Learn whether or not Indonesian has tenses
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Intro |
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| Michael: Does Indonesian have tenses? |
| Blanca: And how can I specify the time frame? |
| Michael: At IndonesianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Sasha is confused about the number of tenses in Indonesian. She asks a teacher, |
| "How many tenses are there in Indonesian?" |
| Sasha Lee: Ada berapa tenses dalam bahasa Indonesia? |
| Dialogue |
| Sasha Lee: Ada berapa tenses dalam bahasa Indonesia? |
| Widi Wiryawan: Bahasa Indonesia tidak punya tenses. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sasha Lee: Ada berapa tenses dalam bahasa Indonesia? |
| Michael: "How many tenses are there in Indonesian?" |
| Widi Wiryawan: Bahasa Indonesia tidak punya tenses. |
| Michael: "There are no tenses in Indonesian." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: English has three simple tenses: past, present, and future. The tense of the verb mainly refers to the ‘time’ of the action of the verb—whether it’s the present, the past, or the future. In Indonesian, as anticipated in the conversation we just heard, there aren’t tenses; nonetheless, it’s possible to translate the English tenses. |
| Indonesian language uses “adverbs of time” or |
| Blanca: keterangan waktu |
| Michael: to express when an event occurs, and they may be in the past, present, or future, or on-going. Let’s see how to express an action that happens in the present. The most common time expressions for present actions are |
| Blanca: selalu, sering, kadang-kadang, tidak pernah |
| Michael: “always,” “often,” “sometimes,” and “never.” respectively. Let’s hear a couple of sample sentences too. |
| Blanca: Saya sering bepergian ke kota lain. |
| Michael: “I often travel to other towns.” |
| Blanca: Tono tidak pernah bisa berkata tidak. |
| Michael: “Tono never says no to anyone.” Let’s see now how to express an action that happened in the past. The most common time expressions for past actions are |
| Blanca: kemarin, tadi pagi, minggu lalu |
| Michael: “yesterday,” “this morning,” and “last week.” respectively. Let’s hear a couple of sample sentences about past actions. |
| Blanca: Saya minum teh tadi pagi. |
| Michael: “I drank tea this morning.” |
| Blanca: Kamu pergi ke mana minggu lalu? |
| Michael: “Where did you go last week?” For past actions, there are also some specific adverbs that you can add after the subject—for the indefinite past, |
| Blanca: sudah or telah |
| Michael: which means "already." You can also use |
| Blanca: tadi |
| Michael: which generically means “earlier.” For something that has been done recently, you can use |
| Blanca: barusan or baru saja |
| Michael: which literally means "just now." To express distant past, there is |
| Blanca: dulu, |
| Michael: which translates as "ago." Similarly, when describing future actions, you’ll need expressions that collocate the actions in the future. The most common word is |
| Blanca: akan |
| Michael: which literally means “will.” Other expressions are: |
| Blanca: besok, lusa, minggu depan |
| Michael: respectively meaning “tomorrow,” “the day after tomorrow,” “next week.” What are some examples? |
| Blanca: Saya akan bekerja dari rumah besok. |
| Michael: “I’ll work from home tomorrow.” |
| Blanca: Kamu pergi ke mana minggu depan? |
| Michael: “Where will you go next week?” |
| Michael: Finally, let’s see how to express continuous actions, such as “I’m studying Indonesian.” To describe a continuous action, you simply need to add the word |
| Blanca: sedang |
| Michael: before the main verb. Let’s hear an example |
| Blanca: Saya sedang belajar Bahasa Indonesia, |
| Michael: which means “I’m studying Indonesian.” A similar pattern applies to continuous past actions, for example |
| Blanca: Saya tadi sedang tidur. |
| Michael: "I was sleeping." |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you learned that, in the Indonesian grammar, there isn’t a category corresponding to the English verb tenses. Indonesian, instead, uses time expressions to describe the time of an action. All you have to do is to add the time expression before the verb. To wrap up, let’s hear how the same sentence changes depending on the time of the action. |
| Blanca: Saya selalu makan coklat. |
| Michael: “I always eat chocolate.” |
| Blanca: Saya tadi makan coklat. |
| Michael: “I ate chocolate earlier.” |
| Blanca: Saya akan makan coklat. |
| Michael: “I will eat chocolate.” |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Blanca: Dadah. |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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