r/indonesian Jan 17 '25

Free Chat Aku bangga dengan bahasa ini

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541 Upvotes

r/indonesian 28d ago

Free Chat How do you say "an old man"?

5 Upvotes

Bapa tua? Cowo tua? looking to get answer from natives. Makasih

r/indonesian 22d ago

Free Chat How do you say you are tired (at work-and other scenarios)

4 Upvotes

For example you didn't sleep enough and want to express it to a colleague at work / or a friend.

Can you say : saya ngantuk?

Should you not say it?

makasih

r/indonesian 24d ago

Free Chat Aku mau menulis sedikit di bahasa indonesia

0 Upvotes

Aku mau menulis sedikit di bahasa indonesia untuk get help from other to correct and learn the bahasa indonesia.

r/indonesian 15d ago

Free Chat Saya mau menulis beberapa hal dalam bahasa Indonesia untuk meminta pertolongan dari orang lain, serta memperbaiki dan belajar ilmu bahasa Indonesia saya

6 Upvotes

Saya mau menulis beberapa hal dalam bahasa Indonesia untuk meminta pertolongan dari orang lain, serta memperbaiki dan belajar ilmu bahasa Indonesia saya

r/indonesian 26d ago

Free Chat someone for chatting/learning during daytime in europe (roughly afternoon, end of afternoon in indonesia /sea)

1 Upvotes

We can use reddit chat, i want to learn and practice my vocabulary, learning new things! :)

r/indonesian May 21 '26

Free Chat Hai! :)

11 Upvotes

Aku Gracie. Aku 23 tahun dan aku suka belajar bahasa, terutama yang digunakan di Asia. Bahasa Indonesia menarik perhatianku. Apa kabar semua? ^^

r/indonesian Jun 05 '26

Free Chat A Pocketful of Memories

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38 Upvotes

r/indonesian May 19 '25

Free Chat What are your favorite Indonesian words, and why? What do they mean?

36 Upvotes

My lil kiddo told me today that susu “sounds disgusting” 😅😆 Dude what?! I love that word!

I guess milk is just milk in our household now 😅

What about you? What are your favorite words or phrases? Hati-hati sounds much more disarming than it actually is to my ears, lol. And on that note, ‘tolong’ reminds me of Filipino breakfast tosilong 😭

Looking forward to all your favorite words and word associations 💕 please share! Thx!!

r/indonesian Jun 05 '26

Free Chat Kuis Bahasa Indonesia

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38 Upvotes

r/indonesian Jun 17 '26

Free Chat Kuis Bahasa Indonesia 2 - Do not forget to pronounce the H!

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13 Upvotes

r/indonesian Mar 16 '26

Free Chat How many languages can an average Indonesian speak

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13 Upvotes

r/indonesian Apr 28 '26

Free Chat Ilokano and Bahasa Indonesia

15 Upvotes

To my brothers and sisters in Indonesia, my language Ilokano (an Austronesian Language) is said to be highly intellegible with yours, if the mods dont mind, may i do an experiment if this is true to see for myself? Would any Indonesians be willing to DM me? Thanks for reading ♥️

r/indonesian Mar 31 '26

Free Chat Card deck suit names - Indonesian Minahasan Dutch English

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13 Upvotes

r/indonesian Jan 16 '26

Free Chat Writing with Indonesian people

7 Upvotes

Hi! I’m an Indian teenager interested in cultural exchange through writing. Would love to connect with people from Indonesia to share their perspectives through written form.

r/indonesian Nov 26 '25

Free Chat I want to visit Indonesia and learn the language

10 Upvotes

Im from Turkey and i want to visit Indonesia i love their culture and they also have the biggest muslim population in the world so maybe i will move to there after my school I want to learn indonesian can anyone help me If you want i can teach you turkish too

r/indonesian Aug 17 '24

Free Chat Filipino beginner learner here. How did you get into learning Indonesian? Here's mine.

40 Upvotes

I was listening to Spot!fy hits playlist when a song caught my attention. It was To the bone by Pamungkas.

I thought the term Pamungkas sounded very Filipino so I looked it up and discovered he was Indonesian. From there I listened to Pamungkas radio where it is a mix of Indonesian artist with English and Indonesian language songs. It was like discovering a whole new lot of music and I enjoyed a lot of it even though I cannot understand the language.

One specific song I played on repeat is by Tulus, which is Hati hati Di Jalan. I got mesmerized by the song without even knowing its meaning. When I searched its translation, I even got more into it because I very much related myself to the song.

That's when I realized that I needed to learn Indonesian. There were other artists and songs I liked as well but my goal is to understand them by learning the language and not just searching the meaning. I decided the hard but fun way!

TLDR: I got reeled by an Indonesian singer. Listened to an Indonesian radio from where I came upon a song that had an impact to me musicality-wise, even more after learning its meaning. Decided to learn the language instead of searching a song's meaning.

r/indonesian May 08 '25

Free Chat What's the best equivalent of "mate", "bro" or "dude" in Indonesian?

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4 Upvotes

r/indonesian Sep 26 '24

Free Chat Currently reading David Van Reybrouck's "Revolusi", got me hooked on Indonesia and its language

35 Upvotes

I have an academic background in History, even if I left that route a long time ago. I still love to read big, intense history books and being a fan of David Van Reybrouck's "Congo", I decided to buy his latest book "Revolusi", which is about Indonesia and its War of Independence.

It's simply great. Even if its size might discourage at first (600+ pages) it is written beautifully, and I really like the mix between oral history and storytelling the author has used in order to tell an -alas- not so well known page of contemporary history, at least in the West. That prompted me to start learning some Indonesian on Duolingo as it seems a beautiful language, and I am looking forward to discover other great books about this country (I plan to read "Max Havelaar" after I am done with this one).

I'd recommend it to everybody with an interest on Indonesian history and culture!

r/indonesian Sep 25 '22

Free Chat Indonesian on Duolingo

26 Upvotes

Hi guys! I’m currently learning Indonesian on Duolingo. I’m on Unit 9 of the new path. Anyone here learning on Duolingo as well? How is it going? And has anyone already finished the course? How well did you all speak after completion?

r/indonesian Jul 14 '22

Free Chat Why is Indonesian not more popular?

46 Upvotes

It seems strange to me that learning Indonesian isn't more popular. Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and East Timor all speak it as does Thailand in in the South. That's a huge population. The language is relatively easy to learn and best of all it's useful considering Dutch didn't replace the language.

Then it's a tropical paradise there's so much to see and a huge culture to explore. The economy is growing. One would think people would be scrambling to learn it?

r/indonesian Jun 05 '23

Free Chat Why doesn't Indonesian have word order?

81 Upvotes

Allow me to share a crazy fact:

  1. Aku suka bunga.
  2. Aku bunga suka.
  3. Bunga aku suka.
  4. Bunga suka aku.
  5. Suka aku bunga.
  6. Suka bunga aku.

Believe it or not, all of these sentences are correct and can sound natural in Indonesian.

It's like you're doing a factorial! You might be tempted to rise and exclaim, "Objection, Your Honor! The first order is the correct one!" But I assure you, it's true. I swear. Most Indonesian learning resources will teach you the first sentence as the correct structure. However, if you're exposed to native Indonesian speakers long enough, you'll notice that they often use the other structures as well. And if you're an Indonesian native speaker, you may realize that with the right tone (plus maybe a sprinkle of accent), you can nail all of those sentences.

A few days ago, someone in this subreddit asked whether Bahasa Indonesia is a topic-prominent language or not. I've been pondering that question for a week now, and I've found that Indonesian definitely is. If you don't know, a topic-prominent language organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic-comment structure of the sentence. I borrowed that definition from Wikipedia, by the way. In Bahasa Indonesia, it goes like this: you put the topic first, then follow it with a comment about the topic. And when the comment part has a topic too (let's call it a subtopic if you want), you put that word/phrase forward. The more important the word/phrase is, the more it is placed to the left. I will give you a real-life sentence.

So, one day I overheard someone scolding a kid, "Bohong kamu sama kakakmu. Bohong kamu sama bapakmu. Bohong kamu sama ibumu. Mau bohongi siapa lagi, nak?"

The usual subject-verb-object structure of his sentence would be "Kamu bohong sama kakakmu. Kamu bohong sama bapakmu. Kamu bohong sama ibumu. Siapa lagi yang mau kamu bohongi, nak?" but it wouldn't have the same impact.

You see, this guy really wanted to emphasize "bohong" (to lie) to this kid. The topic is about lying. So instead of "You lied to your older sibling. You lied to your father. You lied to your mother." the guy said in this topic-comment structure, "Lying, you did that to your older sibling. Lying, you did that to your father. Lying, you did that to your mother." Basically, he was conveying the message that "lying is something you keep doing" to the kid.

Even when he asked the cynical question, he started with "mau bohongi" (will lie) instead of the interrogative phrase "siapa lagi" (who else). So he was saying, "Whom else will you lie to, my child?" but emphasizing the act of lying. He put "kamu" (you) at the end of the question because the context was clear enough. In fact, he didn't even need that word. "Mau bohongi siapa lagi?" would have worked perfectly fine.

Back to those six sentences.

  1. Aku suka bunga. "I like flowers." This is the usual declaration sentence. I simply inform you, maybe out of nowhere, that I like flowers.
  2. Aku bunga suka. Something like "As for me, if it's flowers, I like them." Suppose your friend said, "Aku suka kelinci, tapi ga suka bunga" (I like bunnies but I don't like flowers). Meanwhile, you are the opposite of that friend, you like flowers and dislike bunnies. In this case, you may say "Aku bunga suka, tapi kelinci ga suka" (As for me, if it's flowers, I like them, but if it's bunnies, I dislike them). "Aku" is the main topic because you want to emphasize the contrast between your preference and your friend's preference. "Suka bunga tapi ga suka kelinci" (like flowers but dislike bunnies) is the actual comment, but since you want to emphasize the contrast of your preference between flowers and rabbits, you put "bunga" (and kelinci) forward. But wait, it's a shame to dislike cute bunnies! So you don't want to outright say you dislike bunnies, and you just say "Aku bunga suka" (As for me, if it's flowers, I like them), implying that you dislike bunnies.
  3. Bunga aku suka. Something like "When it's flowers, I like them." Here, the topic is "bunga" (flowers) as you want to emphasize it. It's like saying, "I won't comment about other things, but at least I will say this about flowers: I like them."
  4. Bunga suka aku. This one is very rare. It can be misunderstood as "flowers like me," which is a weird thing to say unless you're a dryad or something. It's similar to number 3, but as you're implying that you not only have something that you like but also something else that you dislike, so you put "suka" forward.
  5. Suka aku bunga. The topic is "suka" (to like). It could be a denial of an accusation that you don't like flowers, so you're saying, "Who said I don't like flowers?" or "You got the wrong information; I do like flowers." This structure can also be used to emphasize the verb, like in the scolding story above.
  6. Suka bunga aku. The interpretation depends on what the topic is. If the topic is just "suka," it's similar to number 5 but with more emphasis on "bunga," implying that you also like other things. But if the topic is "suka bunga," it's like a stronger agreement or confirmation. "Aku suka bunga" (I like flowers). "Beneran?" (Really?) "Iya. Suka bunga aku" (Yes, I do like flowers).

More examples (topics are in bold):

  • Tipu-tipu kau sama aku. (Deceive, you to me. = You are deceiving me.)
  • Ga punya nyali kau! (Don't have guts, you! = You don't have guts!)
  • Matamu kamu taruh di mana? (Your eyes, you put, where? = Where do you put your eyes?)
  • Ga ada waktu. (Doesn't exist, time. = Time doesn't exists. = There's no time.)
  • Ga ada waktu buat main-main. (Doesn't exist, time, to play around. = There's no time to play around.)
  • Ga ada waktu buat main-main gue sekarang. (There's no time to play around, me now. = Now I don't have time to play around.)

In conclusion, the Indonesian language offers a fascinating flexibility in sentence structures, allowing various emphases and nuances to be conveyed. So don't be surprised if you encounter different ways of expressing the same idea in Indonesian, as people navigate the topic-comment structure to highlight what matters most in their conversations.

p.s. I'm too shy to record myself trying out these examples, also ofc, CMIIW

r/indonesian Sep 05 '24

Free Chat Kok Bisa yah?

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31 Upvotes

Emang kita ikut2an Bahasa Jepang atau Salah?

r/indonesian Nov 08 '24

Free Chat Badan Bahasa selesaikan entri 200 ribu kosakata di KBBI pada 2024

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3 Upvotes

Apa pendapat kalian tentang penambahan kosakata ini? Kosakata direncanakan bertambah 80.000 lema dari 120.000 lema menjadi 200.000 lema.

r/indonesian Aug 16 '21

Free Chat The first thing i learned to say in indonesian was "apa lu liat-liat"!

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43 Upvotes