Asking "Who" in Indonesian

Learn how to ask "Who?"

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Halo semuanya, nama saya Fira. Hi everybody! I’m Fira.

Welcome to IndonesianPod101.com’s “Bahasa Indonesia dalam 3 menit”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Indonesian.

In the last lesson, we learned how to ask "When" questions in Indonesian.

This time, we’re going to ask "who" questions.

Imagine you want to ask your friend who the attractive girl just behind him is.

Here, the question you can ask is Siapa gadis menarik di belakang kamu?

So let’s break down this question.

First we had -

Siapa which is the basic translation of "Who" in Indonesian.

Gadis is the formal word for “girl”.

Menarik is "attractive"

Di is the preposition for “at”

And finally belakang kamu, which is "behind you."

Altogether it is Siapa gadis menarik di belakang kamu? “Who is the attractive girl behind you?”

So in Indonesian, "Who" is mainly translated as Siapa.

For example, if you want to ask "Who are these people?" You will say Siapa orang-orang ini?

Siapa can also be used to ask who did something, for example, in a museum you can ask Siapa yang melukis ini? This means "Who painted this painting?"

Even if you want to ask "Whose pencil is this?" you still use siapa. The sentence here will be Ini pensil siapa?

If we break down this question, it is-

Ini which is "this"

Pensil means “Pencil”

And finally, Siapa, which in this case means “whose”.

You can also use the word Siapa to ask "for whom is it?" In Indonesian, we use the formula untuk siapa?

So if you want to know "For whom is this piece of cake?" it will be Kue ini untuk siapa?

Now it’s time for Fira’s Insights.

If someone that you didn't expect is knocking at your door in Indonesia, the common question you can ask is Siapa ya? before opening the door.

This literally means "Who is it?" in a polite way.

In this lesson, we learned how to say "Who" in Indonesian.

The next lesson will be our last of this absolute beginner series.

We will deal with the last question word, Kenapa.

I’ll be waiting for you in the next Bahasa Indonesia dalam 3 menit lesson.

Sampai Jumpa lagi!

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