratch and build up a seriously impressive knowledge of the Indonesian language and culture in just one place.

You can start out with beginner articles and podcast lessons, and follow the track of study all the way up to lengthier texts and authentic conversation videos. It’s all here, and it’s all ready for you to learn with.

Start today and be totally prepared for your next visit to an Indonesian restaurant!

Which Indonesian food are you most excited to try, and why? Let us know in the comments!

You might have heard that Indonesian is an easy, accessible language, but have you ever wondered why?

Since you’re considering learning Indonesian, you probably want to know what’s involved with the process. Are you going to have to memorize long declension tables, write out conjugations a zillion times, or cram adjective endings into your memory?

None of the above.

Indonesian grammar doesn’t require you to think in the ways that European grammar does. Instead, it’s a different challenge that people find refreshing and stimulating.

In this article, we’ll break down some of the major Indonesian grammar rules that make it particularly interesting to learn (and not particularly challenging!). You’ll soon see that understanding Indonesian grammar just takes a bit of time and dedication.

Table of Contents

1. General Rules
2. Pronouns
3. Levels of Formality
4. Measure Words
5. Active and Passive Affixes
6. The Relative Pronoun Yang
7. Particles
8. Conclusion

1. General Rules

Although Indonesian vocabulary is hard to remember sometimes, Indonesian grammar is generally easy to pick up.

In fact, you can often translate Indonesian sentences into English word-for-word.

That’s because Indonesian word order is nearly identical to English word order, at least in most cases. There’s also nothing like conjugation or declension to worry about—even plural forms of nouns go unmarked more often than not.

Indonesian verbs? You don’t have to worry for a moment about complex conjugations. Instead, there are creative, interesting prefixes and suffixes that let you explore new ways of thinking about sentences.

And even complex Indonesian sentences start to make sense after just a bit of dissection. As long as you know the vocabulary, you’re going to be able to read Indonesian newspaper articles and participate in text message conversations with equal ease.

So don’t be intimidated by the fact that Indonesian comes from the other side of the globe. Let’s jump in and see what Indonesian language grammar has to offer.

2. Pronouns

When you look at a language from a totally different branch than English, you can’t take anything for granted at first. For example, Indonesian has more pronouns than you probably expected!

First, Indonesian makes a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first person plural. In other words, there’s one word, kita (“we: you and me”) and kami (“we: me and somebody else, but not you”). Grammatically, they function identically, but if you’re not used to making this distinction, there’s a bit of a mental leap to overcome as you suddenly have to be more specific in your thoughts when speaking.

Next, there are different pronouns based on politeness. Plenty of languages have a “formal you,” but Indonesian has casual, formal, and respectful pronouns for several different grammatical persons.

Let’s look at the “I-You” pair. In super-casual Jakarta slang, that’s gue/lu. Casually with friends (outside Jakarta), you’d likely say aku/kamu. In formal speech and with strangers, you’d use saya/Anda (note that Anda is always capitalized).

Many Indonesians don’t even use these pronouns, though—they’ll use your name or your title, or Bu/Pak (“Ma’am”/”Sir”), in place of the pronoun.

These formality levels don’t stop at pronouns!

3. Levels of Formality

Many languages spoken in Asia have quite complex levels of language, ranging from “street slang” to special dialects spoken only by royalty. Since the Indonesian language isn’t that old, there’s nothing like a “royalty dialect,” but that does exist in local languages such as Javanese and Balinese.

Indonesian people tend to be multilingual, and “proper” Indonesian is seen as more formal than their local language. Therefore, informal slang terms often have a flavor of the local language.

Take the word ingin (“want”) in Standard Indonesian. In Java, you’ll hear people say kepengin or pengin—a related Javanese word—from time to time. This is considered much less formal.

Unfortunately for you, there’s not really a great way to tell a word’s formality level from its sound or spelling. Another word for “want” is hendak, an older word from Malay that’s considered relatively formal.

Learning the differences between closely related synonyms is one of the most time-consuming tasks in learning Indonesian, but after enough study, you’ll start to get a feel for the differences. It’s also recommended that you expose yourself to more of the language through literature, newspapers, and TV.

4. Measure Words

Grammar in Indonesian, like that of every language around the world, has the concept of “countable” and “uncountable” nouns. In English, you can have “one book” but you can’t have “one rice.” The first is countable, and the second is uncountable. English requires that you use measure words, or counters, for uncountable nouns: “one grain of rice.”

Indonesian requires counters for all nouns instead. It’s much like Mandarin in this regard, though perhaps a bit less strict.

The default measure word for inanimate objects is buah, meaning “fruit.”

• Di kamar ada tiga buah meja. / “There are three tables in the room.”

This can be used for pretty much all objects, though to speak perfectly correct Indonesian you’ll need to memorize the correct counters for different shapes of objects, like potong for pieces of things.

• Aku punya dua potong roti. / “I have two pieces of bread.”

Other than that, you’ll need orang for people and ekor for animals.

• Aku mau setengah ekor ayam. / “I want half a chicken.”
• Dia seorang guru yang baik. / “She’s a good teacher.”

Confusing these measure words or using sebuah sounds strange or even insulting in some cases, so make these measure words your top priority.

5. Active and Passive Affixes

Adding affixes to verbs is a complicated part of Indonesian grammar, but we’ll just focus on two prefixes for now: the active prefix and the passive prefix.

In a nutshell, Indonesian verbs take prefixes and suffixes to show not who did the action, but in what way the action was performed. Therefore, there is a prefix to show a verb with an object, and that prefix takes the form of me- or men-.

• Dia sedang menonton televisi. / “She’s watching TV.”
• Kapan kamu akan menulis bukumu? / “When are you going to write your book?”

In the same way, adding di- to a root verb instead of me– flips things around and marks the passive voice.

• Televisi sedang ditonton olehnya. / “The television is being watched by her.”
• Buku saya akan ditulis tahun depan. / “My book will be written next year.”

These examples seem a bit off in English, and indeed, they’re not particularly common phrases in Indonesian. However, when you compare the active sentences to the passive sentences, it’s clear to see how the prefix changes the meaning of the verb.

That’s just scratching the surface of what’s possible with Indonesian verbs. To find out more, check out our Indonesian Verbs page!

6. The Relative Pronoun Yang

Whenever you learn a new language, there’s always something that marks a transition from being a “total beginner” to being a little bit more capable. In many languages, that’s the ability to make relative clauses, bringing your sentences to a new level of expression.

Fortunately, with Indonesian you can start to form relative clauses extremely quickly. All it takes is one connecting word: yang.

• Ini buku yang dibeli Amron. / “This is the book that was bought by Amron.”

You can use this for animate and inanimate objects—no need to choose between “that” and “who,” as you would in English.

• Dia guru yang mengajar bahasa Inggris di sekolah waktu saya kecil. / “She’s the teacher who taught English at school when I was a kid.”

7. Particles

Instead of tenses, Indonesian takes after other Asian languages and uses particles to convey time aspects. Sudah marks completed actions, sedang marks in-progress actions, and akan marks future actions.

• Apakah kamu sudah membersihkan kamarnya? / “Have you already cleaned the room?”

In many cases, though, these particles are used once or twice at the beginning of the topic and then dropped, and the context is enough to maintain the temporal consistency.

Lastly, several particles are extremely common in informal Indonesian, and they’re notoriously hard to translate.

• Kok motor parkir di sana? / “Why is the motorbike parked (there) on the sidewalk?”
• Jangan begitu dong! / “Don’t be like that, man!”

In these examples, you can see the particles kok, expressing surprise, and dong, expressing that what you’re saying is rather obvious. Kok can be considered the casual version of kenapa (“why”).

These particles only rarely appear in writing, and even then, only in casual online writing such as magazine articles or comment sections. Reading through comment sections under YouTube videos might be a bit mind-numbing, but it’s a great way to get a feel for super-informal Indonesian that you won’t find in textbooks.

8. Conclusion

As you can see, Indonesian really isn’t that far off from English in a lot of places. When you look at a list of Indonesian sentences with their English translations, you can really start connecting the dots all on your own.

But how much time do you want to spend connecting the dots, and how much time do you want to spend speaking Indonesian?

With IndonesianPod101, you can choose the perfect blend of resources for your learning style. You can follow along with entertaining podcasts from beginner to advanced level, and also take it slower and read through grammar and pronunciation guides aimed at learners of every level.

In no time, you’ll feel yourself picking up Indonesian words and phrases left and right, naturally assimilating the grammar in a totally effortless way. Soon you won’t have to even think about word order or verb prefixes—they’ll just come to you.

Sign up now for IndonesianPod101 and experience this effect for yourself!

Before you go: Which of these Indonesian grammar rules are new to you, and which ones seem the most difficult so far?

When you start learning Indonesian, being able to read popular books or watch famous speeches might seem a lifetime away. 

All those words you have to learn! All that new grammar to wrap your head around! 

Fortunately, there’s a shortcut. 

By studying interesting Indonesian quotes with English translations and equivalents, you’ll start to see the connections between the two languages. (Not to mention that you’ll also start to sound very well-read!)

Table of Contents

1. Quotes About Success
2. Quotes About Life
3. Quotes About Time
4. Quotes About Love
5. Quotes About Family
6. Quotes About Friendship
7. Quotes About Food
8. Quotes About Health
9. Quotes About Language Learning
10. Conclusion

1. Quotes About Success

Let’s begin with some Indonesian language quotes that touch on success and hint at how to achieve one’s goals.

• Keberhasilan bukanlah milik orang yang pintar. Keberhasilan adalah kepunyaan mereka yang senantiasa berusaha. / “Success is not possessed by educated people. It belongs to those who try everlastingly.”

The third President of Indonesia, B.J. Habibie, was in office for less than two years. But in this short time, he had such a powerful effect and came to be so well-loved by his people that a number of well-known quotes in Indonesian come from him. Interestingly, Habibie was very well-educated, speaking fluent German and English as well as Indonesian.

• Berhenti berharap, mulailah bertindak. / “Stop wishing, start doing.”

This quote provides a great example of the suffix -lah, used to encourage people to do something. You don’t see it on berhenti (“stop”), but you do see it attached to mulai (“start”). You can read more about Indonesian suffixes on this dedicated page from Northern Illinois University. 

• Kelemahan terbesarmu adalah ketika kamu menyerah dan kehebatan terbesarmu adalah ketika kamu mencoba sekali lagi. / “Your biggest weakness is when you give up and your greatest power is when you try one more time.”

The use here of the two opposites lemah (“weak”) and hebat (“awesome” / “powerful”) is a beautiful example of the way Indonesian can create new words using prefixes and suffixes. By adding the noun affixes ke-an, these words become “weakness” and “power” respectively.

→ See our vocabulary list of the Top 11 Quotes About Success for even more inspiration. 

2. Quotes About Life

Are you feeling stuck or unsatisfied in life? Read these two Indonesian quotes about life and see if they don’t make you feel a little better!

• Masa lalu saya adalah milik saya. Masa lalu kamu adalah milik kamu. Tapi, masa depan adalah milik kita. / “My past belongs to me. Your past belongs to you. But the future belongs to us.”

Here’s Habibie again with another excellent quote about life and love. The word milik (“to belong to”) tends to give learners trouble from time to time, because English speakers expect a preposition like in the English phrase “belongs to.” No preposition needed, folks—just follow milik with whoever owns the thing!

• Cintai hidup yang Anda jalani. Jalani hidup yang Anda cintai. / “Love the life you live. Live the life you love.”

For a country not particularly inclined toward Rastafarianism, this Bob Marley quote appears on a surprising number of café decorations and T-shirts in Indonesia. Unfortunately, this is an example of alliteration in English that doesn’t carry over particularly well (if at all) into Indonesian. 

3. Quotes About Time

Time is always fleeting, isn’t it? Here are some Indonesian life quotes concerning time to inspire and motivate you!

• Jas Merah – shortened from: Jangan sekali-kali melupakan sejarah. / “Never forget history.”

This quote features some wordplay that’s almost impossible to attain in any language but Indonesian. On the surface, jas merah simply means “red jacket.” However, look at the first letters of each word in the full quote, and the last letters of the final word: JAngan Sekali-kali MElupakan sejaRAH. It’s extremely clever, and that kind of singkatan (“shortening”) appears a lot in popular Indonesian culture.

• Persiapkan hari ini sebaik-baiknya untuk menghadapi hari ésok yang baru. / “Get ready for today to be the best it can in order to expect a new tomorrow.”

Here we can see a great example of reduplication, where the word baik (“good”) is doubled to increase its strength. The additional affixes se-nya add another level of emphasis, so the full meaning expressed in English is “the best possible.” 

4. Quotes About Love

Are you madly in love with someone? Or maybe you’re a hopeless romantic? Either way, we think these Indonesian love quotes will warm your heart!

• Aku ingin mencintaimu dengan sederhana. / “I want to love you simply.”

This quote by Sapardi Djoko Damono is from his work Aku ingin (“I Want”). It’s a famous poem that every Indonesian knows of, even if they can’t recite any more of it than this line. Indonesian doesn’t have a unique grammatical form for adverbs, so here, “simply” is translated more poetically as dengan sederhana (“with simplicity”).

• Walaupun raga terpisah oleh karena kematian, namun cinta sejati tetap di relung hati. / “Even though our bodies are separated by death, our love is eternal in our deepest heart.”

Habibie one more time—that man could speak! The grammatical structure here is walaupun…namun (“even though…”). In Indonesian, like in Chinese and other Asian languages, the “even though” structure requires a “but” to set up the next clause. This isn’t required in English, but lots of English learners make this mistake by adding “but” in English anyway.  

→ Are you craving more bittersweet words on love? See our vocabulary lists of Indonesian Quotes About Love and Break-Ups.

5. Quotes About Family

Family is a major cornerstone of any society. The following quotes in the Indonesian language touch on the significance of family in everyday life.

• Jangan pernah melupakan orang-orang yang sudah membantu saat kita sedang mengalami masalah yang besar. Mereka itu ialah keluarga. / “Never forget the people who have helped when we were solving big problems. Those are our family.”

By adding pernah (“ever”) to jangan (“don’t”), we get the set phrase jangan pernah (“never”). From this, we can deduce the correct English tenses even though the only markers of tense in Indonesian are: 1) the particle sudah, showing completion, and 2) the adverb saat (“when” / “while”). As you can see, time is quite flexible when speaking Indonesian!

• Berterimakasihlah pada segala yang memberi kehidupan. / “Be grateful to those who gave (you) life.”

Indonesian isn’t really known for its long words, but berterimakasihlah has got to be up there as one of the longer words in regular usage. As you’ve probably noticed, the root is terima kasih (“thank you”), which is literally “bring thanks,” but smashed together as one semantic unit. The ber- prefix implies possession, and as we’ve discussed, the –lah suffix is a suggestion. Thus: Have thanks!

→ Read our Top 10 Quotes About Family for more! 

6. Quotes About Friendship

Friends are one of life’s greatest joys and necessities. Read these Indonesian friendship quotes and see if you can relate!

• Persahabatan adalah hadiah terbesar dalam hidup, dan saya telah mendapatkannya. / “The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it.”

Indonesian doesn’t make the distinction between “big” and “great” as English does—they’re both besar. Adding the prefix ter- makes it the most extreme, the “biggest,” gift. One more thing to learn from this sentence is telah, a word roughly equivalent to sudah in that it also marks a completed action.

• Teman baikku adalah seseorang yang menghasilkan yang terbaik dalam diri saya. / “My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.”

Here we have a different way of showing possession in Indonesian. Teman baikku (“my best friend”) has the –ku ending, meaning “belonging to me.” However, we could also say teman baik saya, which has exactly the same meaning. The subtle difference in feeling between the two is something practically impossible to explain—but the more Indonesian you study, the better you’ll be able to tell the difference!

→ You guessed it…see our list of the Top 10 Friendship Quotes to learn even more heart-warming Indonesian phrases.

7. Quotes About Food 

Who doesn’t enjoy sitting down for a nice meal now and then? Read these Indonesian food quotes to gain perspective on the role food plays in Indonesian culture. 

• Tertawa itu paling riang di tempat makanan tersedia. / “Laughter is brightest in the place where the food is.”

• Makanan untuk tubuh tidak cukup. Harus ada makanan untuk jiwa. / “Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul.”

If you take out the articles in the English example sentence, you pretty much have a word-for-word translation of the original Indonesian. This shows how easy the sentence structure can be, even if you have to learn a ton of new words.

8. Quotes About Health

One should always prioritize their health, because only in good health can one achieve other important goals. Here are some Indonesian quotes that touch on this topic.

• Peliharalah kesehatan Anda, karena ia yang akan mewadahi umur panjang Anda. / “Take care of your health, because it will accompany you through your whole life.”

The relative pronoun yang (“which”) here is actually a little superfluous. More literally, this translation could mean: “It is the one which will accompany.” 

• Waktu dan kesehatan adalah dua aset berharga yang tidak dikenali dan hargai sampai keduanya hilang. / “Time and health are two valuable assets that are ignored until they’re both gone.”

The word hilang (“disappear”) is one of those words you don’t realize your native language is missing until you learn it in another one. Although it can be translated to English and be understood, it has the more specific sense of vanishing completely and leaving people confused in its absence.

• Karena nila setitik, rusak susu sebelanga. / “With a drop of indigo dye, a pot of milk is ruined.”

Nobody wants to drink milk with a hint of blue! Nila is the Indonesian word for “natural indigo dye,” which was commonly used to dye fabric blue. Therefore, “indigo” is a more evocative metaphor than the English equivalent, “One rotten apple will spoil the whole barrel.”

9. Quotes About Language Learning

To close, let’s look at a couple of Indonesian quotes that talk about learning. What better way to motivate you in your language studies? 

• Lakukan yang terbaik di semua kesempatan yang kamu miliki. / “Do your best at every opportunity that you have.”

Here we see milik used again, not as a possessive marker but as a verb. You can tell this by the –i suffix, which can turn certain roots into active verbs. 

• Orang bijak belajar ketika mereka bisa. Orang bodoh belajar ketika mereka terpaksa. / “Clever people study when they can. Stupid people study when they’re made to.”

Before, we saw the prefix ter– used as a superlative (“the most” / “the best”), but here it’s actually showing the passive. Indonesian distinguishes between two types of passive voice: one where the object expected or wanted the action to happen, and one where it didn’t. This example shows the second type. 

→ Finally, check out these Top 10 Quotes About Language Learning, and be inspired!

10. Conclusion

At this point, you’ve been exposed to a great deal of Indonesian culture, packed into twenty quotes. Would you like to delve even deeper?

The best step for you is to sign up with IndonesianPod101.com, where you can access a wealth of resources in audio, video, and podcast formats. Each lesson is produced by experts and designed to help you learn Indonesian as fast and as easily as possible. Take the first step and sign up with IndonesianPod101 to see how easy it can really be!

In the meantime, let us know in the comments which of these Indonesian quotes is your favorite, and why!

These are beautiful times for language learners.

Even ten years ago, language learning materials on the Internet were nothing like they are today.

We’ve had YouTube for a decade and a half, and only in the last several years has it become possible—or even likely—that someone could learn a language mostly through YouTube.

If you’ve set out to learn Indonesian, YouTube may have you feeling left out at this point. Why should other language learners get all the fun?

Never fear, though. Today’s article is going to introduce you to the top ten YouTube channels for Indonesian learners! Later, we’ll show you why IndonesianPod101’s channel is the best source for learners at every level.

→ Before starting, check out our vocabulary list for Talking About YouTube!

Table of Contents

1. Think Bahasa
2. Titan Tyra
3. Mastering Bahasa
4. KOMPAS Tekno
5. EpicVice
6. Pijaru
7. Minute to Win It Indonesia
8. Net Media
9. The IndonesianPod101 YouTube Channel
10. How You Can Learn a Language with YouTube
11. Conclusion

1. Think Bahasa

Category: Educational

Level: Beginner

Think Bahasa is one of the best Indonesian YouTube channels for people who have just started learning Indonesian, especially in terms of coming to grips with the spelling and pronunciation. There are quite a few videos that focus on listing vocabulary for certain situations, as well as videos with lists of phrases that beginners might want to know. 

Additionally, you’ll find videos with short stories, each a couple of minutes in length. Listen to a native speaker recite a story and see how well you can follow along! This is a great type of video to put on repeat in the background as you’re washing the dishes or doing the laundry. An extra three to five minutes of Indonesian listening every day can make a surprising amount of difference!

2. Titan Tyra

Category: Vlogger

Level: Advanced

Titan is a vlogger from Jakarta with several wide-ranging tastes. Here’s just one shopping video, where she tries out and explains a bunch of different things she bought during a trip to Korea. You’ll also find travel and dance videos, as well. 

What sets her apart from the large number of vloggers out there? Subtitles! On most of her recent videos, she’s got English and Indonesian subtitles to help you follow along. 

You’ll definitely need them, too, since she speaks very quickly and fluidly switches between English and informal Indonesian. This is excellent practice material for advanced learners wanting to get totally immersed in Indonesian as it’s really spoken.

3. Mastering Bahasa

Category: Language

Level: Beginner-Intermediate

If you’ve ever Googled any questions related to Indonesian, you’ve definitely seen results from Mastering Bahasa in addition to IndonesianPod101. It’s one of the most in-depth resources you can find online for articles explaining the Indonesian language—but did you know they have a YouTube channel, too?

Not only do they have the classic grammar explanation and phrase videos, but they also have some interesting out-of-the-box videos like this one about Indonesian-speaking celebrities!

4. KOMPAS Tekno

Category: News, Tech

Level: Intermediate-Advanced

On YouTube, Indonesian news site Kompas—one of the most popular websites in Indonesia for news and general lifestyle articles—has a thriving presence. This channel is their tech outlet, where they publish reviews and analyses of the latest gadgets. 

The great thing about review videos like these is that you can quickly get a feel for the style. After you’ve seen five or ten of them, you know exactly what to expect and they’re easier to follow. The hosts also speak clearly and slower than vloggers, and they use a casual style but don’t use much slang.

→ Check out this vocabulary list for Technology to learn some words in advance!

5. EpicVice

Category: News, Interest

Level: Intermediate

This one has the general feel of a light magazine you’d see at the grocery store. EpicVice’s videos cover human interest or general news stories from around the world, as well as Buzzfeed-esque topics like the “top 10 most powerful animals.”

Aside from the easily digestible content, we recommend you go through the videos and click on some of the ones made before 2018. Back then, they had subtitles in Indonesian! They’ve unfortunately stopped going forward, but that archive is definitely valuable.

6. Pijaru

Category: News, Media

Level: Advanced

Example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbgaVbLklBU

Pijaru is a wonderful example of the kind of internet show possible nowadays with YouTube. They have vlogs, webseries, cartoons, and more, all in easily digestible clips of ten minutes or less. For some reason or another, podcasts haven’t really taken off in Indonesian culture – but that hasn’t stopped Pijaru from creating PisPod, a comedy podcast.

Only a handful of the webseries have subtitles, but fortunately they’re the soft kind as well, and they can be turned on or off. The webseries, by the way, are excellent because of the way they depict different points of view of Indonesian society, like those of housekeepers or marketing department employees.

7. Minute to Win It Indonesia

Category: Game Show

Level: Intermediate-Advanced

If you don’t have the luxury of living in Indonesia as you learn, you might be unwittingly creating gaps in your vocabulary due to only exposing yourself to certain parts of the language. Particularly, what some language learners call “tiny verbs” like “tie, stack, lift, twist,” and so on.

This is where watching Indonesian TV on YouTube can benefit you. 

Fortunately, the worldwide game show Minute to Win It has put all of their Indonesian episodes online, and they’re absolutely perfect for advanced learners to fill in these vocabulary gaps. If you’re not familiar with it, participants have to complete challenges with household objects in sixty seconds, like in this one where they have to throw ping-pong balls and knock other ping-pong balls out of a small hoop. No subtitles unfortunately, but each plot is simple to understand without them.

8. Net Media

Category: Talk Show

Level: Advanced

This one kind of goes hand-in-hand with Minute to Win It, since both are the kind of things that Indonesian people tend to watch in everyday life. If you go into any little warung (a small restaurant), you’ll probably see the TV showing either sepak bola (“football”) or talk shows like these. 

This one is challenging because there are no subtitles in either English or Indonesian. Therefore, it’s definitely best to wait until you’re at an advanced level before tackling this stuff. 

However, the repetitive format of the Indonesian talk show means that you’ll quickly get used to what you’re seeing. This channel also has general entertainment news like award shows, which is great because it also strengthens your general knowledge of Indonesian pop culture. 

9. The IndonesianPod101 YouTube Channel

Category: Educational

Level: All Levels

IndonesianPod101 probably puts out the most content on YouTube in the Indonesian learning space. With just a glance at this channel, you’ll understand how valuable it can be for your learning, especially when it comes to building your listening practice.

Our short listening comprehension videos are broken up from the Absolute Beginner level to Advanced, and they all have an excellent flow to them—dialogue with animation, comprehension questions, and dialogue again with English and Indonesian subtitles. That’s extremely valuable and not something available everywhere, making us the top Indonesian YouTube channel for learners.

10. How You Can Learn a Language with YouTube

It might be hard to believe, but you can actually make enormous strides in your language abilities using YouTube alone.

The easiest way is to watch, watch, and watch some more. As long as you keep looking up unknown Indonesian words as they come up, you’ll slowly get exposed to them more and more over time, and their meanings will stick in your brain.

After all, this is how a lot of young Indonesians have such good English—they find vloggers and TV shows in English on YouTube and watch them over and over until they don’t even realize they’re becoming fluent.

However, the best kind of videos just happen to be the ones that exist on the IndonesianPod101 page, where you can follow along with English and Indonesian subtitles at the same time in situations that slowly get more difficult as you improve. 

→ How else can you learn Indonesian effectively? Here’s a list of Simple Strategies for Learning Comfortably at Home!

11. Conclusion

As you can see, the IndonesianPod101 YouTube channel is definitely one of the best. As it turns out, the website is too!

When you sign up with IndonesianPod101.com, you immediately get access to a treasure trove of lessons on hundreds of different topics. You’ll find vocabulary lists, articles about pronunciation, and of course the award-winning podcast that you can take with you and listen to at any time.

The best way forward for your Indonesian is a combination of a high-quality course like IndonesianPod101’s and real-life content for native speakers (like you can find on the video channels above).

As you learn new words and concepts with our podcast, you’ll run into them again and get those memories reinforced. Before you know it, you’ll be finding new Indonesian YouTube channels on your own and learning faster than ever before.

Before you go, let us know which of these Indonesian YouTube channels interests you the most and why. Are there any good ones we missed? If so, let us (and your fellow Indonesian learners) know in the comments.

Many aspiring learners wonder whether the Indonesian language is easy to learn, and if so, why more people don’t speak it.

You see, Indonesian is not a very commonly learned language for most of the world. 

Sure, there are people in Southeast Asia that pick some of it up, it’s a growing subject in Chinese and Japanese universities, and it’s long been one of the most popular foreign languages for Australians—but you hardly see it on lists of languages people want to learn. 

That’s a shame, really, because learning the language opens you up to so many wonderful things. Visiting the country when you can speak the language is much, much more freeing than being limited to an interpreter or dealing with whoever can speak some English.

You might be interested in opening those doors, but maybe you’ve been put off by long words and a spooky reputation for being a difficult Asian language. Could there be truth in that?

Table of Contents

1. Is Indonesian Hard or Not?
2. Difficulties in Learning Indonesian
3. Indonesian is Pretty Easy
4. Your First Indonesian Steps
5. Advice to a New Learner
6. The Advantages of IndonesianPod101
7. Conclusion

1. Is Indonesian Hard or Not?

Indonesian, by and large, is not that hard of a language. From the perspective of someone who’s already learned it, that might not be too reassuring, but it’s the truth.

There are quite a few differences between European languages and East Asian languages. But the thing is, none of these differences are the type of thing that requires you to memorize long charts or pore over difficult grammar explanations.

For example, Indonesian has a number of suffixes and prefixes that can change a root word’s part of speech. That’s one place where learners might get confused, because sometimes, those can be pretty subtle. It takes a lot of immersion to develop the knack for knowing which one to use.

But on the other hand, there are so many shortcuts that you can take. Indonesian is the second language of millions of people across the country, spoken with great fluency but without extremely rigid rules for conversation.

Locals are also extremely welcoming to foreigners who can converse in Indonesian—even if they’re comfortable in English, they’ll happily speak Indonesian instead to let people practice! 

2. Difficulties in Learning Indonesian

There are a couple of factors that can make Indonesian hard to learn for some people. 

Indonesian is a bit of an artificial standard, as mentioned above, so people add a lot of slang and regionalisms to it when speaking among themselves. That’s why you might find YouTube videos super-easy to understand, but the more informal speech of day-to-day conversation nearly opaque to your ear.

That kind of diglossia can be disheartening, because you’ll feel that you still have so far to go even if you can understand books and the news.

The best way to deal with this is to read more informal Indonesian, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter comments. Internet comments have a bad rap for being mindless drivel, but unfortunately, it’s exactly that kind of language register that you have to learn to understand—because it’s the way people really speak! 

On the other side of things, the prefix and suffix system definitely has its sticky points. One of the hardest concepts for people to grasp is the me-kan prefix/suffix, which is often used to signify that something was done “for somebody.”

• Saya membaca koran Kompas.
  “I read the Kompas newspaper.”

• Saya membacakan ayah berita hari ini.
  “I read today’s news to my dad.”

The root is baca (“read”) in both sentences. But while membaca is an act of reading for oneself, using the circumfix me-kan causes the word to mean that the act of reading is done for someone else.

Not too bad, right? Unfortunately, that’s just one example for a circumfix with a ton of different meanings! You’re probably going to have to learn a ton of examples individually.

The last thing that trips up learners is the idea that it’s okay to be vague. A lot of people never get past the idea that they want to express exactly as much information in Indonesian as they’re used to expressing in their native language. 

3. Indonesian is Pretty Easy

You might have picked up on this already, but that last section isn’t that big of a deal. Overall, Indonesian is easy to learn as a foreigner. 

For one thing, you can just learn these complicated prefix or suffix words as individual concepts that usually map to their own separate words in English. In the example above, there’s nothing wrong with learning membaca as “to read” and membacakan as “to read for.”

Another advantage that Indonesian-learners have is that the pronunciation is quite easy in general. While you do have to know how to roll your R and use pure vowels (for more help, check our pronunciation guide), spoken Indonesian words correspond exactly to their written counterparts.

Even when people speak informally using the more casual variants of Indonesian, they reflect that in their casual writing. In English, we all write “have to” even though we say “hafta,” but in Indonesian texting and online comments, there’s no worrying about proper writing conventions.

Lastly, learners of Indonesian have a huge advantage when it comes to the verbs. Each “tense” corresponds to a single particle that’s inserted before the verb—no conjugation required. 

For past events, use sudah; for present progressive, use sedang; and for future, use akan.

• Saya sudah membeli buku.
  “I bought a book.”

• Saya sedang membeli buku.
  “I am buying a book.”

• Saya akan membeli buku.
  “I will buy a book.”

4. Your First Indonesian Steps

The very first thing you should do when learning Indonesian, or any new language, is to focus on the sounds.

Make sure that you can accurately make and understand each individual sound of the language now, because later on when you’re trying to understand flowing native speech, you’ll wish you had prepared beforehand.

It would be perfect if you could find a video series with clearly spoken Indonesian and Indonesian subtitles for you to understand how the letters you see on the screen reflect the sounds you’re hearing. Even though the Indonesian alphabet is simple, this is a skill that takes time to develop.

After that, your biggest hurdle is going to be the vocabulary. Although Indonesian has some loanwords from European languages (particularly when it comes to the sciences or pop culture), the vast majority of the words come from Arabic, Sanskrit, and local Austronesian languages.

Therefore, you’ll need to come up with a good flashcard or wordlist system in order to build a strong vocabulary base from the start. 

→ Check out our vocabulary list on Simple Strategies for Learning Comfortably at Home! 

5. Advice to a New Learner

One of the biggest mistakes a new Indonesian learner can make is trying to speak too quickly. By that, we don’t mean the speed that the words are coming out of your mouth; we mean how soon you start speaking after you’ve started learning the language.

Just like pronunciation, you should build a good base in understanding Indonesian before you try to hold a conversation. That way, you won’t be distressed by not understanding what you hear.

Also, don’t worry if it takes you much longer to understand TV or movies than it does to read your textbook or listen to a course made for learners.

As mentioned before, rapid-fire spoken Indonesian uses a lot of local slang terms. Even the words for “you” and “I” are different in informal language! Generally, the words are Anda and saya respectively, but in informal Indonesian, they’re kamu and aku—and in Jakartan slang, they become lu and gue!

Essentially, even though you’ll find Indonesian easier to pick up than some other languages, don’t expect to be able to use and understand it instantly. Keep your expectations reasonable, and you won’t be discouraged. 

→ Study our vocab list of the Top 10 Inspirational Quotes if you need a language-learning pick-me-up!

6. The Advantages of IndonesianPod101

Remember a bit ago when we recommended videos with Indonesian subtitles?

It turns out that you can get exactly that for free on our IndonesianPod101 YouTube channel.

Once you’ve watched a couple of those, why not check out our main website at IndonesianPod101.com?

Although there are good textbooks and online resources available if you know where to look, Indonesian isn’t commonly learned enough to have a ton of different language courses.

What IndonesianPod101 can bring you is a structured course starting from the very basics, guiding you all the way through an upper-intermediate or advanced level. At that point, you’ll be able to smoothly transition into reading and watching real Indonesian content made for native speakers! 

7. Conclusion

When it comes down to it, the only big obstacle to learning Indonesian, or any other language, is time.

Indonesian requires a little more time for you to remember the wide array of vocabulary, but practically no time at all to learn the grammar.

In fact, the United States government rates Indonesian a 3/5 in terms of difficulty for English-speakers. That means it’ll take a little more time than learning French or German, but significantly less time than learning Arabic or Korean.

As long as you have a good and consistent study schedule, you’ll be able to hold your own in simple Indonesian conversations in less than six months. After you learn the basic sentence patterns, all you need is a good dictionary to build your vocabulary and gain the ability to understand more and more real Indonesian.

The best time to start is today. Grab a textbook—or better yet, sign up with IndonesianPod101—and you’ll be amazed at the kind of progress you can make with Indonesian.

If you’ve already started learning Indonesian, which aspects of the language are most difficult for you? And which are the easiest? Let us, and aspiring Indonesian-learners, know in the comments!

There’s a certain face that people make when they can’t understand what you’re saying.

For many people, it’s a screwed-up grimace of concentration. For Indonesians, it’s more of a quiet smile and a slow drift of attention.

Indonesians are polite folks, to be sure. They’re not going to tell you very much about your mistakes in Indonesian when you’re speaking with them.

That’s up to you.

If you want to hold up your end of the Indonesian conversation, you’ve got to make sure you’re speaking Indonesian that’s beyond just “comprehensible.” It must be pleasant to listen to, and with as few mistakes as possible.

But what types of mistakes tend to be the worst for Indonesian-learners, and how can you get around them?

Table of Contents

1. Tricky Pronunciation
2. Confusing Words
3. Is Indonesian Grammar Really That Easy?
4. The Shape of Words
5. Watch Your Pronoun Attitude
6. The Biggest Mistake
7. Conclusion

1. Tricky Pronunciation

Indonesian, by and large, is an easy language to pronounce. You could show a phrasebook to someone who’d never even heard of Jakarta, and they could make themselves understood in a couple of minutes, tops.

But there are definitely a couple of things that totally give away foreigners speaking Indonesian.

Chief among these is probably the vowels. Indonesian has six “pure” vowels: 

• /a/ as in “talk” 
• /e/ sort of like in “day”
• /i/ as in “see” 
• /o/ kind of like “go”
• /u/ as in “you”
• /ǝ/, the unstressed vowel in “duh” 

It also has the short “i” and “o” sounds in “bit” and “lock,” but those only appear right at the end of words before a consonant.

The common mistake in Indonesian comes when English-speakers in particular start morphing those vowel sounds into diphthongs. They’re pure vowels, and Indonesian doesn’t actually have a lot of diphthongs!

Another mistake that tends to be made more by Europeans and Mandarin Chinese speakers has to do with the “p,” “t,” and “k” sounds at the end of words. You’re not supposed to fully pronounce them.

In fact, to make these sounds, one should cut off the airflow very briefly but never release—which, coincidentally, happens a lot in English, but not in most European languages. Mandarin speakers have the opposite problem, where they find it unnatural to end words with those sounds at all!

2. Confusing Words

Indonesian vocabulary can be super-easy to pick up (browse through a list of nonfiction Indonesian titles and count all the English loan words), but there are times when it can be devilishly tricky.

This isn’t helped by the fact that there are a bunch of words that sound really close to one another, but are actually false friends! For example:

• keledai – “donkey”
  kedelai – “soy beans”

• kelapa – “coconut”
  kepala – a person’s head

• semangat – an exclamation like “Go!” or “Hooray!”
  semangka – “watermelon”

• mangkuk – “bowl”
  mangga – “mango”

• handuk – “towel”
  hantu – “ghost”

If you happen to know some Spanish, you might be tripped up by the fact that dia is an extremely common word in Indonesian. However, it means “he/she/it,” not “day”! That’s hari, but since they both have similar vowels, it may take some effort to get these two words separated in your mind.

Of course, not all of these words are going to pose problems for everybody. Order susu kelapa (“coconut milk”) enough times, and you won’t even think about how close the word is to kepala.

The best way to remember confusing words is to focus on just one at a time. Studying them close to one another is a great way to strengthen the links between them in your mind and make it harder and harder to untangle the two words!

3. Is Indonesian Grammar Really That Easy?

Well, yes, more or less.

You can’t make any mistakes in Indonesian relating to word genders or adjective endings. However, people do tend to get confused at times with the word order.

After all, in a language without conjugation or declension, the word order is what ends up really carrying the meaning of each sentence. In Indonesian, you can often translate sentences word-for-word into English, which makes other, more variant sentence patterns more challenging to remember.

A typical sticking point for new learners is forming questions the right way. Let’s say you want to express “Whose car is this?” The only problem is that Indonesian doesn’t have a word for “whose”!

• Mobil siapa ini?
  “Whose car is this?”

As you can see, we just put the word siapa (“who”) after the noun, and this word order is the key that communicates possession. 

Although Indonesian doesn’t have tenses in the form of verbs changing their appearance, there are particles that signify completed, in-progress, and future actions. These include sudah, sedang, and akan. These have got to go right in front of the verb—no exceptions.

• Mika sedang mencuci mobil.
  “Mika is washing the car (right now).”

If you know Vietnamese, then this is easy. But if you know Mandarin, you’ll have to switch things around, since the “completed action” particle comes after the verb in Mandarin. 

4. The Shape of Words

One fascinating thing about Indonesian grammar is the ability to make subtle variations on verbs by adding prefixes, suffixes, and circumfixes.

If you’re new to the language, you might not have fully registered the rules for the most common prefix, meN-. Now, that capital letter isn’t really written that way. What’s going on?

The letter is here to stand for any nasal sound, such as “m,” “n,” “ny,” or “ng.” To know which one to use, look at the first sound of the root and where it’s pronounced in the mouth, then choose the ending closest to that.

So the root word baca can never be mengbaca because ng is pronounced all the way in the back of the mouth, and b is pronounced with the lips. Instead, it’s membaca!

Another pretty noticeable feature of Indonesian words is reduplication, where you simply repeat the word to mark the plural. And this leads to more common mistakes in Indonesian.

Something a lot of learners will do is reduplicate words every time they want to express the plural form, even though, in real Indonesian, the context is used more often than reduplication.

Remember: The reduplication is only really used for emphasis or when it’s not clear (but important to your sentence) that the thing you’re talking about is plural.

5. Watch Your Pronoun Attitude

Up until this point, we haven’t touched on much that’s really specific to the Indonesian language. As much as we’d rather not, it’s easy to make word order and pronunciation mistakes in any language!

One thing that’s rather interesting about Indonesian is that there are a lot of different pronouns used for different situations. Other languages spoken in Southeast Asia kind of have this as well, but it’s not something European language-speakers tend to be familiar with.

For instance, if you’re a middle-aged man, most people are going to address you as pak or Bapak instead of using the second person pronoun kamu (“you”). Middle-aged women get bu or Ibu.

Younger people often get mas or mbak, though these are actually Javanese and not used quite as much in Sumatra, Bali, or other parts of the country.

The mistake here would be assuming that you can use the same pronouns with the same people all over Indonesia. In Yogyakarta, for instance, the informal pronouns are aku and kamu for first and second person, respectively.

In Jakarta, though, people tend to use gue and lu for the same meaning, whereas aku and kamu are reserved for lovers!

To stay on the safe side, you should stick with neutral and polite pronouns, even if others address you in a more familiar way (that is, saya and Anda for first and second person, respectively). This is something that confuses native speakers too when they move to other cities, so don’t be afraid to ask for help!

6. The Biggest Mistake

Imagine you’re enjoying a tasty bowl of mi goreng at a tiny restaurant, and the owner asks you a question you don’t quite understand.

Do you say: Maaf, sekali lagi? (“Sorry, one more time?”)

Or do you nervously bolt down the rest of your noodles and leave, embarrassed and silent?

That’s the mistake too many language-learners make around the world—getting too wrapped up in their own mistakes.

And yes, lots of Indonesians can speak English very well. Some of them may become frustrated and switch to English on you at times. But there are tons more who either aren’t that comfortable with English or would love the opportunity to chat with you, no matter how many Rs you forget to roll.

7. Conclusion

There’s no way for you to be a perfect Indonesian-speaker without first being an imperfect one.

However, if you push yourself to speak a lot before you feel very comfortable, you do risk ingraining some of your mistakes and making them harder to fix later on. 

And as you reach a more advanced level and try to express more complicated ideas, you might find that smaller mistakes tend to build up on themselves and make it progressively harder to get your message across.

That’s why it’s important to always listen to and read Indonesian as much as possible. This way, you can always have good examples of real Indonesian for your subconscious to internalize. That’s what you get right here with IndonesianPod101!

What Indonesian mistakes do you make the most often? If you’ve managed to overcome a mistake, do you have any advice for your fellow Indonesian-learners? We look forward to hearing from you in the comments!

Would you describe yourself as a curious person?

If you’re learning Indonesian, we imagine that you probably do! 

You can make that curiosity work for your Indonesian skills, too! When you talk to people, they’ll be interested in who you are and what’s driven you to learn their language. And the bread and butter of that is questions.

Statistically, questions make up a big part of conversation in any language. By preparing yourself with the most common Indonesian questions and answers, you’ll become familiar and comfortable with these conversational keystones and come off as a skilled conversationalist.

Table of Contents

1. Your Name
2. Your Origin Story
3. Language Matters
4. Traveling Around
5. A Personal Question
6. A Taste of Indonesia
7. Work-day Life
8. What’s up?
9. The Price is Right
10. Conclusion

1. Your Name

In Indonesian, you’re going to be confused at first with the pronouns. There are a lot of different ways that people can address you, so in this article, we’ll stick to the tried-and-true saya/kamu mix.

But let’s break that rule right away, because if someone’s asking your name, they’re going to be polite with you. Don’t worry: only the pronoun changes in this Indonesian question.

• Siapa nama Anda?
  “What’s your name?”

The word nama is a cognate of the English word “name,” but it actually comes from Sanskrit instead of a more modern European language as you might assume. 

To answer the question, switch the words around and say:

• Nama saya Denis.
  “My name is Denis.”

2. Your Origin Story

People you tend to meet and chat with in Indonesia are even more likely to ask this question than the last. It can be so quick and to the point that you might miss it if you don’t pay attention!

• Dari mana?
  “Where are you from?”

As you can see, it’s not that necessary to include the pronouns. At a restaurant or cafe, you might hear Dari mana, kak? where kak is the basic form of address for young people who are older than you.

To answer, you’ll be using the dari, or “from,” preposition again.

• Saya dari Melbourne.
  “I’m from Melbourne.”

Something you’ll pick up pretty quickly when it comes to the pragmatics, or conversation rules, of Indonesian is the way people repeat back new information. So in this short scenario above, person A would ask, person B would respond, then person A would repeat dari Melbourne back in a knowing tone of voice.

They’re not correcting your pronunciation—they’re just holding up their end of the conversation!

3. Language Matters

The Indonesian questions here are those you’re very likely to hear while in the country, and they’re about the language itself.

• Apakah kamu bisa berbahasa Indonesia?
  “Do you speak Indonesian?”

You certainly do! Also, as Indonesia’s influence in Southeast Asia grows, more and more people are picking up the language all around the region. You shouldn’t shy away from trying out this phrase in other countries!

The answer is probably not tidak, or “no,” for obvious reasons. Instead, if you’re not comfortable speaking Indonesian just yet, you can say:

• Maaf, tidak begitu lancar.
  “Sorry, not very fluently.”

If you manage to answer like that, you’ll get a great reaction, something like Sudah bagus! meaning “It’s already great!” And perhaps this follow-up:

• Sudah berapa lama belajar bahasa Indonesia?
  “How long have you been studying Indonesian?”

To answer, we’ll use the word sudah again to note that it’s already been a certain amount of time, then simply add the relevant unit and amount of time.

• Sudah enam bulan.
  “Six months already.”

4. Traveling Around

If you happen to meet an Indonesian abroad and speak Indonesian with them, you’ll invariably get this question:

• Sudah ke Indonesia?
  “Have you been to Indonesia?”

That translation is pretty broad, because what’s literally happening here is: “Already to Indonesia?” To answer, you don’t even have to change the word order.

• Iya, sudah ke Jakarta (dua kali).
  “Yeah, I’ve already been to Jakarta (twice).”

Don’t get thrown off by this separate but similar question: Sudah lama di Indonesia? or “Have you been living in Indonesia for a long time?” In that case, you could reply with the same time-related words as before. 

5. A Personal Question

In Indonesian culture, questions can get pretty personal. It’s common for people to get married in their twenties, so someone aged twenty to thirty-five or so is liable to get some variation of these questions:

• Sudah menikah belum?
  “Are you married yet?”

• Sudah beristri?
  “Do you have a wife?”

• Sudah bersuami?
  “Do you have a husband?”

Culturally, you don’t answer “no” to this question. In Indonesian, it’s much better to say belum, meaning “not yet.” And if the answer is yes, it’s still a one-word deal: Sudah! (You’ve got to say it enthusiastically, especially if your spouse is there with you.)

6. A Taste of Indonesia

You can find just about any type of food you want in Indonesian cities, particularly if your tastes skew East Asian. Home-grown Indonesian food can’t be beat, however, and you’re sure to have people asking about your opinions.

• Apakah kamu suka makanan Indonesia?
  “Do you like Indonesian food?”

The apakah bit is kind of optional. Since the question is being asked to you, it doesn’t need that explicit marker.

In your answer, the best way to keep the conversation going is to name a specific type of Indonesian food that keeps you coming back.

• Iya, suka! Makanan kesukaanku adalah nasi goreng.
  “Yes, I love it! My favorite food is nasi goreng.”

Let’s briefly examine the word kesukaanku, which means “my favorite.” It’s made up of four individual parts.

First, the root is suka, meaning “to like,” which we just saw in the question. Adding the prefix ke– and the suffix -an turns it into a noun: “favorite.” 

Finally, the suffix -ku is a possessive meaning “mine.” So you could have:

• mi kesukaanku – “my favorite noodles”
• ayam goreng kesukaanku – “my favorite fried chicken”
• minuman kesukaanku – “my favorite drink”

7. Work-day Life

Many people in Indonesia will assume that you’re traveling there, like most foreigners. However, sometimes something in your body language will indicate to them that you’ve been there a while. They may ask:

• Kamu bekerja apa?
  “What do you do?”

• Apa pekerjaanmu?
  “What’s your work?”

These questions are interchangeable, but they illustrate two ways to use the root word kerja, or “work,” in a sentence. 

First, there’s pekerjaan, with the pe-an circumfix making it a concrete noun: “employment.” Then there’s bekerja, a verb meaning “to have a job.” 

To answer, you could either replace the -mu, or “your,” possessive suffix with the -ku, or “my,” one we saw earlier: 

• Pekerjaanku doktor.
  “I am a doctor.”

Or you could avoid dealing with extra suffixes and simply say: 

• Saya bekerja sebagai doktor.
  “I work as a doctor.”

The word sebagai is optional here, but you’ll find it used more often than not.

8. What’s up?

Not every conversation happens with the same opening and closing lines. However, in Indonesian, you could be forgiven for thinking they do!

This phrase is a standard friendly greeting for Indonesians all over the place. You can kind of think of it as mapping to an idiomatic English equivalent.

• Apa kabar?
  “What’s up?”

Literally, though, you’re saying “What news?” Now this is unusual, because the answer is always baik, meaning “good.”

In some textbooks, you’ll probably see the phrase bagaimana kabarmu as a more formal equivalent, but nobody really talks like that.

In a formal situation with one person speaking to a group of people, they’ll often say this standard greeting:

• Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
  “May peace be upon us all.”

You can also say:

• Assalamualaikum.
  “Peace upon us.”

This one does have a set response: 

• Waalaikum salam.
  “And upon you.”

As this is a loanword (or loan phrase) from Classical Arabic, it shows up written and pronounced in slightly different ways from person to person. If you, as a foreigner, manage to pull it off in the correct context, people will immediately perk up and pay attention.

9. The Price is Right

Rounding off here, this is one of the questions you’ll probably end up using the most day-to-day in Indonesia.

• Berapa harganya?
  “How much is it?”

The root word harga means “price,” and the -nya makes it refer to a specific price. Namely, the price of the thing you’re pointing at in the restaurant or in the shop.

Mostly, people will just reply with the number:

• Tiga puluh ribu.
  “Thirty thousand.”

As you can see, it’s not necessary here—or in many other phrases—to reply with a complete sentence! The context takes care of filling in any grammatical gaps.

10. Conclusion

To be honest, as long as you master the questions about your name, where you’re from, and how much things cost, you’ll be miles ahead of other learners. And all of that can be picked up in a couple of hours!

The next step is adding detail.

Where are you going in Indonesia? How much does two of these things cost?

You can come up with follow-up questions in English and then look for them in Indonesian while listening to and reading Indonesian content.

Speaking of which, IndonesianPod101.com is the logical next step to take when you’re expanding your conversation horizons. With our guided lessons, flashcards, and reading material, you’ll never be lost for words.

Have a look right now at some of the podcast dialogues, and see for yourself what kind of questions can be asked and answered!

Before you go, why not practice some of these Indonesian questions and answers straight away? Try answering one or more of the questions from this article in Indonesian, and leave your answers in the comments section. We look forward to hearing from you!

Indonesians, by and large, are nice people.

They treat foreigners very well, to be sure. Indonesia isn’t one of the hottest Asian travel destinations for nothing!

But there is one area where they could treat foreigners a little nicer: the Indonesian language itself.

They’re glad if you can speak it and will treat you well because of that, absolutely.

They just don’t think you can get good. They’ll tend to always simplify their speech and never tell you about the many mistakes you’re making. To avoid this misfortune, you’ll need to prove yourself with an Indonesian language proficiency test.

Even then, it’s no guarantee that Indonesians will take your skills that seriously. After all, there are thousands of foreigners in Bali and Jakarta who never learn more than how to order off a menu and introduce themselves in a heavy accent, if that.

If you want to live in Indonesia or find a job related to the Indonesian language, you’re going to need a certificate from a language exam that proves, without a doubt, that you know your way around the Indonesian language at a masterful level.

Table of Contents

1. The One Test Indonesian Will Throw at You
2. The Listening Section
3. The Grammar Section
4. The Reading Section
5. The Writing Section
6. The Speaking Section
7. UKBI Preparation: Your Overall Study Strategy
8. Conclusion

1. The One Test Indonesian Will Throw at You

In contrast to English, where there are zillions of big and small proficiency tests clamoring for the top spot, Indonesia has just one.

It’s called the UKBI or Uji Kemahiran Berbahasa Indonesia. In English, that’s “Indonesian Language Proficiency Test”—but you knew that already, right?

It has five different sections, which we’ll go over in detail soon, and you’re awarded a score out of 900 at the end.

Your point value then translates into one of seven different levels, or predikat. They are:

• Istimewa (“Exceptional”)
• Sangat Unggul (“Very Good”)
• Unggul (“Good”)
• Madya (“Intermediate”)
• Semenjana (“Average”)
• Marginal (“Poor”)
• Terbatas (“Limited”)

The information about this test is generally published only in Indonesian. Our translation of the Madya  description is as follows:

Predikat ini menunjukkan bahwa peserta uji memiliki kemahiran yang memadai dalam berkomunikasi dengan menggunakan bahasa Indonesia.

This level demonstrates that the test participant has good communication skills in Indonesian.

Dengan kemahiran ini yang bersangkutan mampu berkomunikasi untuk keperluan sintas dan kemasyarakatan dengan baik, tetapi masih mengalami kendala dalam hal keprofesian yang kompleks.

When it comes to complex professional communication, there are still notable problems, especially in the realm of academic purposes.

According to data published in 2014, more than half of people attempting the test scored Madya, or from 482-577 points. That shows that you’re not dealing with an easy exam here!

In fact, let’s take a more-detailed look at each of the five sections and what you can expect to encounter. 

2. The Listening Section

For this part of the Indonesian language exam, you’ll start out with 30 minutes of listening, during which you’ll answer 40 questions. These are broken up into eight short monologues and dialogues with five multiple-choice questions each.

That’s a good number, because you’ll be able to quickly glance over the various questions and get a feel for what you’ll need to listen for in each section. 

Some of it can get quite tricky, too. One question on the practice test asks about a car’s license plate, and the choices include: “B1337AC” / “B1371AC” / “B3317CA.” 

The topics for the monologues are generally about aspects of Indonesian culture and geography, as well as some explanations of scientific processes. It would definitely be a good idea to read the science sections of Kompas (an Indonesian media website) and BBC Indonesian News to stay on track. 

→ Read through our vocabulary list on how to improve your Indonesian listening skills for a few tips and tricks! 

3. The Grammar Section

Indonesian grammar is an interesting beast. On the one hand, it’s really easy to make simple sentences, and even to get your point across with more-complex phrases.

On the other, there are a ton of little nuances in Indonesian grammar that don’t exist at all in English.

And surprise surprise, that’s what you’ll be tested on.

Across 25 questions, you’ll have twenty minutes to take a look at sentence pairs and detect which sentence in each pair has an error. You should definitely practice Indonesian word order so you can detect any sentences that have mixed-up syntax.

Even more so, though, you should brush up on the prefixes and suffixes. Sometimes, the answers will stand out, such as an intransitive verb with a ber- prefix instead of a me- prefix.

However, the differences between -kan and no ending, or me-i and just me-, are significantly more subtle and require a lot of detailed analysis as you read. 

From this point on, make it a habit to actually look at the verb forms as you read Indonesian, and think about what they could be doing in the sentence.

→ Not sure where to go from there? Read our page about How to Learn Grammar.

4. The Reading Section

A major aspect of one’s Indonesian language proficiency is how well they can understand what they read.

The reading section is kind of like the listening one, as you’ll have eight texts with five questions each. Again, you’ll be tested on nonfiction passages of around 400-500 words each, dealing with scientific or technical topics like the history of electromagnetism or how a digital camera works. You’ll have 45 minutes to complete this.

This is where native English speakers have a distinct advantage, because a lot of the formal vocabulary here is directly cognate to English. 

By reading Indonesian-language reviews of cars and electronics, you’ll quickly become used to reading about technical topics in Indonesian. A general scientific knowledge in your own language wouldn’t hurt either, because if you don’t have a general idea of what gamma rays or fructose are, you’ll likely be lost even if you do recognize the vocabulary.

→ For additional tips and advice on improving your Indonesian reading skills, check out our relevant vocabulary list.

5. The Writing Section

In the writing portion, your task is relatively simple, but involves some pretty targeted Indonesian skills. You’re given a diagram and asked to summarize it in 200 words in under 30 minutes.

However, you won’t be dealing with any first-year, Anak itu sedang makan cokelat (“The child is eating chocolate”) kind of language. It’s the type of diagram you’d see in a biology or physics textbook, depicting the life cycle of a flower or how a volcano erupts.

Fortunately, Indonesian bookstores usually have excellent selections of nonfiction oriented toward children and teenagers. You can even find translated versions of the excellent DK Eyewitness books at some libraries, meaning hours of fun and education for you as a learner.

The more you read this kind of material, the easier it’s going to be to write about it on the spot. 

→ Need more? Learn how to crack the Indonesian writing system! 

6. The Speaking Section

This is where things get turned up to eleven real fast.

Where other exams have you roleplay, take part in a debate, or do several tasks appropriate for multiple levels, the UKBI requires you to read a brief academic article, look at a chart or graph, and then prepare a presentation for a general audience. For five straight minutes.

This is where your ability to flow seamlessly from one topic to the next in Indonesian will be seriously tested. 

The topic in the test preparation guide is a graph showing the number of doctors per 100,000 people in each country in ASEAN. It’s simple enough, so how are you going to talk for five whole minutes? 

Expound on the different levels of education and economic development in each country, and speculate on the possible reasons why more or fewer people tend to go into medicine.

Truly outstanding answers will make predictions for the future, basing them on a deep knowledge of current ASEAN events and political developments.

→ Learn the best ways to improve your Indonesian speaking skills, and be sure to brush up on your cultural knowledge.

7. UKBI Preparation: Your Overall Study Strategy

The interesting paradox about this exam is that there are very few resources to study for it, and at the same time, a huge number of people to study with.

As long as you’re in Indonesia, that is.

You see, Bahasa Indonesia isn’t the native tongue of all Indonesians. Perhaps in a few generations, the proportion will rise, but in most places, children grow up speaking a local language like Javanese or Minangkabau.

Now, these languages are all related to Indonesian, and with enough Indonesian in schools and through movies, books, and everything else, most Indonesians are functionally bilingual at an extremely high level. 

However, if you want to be an Indonesian teacher to foreigners or to Indonesian children, you have to take an Indonesian proficiency exam. The same is true if you want to be a civil servant. That means that thousands of Indonesians take the test each year as well!

If you happen to be living in Indonesia right now, you could try contacting your local schools and asking if anybody there has experience taking the UKBI. 

Even outside of Indonesia, you might be able to get the WhatsApp contact info for the Darmasiswa (foreign student scholarship) program directors and ask for assistance directly.

Indonesian society is often based on knowing people and maintaining personal connections. People used to quickly finding information online about whatever they need might quickly become frustrated as they try to navigate a world where phone calls and text messages are much more common.

For that reason, there’s just one textbook about the UKBI exam available online, written by Atikah Solihah; it’s simply called Latihan Soal UKBI. Buy that book for a couple of dollars, study it well, and you’ll be at a great advantage when it comes time for the test.

8. Conclusion

We hope that after reading this article, you’re more confident in your ability to ace your Indonesian language exam. Did we answer your questions, or do you still need clarification on something? We look forward to hearing from you! 

And by the way, the very website you’re on isn’t a bad resource either! The advanced dialogue that IndonesianPod101 lessons deal with are on more advanced and formal topics in exactly the style that you’ll encounter on the exam.

The more you listen to and read real Indonesian, the better you’ll do on that Indonesian exam—especially when it’s all in one place with transcripts for every podcast episode!

Check out IndonesianPod101.com lessons today, and get ready to attack the UKBI exam with flying colors!

You may be surprised at how fast you can start speaking Indonesian.

Once you get a good stock of vocabulary, all you need to memorize is a handful of customizable Indonesian sentences. Then, you can easily make people think you’re good at the language.

In Indonesian, there are some fascinating grammatical aspects concerning verbs, but for communication purposes, you can leave them out entirely—plenty of Indonesians do this, too! 

So picking up Indonesian through patterns is pretty easy. In this article, we’ll outline ten different sentence patterns ready for your plug-and-play use. By the time you get to the end, you’ll probably start noticing these patterns (and more) all over the place in your studies!

Table of Contents

1. Simple Noun Equivalencies
2. Using Adjectives in Indonesian Sentences
3. Expressing Your Desires
4. What Do You Need?
5. Quick Review: Questions
6. Simple Requests
7. Asking Where Things Are
8. Using “Because” in Indonesian
9. Describing Things That Happened
10. If This, Then That
11. Conclusion

1. Simple Noun Equivalencies

The Indonesian word for connecting two nouns is adalah. It means something like “is,” but you’ll note in the next section that it’s used only for nouns, not adjectives. Let’s see this Indonesian sentence structure in action:

• Hary adalah rektor.
  “Hary is the rector.”

• Dia seorang supir.
  “She is a driver.”

• Jam ini adalah hadiah dari istriku.
  “This watch is a present from my wife.”

• Restoran ini adalah restoran Tiongkok.
  “This restaurant is a Chinese restaurant.”

• Motor merah adalah motor sang presiden.
  “The red motorcycle is the president’s motorcycle.”

2. Using Adjectives in Indonesian Sentences

In Indonesian sentences, adjectives always follow nouns. And for a simple noun-is-adjective kind of sentence, you only need two words!

• Langit biru.
  “The sky is blue.”

• Suara anjing itu besar.
  “The dog’s voice (bark) is loud.”

• Motor merah itu bukan motor teman sekelasku.
  “The red motorcycle isn’t the motorcycle of my classmate.”

• Mereka suka menonton film-film Korea.
  “They like watching Korean movies.”

• Susu yang dijual di pasar malam tidak begitu segar.
  “The milk sold at the night market isn’t that fresh.”

3. Expressing Your Desires

There are a number of different verbs for “want” in Indonesian. The first and most common is mau, pronounced ma-oo with a clear distinction between the vowels.

• Saya mau es teh.
  “I want iced tea.”

• Anak itu mau pergi.
  “The child wants to leave.”

The next word, used just as commonly, is ingin (literally “to wish”). In informal Indonesian spoken on Java, it’s pronounced more like engin, but the meaning is the same. It’s usually followed by verbs.

• Kelas itu membosankan dan para mahasiswa ingin pergi ke pantai.
  “The class is boring and the student wants to go to the beach.”

• Ibu ingin menjual buah-buahan.
  “Mother wants to sell fruits.”

Lastly, the verb hendak is the most common way to say “to want” in the related Malay language, but in Indonesian, it’s something formal you’d only hear in speeches or read in books.

• Harimau hendak makan orang di desa.
  “The tiger wants to eat the people in the village.”

4. What Do You Need? 

Every learner should know basic Indonesian sentences for expressing needs. In English, we typically use the words “must” and “need” for this, and we can do the same thing in Indonesian. Harus is the Indonesian word for “must” and perlu is “need.”

Here are a few examples of how to use them in Indonesian phrases:

• Kamu harus pergi sekarang.
  “You must go now.”

• Aku perlu motor baru.
  “I need a new motorcycle.”

• Aku harus membeli motor baru.
  “I must buy a new motorcycle.”

• Kamu harus mengingat apa yang saya bilang ini.
  “You must remember what I’m saying.”

5. Quick Review: Questions

So far, these sentences have been really simple and easy! Let’s practice the necessary verbs again, this time by adding the question word apakah, or the question suffix -kah.

• Perlukah Anda motor baru?
  “Do you need a new motorcycle?”

• Apakah kamu mau es teh?
  “Do you want iced tea?”

• Apakah langit biru?
  “Is the sky blue?”

The word apa (“what”) is indispensable in both questions and answers in Indonesian. We already saw apa yang saya sedang bilang (“what I am saying to you”) in a statement format, so here’s the question version.

• Film apa ini?
  “What film is this?”

• Apa itu “bebek?”
  “What is a ‘duck’?”

6. Simple Requests

There are two very commonly used words in Indonesian for asking people to do things for you, and of course, several more words besides. Tolong has a general sense that you really need that thing done, while mohon is simply a polite request word.

• Mohon duduk dulu.
  “Please sit first.”

• Tolong bawakan aku kamus Arab.
  “Please bring me the Arabic dictionary.”

• Mohon untuk tidak makan babi di restoran ini.
  “Please don’t eat pork in this restaurant.”

You can use minta in much the same way as you use mohon, with the added ability to use it to order food.

• Minta segelas jus stroberi.
  “One glass of strawberry juice, please.”

• Minta cepat, ya.
  “Please hurry it up.”

That last sentence is of great use as is whenever you’re at a restaurant and particularly hungry! 

7. Asking Where Things Are

Indonesian uses a “locative particle,” di, instead of the typical set of prepositions we know from other languages. You can think of di as being similar to “at,” and then whatever word follows di can indicate the location more precisely.

• Aku di kamar.
  “I’m in the room.”

• Dompet di dalam tas.
  “The wallet is in the bag.”

• Jangan duduk di atas meja.
  “Don’t sit on top of the table.”

By using another question word, mana (“which”), you can start asking questions.

• Di mana dompetku?
  “Where is my wallet?”

• Kamu berada di kamar mana?
  “Which room are you in now?”

8. Using “Because” in Indonesian

Now let’s go a little bit more advanced and use the conjunction karena, meaning “because.” Don’t worry, though; it works in Indonesian language sentences just like you’d expect it to in English! 

We had some very basic noun and adjective sentences right at the beginning of the article, so let’s replicate that pattern and see how we can connect cause and effect.

• Dia sakit karena air kotor.
  “He is sick because the water is dirty.”

• Orang-orang takut karena harimau lapar.
  “The people are scared because the tiger is hungry.”

Naturally, you can add verbs after karena. The only difference from English is a bonus for learners: You don’t need to repeat the subject or a pronoun. The subject is remembered from the first half of the sentence.

• Filmnya keren karena ceritanya bagus.
  “The film was cool because it had a good story.”

• Aku perlu motor baru karena motor saya rusak.
  “I need a new motorcycle because my motorcycle is broken.”

• Fifi dihukum karena menyetir terlalu cepat.
  “Fifi was punished because she drove too fast.”

9. Describing Things That Happened

Past tense in Indonesian is often taken care of through context alone. If you’re already having a conversation about something that happened, there’s usually no grammatical marking in the sentence to refer to the past tense again and again.

The particle sudah means “already,” and it’s your best bet when you want to explicitly introduce the past tense.

• Dia sudah sarapan.
  “He (already) ate breakfast.”

• Apakah presentasi sudah selesai?
  “Has the presentation already finished?”

• Aku sudah membaca buku baru itu.
  “I have read that new book.”

When you ask a question about things that might have already happened, you should try to end it with the word belum (“not yet”). It’s totally fine if you say something like the presentation example above, but using belum can often sound a little more idiomatic.

• Kamu sudah makan belum?
  “Have you already eaten yet?”

• Dia sudah lulus belum?
  “Has she already graduated yet?”

10. If This, Then That

Like “because,” you might worry that conditional statements in Indonesian are above your level. Fear not, because it really does work in quite a familiar way! Things that might take a couple of semesters to figure out in European languages are open to you right now before the end of this article. 

The word for “if” is kalau. Here’s how it’s used in an Indonesian sentence:

• Kalau tidak tidur, ngantuk.
  “If [you] don’t sleep, [you will be] sleepy.”

• Aku tidak akan ikut kalau ada PR.
  “I’m not going to come if I have homework.”

• Kalau presiden tetap berbohong, orang-orang tidak akan memilih dia lagi.
  “If the president keeps lying, people won’t vote for him again.”

• Kalau kamu belajar bahasa Indonesia, kamu harus membaca buku Indonesia.
  “If you study Indonesian, you need to read Indonesian books.”

The other use for kalau is as a marker of a changed topic, something like “as for” in English.

• Kalau Jakarta, terlalu macet.
  “If [we’re discussing] Jakarta, it’s too congested.”

• Kalau di Bali, kamu harus pergi ke Ubud!
  “As for Bali, you’ve got to go to Ubud!”

11. Conclusion

We didn’t point it out explicitly, but you probably noticed the Indonesian way to express ownership, too: If teman is “friend,” teman saya is “friend I” or “my friend.”

If you go through some of the Indonesian lessons and resources here on IndonesianPod101.com, who knows what other patterns you’ll find? Your brain is absolutely wired to pick up on connections like this.

The only problem is, you might learn too fast and start speaking more than you can understand! Always balance your spoken or written Indonesian with lots of listening and reading.

Good thing IndonesianPod101 has everything you need in that regard, too—vocabulary lists, grammar and pronunciation guides, and even smart flashcards!

Check out the Indonesian learning materials right here and enjoy effortless Indonesian in practically no time at all!

Before you go, let us know in the comments if we’ve answered your questions today! How many of these Indonesian sentences are new to you? We look forward to hearing from you!

Nobody really sets out to memorize a bunch of adverbs.

It might even be the least exciting part of speech – but there must be a reason we learn them! The reason is, if you ever want to describe something with any kind of detail, you’re going to need adverbs. Indonesian adverbs are easy, and for every one you memorize, you’ll open up a world of language possibilities.

Table of Contents

1. How Do You Do It?
2. Numbers and Amounts
3. Why Did You Do It?
4. How Often And When?
5. Showing Tense
6. A Lot Or A Little?
7. Like This or Like That?
8. Where Did You Put it?
9. How Likely Is It?
10. Conclusion

1. How Do You Do It?

This is the classic adverb format – you modify a verb to explain how you’re doing that verb. Indonesian has two ways to do this, most of the time. You can either use an Indonesian adverb, or the word dengan “with” with the modifying word. You can also get away with using the adjective as an adverb, chances are your Indonesian audience will understand you anyway.

1- hati-hati – carefully

Jawablah hati-hati.

Answer carefully.

2- pelan-pelan – slowly

Jangan menulis pelan-pelan. (or dengan perlahan)

Don’t write slowly.

3- cepat-cepat – quickly

Dia cepat-cepat menghabiskan makanannya.

She quickly finished her food.

4- dengan baik – well

Cinta bekerja dengan baik di sini.

Cinta works well here.

5- dengan sempurna – perfectly

Saya tidak bisa menyetir dengan sempurna.

I can’t drive perfectly.

6- dengan indah – beautifully

Bapak bisa menulis dengan indah.

You, sir, can write beautifully.

7- dengan serius – seriously

Mahasiswa belajar dengan serius.

Students study seriously.

8- dengan mudah — easily

Kami memang dengan mudah.
We won easily.

9- dengan susah payah – with difficulty

Aku menyelesaikan pekerjaaanku dengan susah payah.

I finished my work with difficulty.

10- dengan sembarangan – carelessly

Dia meletakkan barang-barangnya di lantai dengan sembarangan.
He put his stuff on the floor carelessly.

11- tanpa sadar – unknowingly

Dia ditipu tanpa sadar.
She was tricked unknowingly.

12- dengan tergesa-gesa – hastily

Jangan memasak tergesa-gesa.
Do not cook hastily.

13- dengan rata (adj) – equally

Kami dibayar dengan rata.
We are paid equally.

14- dengan samar-samar – vaguely

Hal itu dideskripsikan kepadaku dengan samar-samar.
It was described to me vaguely.

15- dengan jujur – truthfully

Mengapa kamu tidak mengakui dengan jujur?
Why won’t you admit it truthfully?

16- dengan lancar – smoothly

Semuanya akan berjalan dengan lancar.
Everything’s going to go smoothly.

17- dengan senang – happily

Saya membersihkan dengan senang.
I happily clean up.

18- dengan fasih – fluently

Aku bisa berbicara bahasa Jepang dengan fasih.
I can speak Japanese fluently.

19- dengan kasar – rudely

Dia mengambil kertas dari tanganku dengan kasar.
She took the paper from my hand rudely.

20- dengan sabar — patiently

Ibu menunggu jawaban dariku dengan sabar.
Mother patiently waits for my answer.

21- dengan gelisah — anxiously

Pengacara itu mengetukkan penanya dengan gelisah.
The lawyer is tapping his pen anxiously.

2. Numbers and Amounts

If the first category was “classic adverbs,” then this part should help you describe amounts and degrees to which things happen. That’s just as important!

1- sedikit – a bit

Kata-katanya membuat ayahnya sedikit tersinggung.
His words made the father feel a bit irritated.

2- banyak – a lot

Ini terlalu banyak.
This is a lot.

3- beberapa – some

Beberapa toko di mal ini sudah tutup.
Some shops in this shopping mall are closed.

4- lebih banyak – more

Kamu harus lebih banyak berolahraga. 
You have to exercise more.

5- kurang – not enough, less

Saya kurang tidur semalam.
I did not have enough sleep last night.

6- terlalu – too much

Saya terlalu banyak makan semalam.
I ate too much last night.

7- kurang lebih – more or less

Saya kurang lebih mengerti maksudmu.

I more or less understand what you mean.

8- Sekurangnya – at least

Sekurangnya telepon ibumu sebulan sekali.
At least call your mom once a month.

9- hampir – almost

Adi berumur hampir tiga belas.
Adi is almost thirteen.

10- bersama – together

Kami main sepak bola bersama.
We play football together.

11- sendiri – alone

Aku suka menonton film sendiri.
I like to watch movies alone.

12- cukup – well enough

Dia cukup pintar.
She’s pretty smart.

13- Selain – apart from

Selain membunuh, mencuri juga bisa dihukum.
Apart from murder, theft can also be punished.

14- terlepas dari – besides

Terlepas dari siapa dia, saya tidak percaya dia.
It doesn’t matter who he is, I don’t believe him.

15- hanya – only

Tiketnya hanya tersisa dua.
There are only two tickets left.

16- makin – get to become

Ibu makin khawatir.
Mother is becoming more worried.

3. Why Did You Do It?

In Indonesian, what we know of as “conjunctions” can also fit the grammatical category of adverbs. Several of these are adverbial phrases instead of just one word.

1- jadi – therefore

Dia mau masak, jadi saya beli wortel.
She wants to cook, so I bought carrots.

2- bagaimanapun – however

Bagaimanapun, saya tidak akan lupa.
In any case, I won’t forget.

3- akan tetapi – however

Anda sudah masuk ke rumah, akan tetapi, dia mau Anda pergi.
You’ve already entered the house, however, he wants you to leave.

4- kalau-kalau – in case of

Pakai jas hujan dalam kasus hujan.
Wear a poncho in case of rain.

5- karena – because

Aku mencintaimu karena kamu cantik.
I love you because you’re beautiful.

6- sehingga – to the point that

Mohon untuk membersihkan sehingga bersih.
Please clean this until it’s sparkling.

7- untuk – in order to

Saya menggunakan pisau untuk memotong.
I use a knife in order to cut.

8- umumnya – generally

Anak-anak umumnya tidak punya pekerjaan.
Children generally don’t have jobs.

4. How Often And When?

Adverbs of time are some of the most important and by far the most commonly used. Just think of when you’re talking to a delivery driver and you want to say “Are you coming now?” They’ll probably answer “Sorry, I’ll be there soon!”

1- sekarang – now

Saya mau pergi sekarang.
I want to leave now.

2- nanti – later

Jangan melakukannya nanti.
Don’t do it later.

3- dulu – before

Aku duduk dulu.
I’ll sit down first.

4- belum – not yet

Kita belum berkenalan.
We don’t know each other yet.

5- baru – recently

Saya baru datang di Amerika.
I just recently arrived in America.

6- jarang – rarely

Dia jarang makan yang pedas.
He rarely eats spicy things.

7- sering – often

Kamu sering lupa namaku.
You often forget my name.

8- sebentar – a moment

Aku tidur sebentar.
I’ll sleep for a moment.

9- biasanya – usually

Joko biasanya datang jam 11.
Joko usually comes at 11.

10- tidak pernah – never before

Kamu tidak pernah ke Solo?
You’ve never before been to Solo?

11- satu kali  – once

Hanya ke sana satu kali.
Only been there one time.

12- dua kali – twice

Aku sudah bilang dua kali.
I’ve already said it twice.

13- lagi – again

Aku tidak akan bilang lagi.
I’m not going to say it again.

14- sekali seminggu – once a week

Saya main tenis sekali seminggu.
I play tennis once a week.

15- constantly – terus-menerus

Istrinya terus-menerus belajar bahasa Spanyol.
My wife constantly studies Spanish.

16- kadangkala – sometimes

Monyet kadangkala masuk ke rumahku.
Monkeys sometimes come into my house.

17- kadang-kadang – occasionally

Aku kadang-kadang lupa kata-katanya dalam bahasa Inggris.
I occasionally forget the English words.

18- angin-anginan – inconsistently

Mengapa kamu membuat peraturan angin-anginan?
Why are you inconsistently making rules?

19- silam – ago

Itu sudah beberapa tahun silam.
That was several years ago.

20- tadi pagi – this morning

Tadi pagi ada kecelakaan di dekat stasiun kereta.
This morning there was an accident near the railway station.

21- tadi siang – this afternoon

Webinar itu sudah selesai tadi siang.
The webinar was over this afternoon.

22- kemarin – yesterday

Dia dibawa ke rumah sakit kemarin.
He was hospitalized yesterday.

23- besok – tomorrow

Kita besok akan memerlukan mobil.
We will be needing a car tomorrow.

24- hari ini – today

Hari ini kita jalan kaki saja.
Let’s just walk today.

25- … depan – next …

Tahun depan saya tidak akan tinggal di sini lagi.
Next year I will not be living here anymore.

5. Showing Tense

Indonesian doesn’t mark its verbs for tense. Instead, it uses adverbs placed in front of the verb to give a sense of time.

1- sudah – already

Kamu sudah tinggal di Jakarta?
You already live in Jakarta?

2- tadi – before now, some time in near past

Saya tadi lupa mau memberikan ini.
(I forgot) I was going to give you this.

3- akan – will, going to

Aku akan menikmati kue itu.
I’m going to enjoy this cake.

4- telah – already 

Pertunjukkan itu telah berlangsung 5 menit yang lalu.
The show started 5 minutes ago.

5- sedang – in progress

Mereka sedang membaca buku.
They’re reading books.

6- masih – still

Dia masih mencintainya.
She still loves him.

7- baru saja – just now

Dia baru saja pergi.
He left just now.

6. A Lot Or A Little?

These are known as “intensifiers,” and they’re good companions to the ones in the “numbers and amounts” section from earlier.

1- sangat – very

Kelasnya sangat membosankan.
The class is very boring.

2- amat – very

Kelasnya membosankan amat.
The class is very boring.

3- banget – very 

Makanan Korea enak banget!
Korean food is so tasty!

4- benar-benar – truly, really

Saya benar-benar tidak mau mendorongmu.
I really don’t want to push you.

5- agak – rather

Soal matematika itu agak sulit.
That math problem is rather difficult.

6- lumayan – relatively

Mebel di sini lumayan murah.
Furniture here is relatively cheap.

7- kira-kira – roughly

Kira-kira dua ratus orang datang.
Roughly two hundred people arrived.

8- sekitar – approximately

Sekitar 34% orang Indonesia merokok.
Approximately 34% of Indonesians smoke.

7. Like This or Like That?

Here’s a secret: these five words make up a huge proportion of informal Indonesian. If you get the chance to watch Indonesians chat, try to count off all the times they say these phrases. The cultural component is huge, though, so you can’t just go in saying these words at random.

1- begini – like this

Kalau begini, harus hati-hati.
If the situation is like this, you have to be careful.

2- seperti ini – in this way

Potong rambut seperti ini.
Cut hair in this way.

3- begitu – like that

Jadi, begitu sih.
Well, it’s about like that.

4- seperti itu – in that way

Jangan lari seperti itu.
Don’t run in that way.

5- memang – indeed

Ini memang yang paling penting.
This is indeed what is most important.

8. Where Did You Put it?

Locational adverbs are often overlooked but are of course extremely helpful whenever describing directions or distances. These adverbs are usually used with prepositions di, ke, and dari. 

1- di sini – here

Ada apa di sini?
What’s here?

2- di sana – there

Letakkan di sana.
Put it there.

3- ke luar negeri – abroad

Dia akan pergi ke luar negeri tahun depan.
She’s going to go abroad next year.

4- di luar negeri – abroad

Dia sedang belajar di luar negeri.
She is studying abroad.

5- di dekat sini – nearby

Apakah ada hotel bintang tiga di dekat sini?
Are there three star hotels nearby?

6- di mana-mana – everywhere

Di mana-mana ada orang yang mau dapat uang.
There are people everywhere who want to get money.

9. How Likely Is It?

Indonesians are hesitant to give direct answers when they’re even a little bit unsure. Get some practice with these!

1- Sebenarnya – actually

Sebenarnya, aku sudah lulus.
Actually, I already graduated.

2- mungkin – maybe

Mungkin kamu bisa belajar di UNY.
Maybe you can study at UNY.

3- barangkali – possibly

Barangkali ada sesuatu di dalam.
There might be something inside.

4- mungkin – probably

Ini mungkin narkoba.
These are probably drugs.

5- semoga – hopefully

Semoga kami bisa menjadi teman.
Hopefully we can become friends.

6- jangan-jangan – could it be

Jangan-jangan dia terjebak di kemacetan.
Could it be that she is stuck in a traffic jam?

7- mesti – definitely

Ini mesti milik Ibu.
This must belong to you.

8- mudah-mudahan – hopefully

Mudah-mudahan dia bisa datang.
Hopefully she can make it.

9- boleh – may

Kalau sudah mandi, kamu boleh menonton TV.
If you have already taken a shower, you can watch the TV. 

10- bukan – not (followed by nouns and other adverbs)

Kamu bukan anak-anak lagi.
You’re not a child anymore.

11- tidak – not (followed by verbs and adjectives)

Di luar tidak hujan.
It is not raining outside.

12- jangan – don’t (expressing disapproval)

Jangan duduk di lantai.
Don’t sit on the floor.

10. Conclusion

Nice job! These words will no doubt serve you well.

The absolute best way for you to review these adverbs is to wait a day or so and read through the list and example sentences again, out loud if you can. That’ll really lock the words in your memory.

For more fantastic lessons, sign up today with IndonesianPod101.com and check out more grammar and vocabulary resources right from your computer or phone! There’s never been a better or easier way to learn Indonesian.

And in the meantime, if you have any questions about Indonesian adverbs, don’t hesitate to reach out in the comments section. We’re always glad to help you out!