In this week’s installment, we look at an important word for any Westerner in Indonesia. This is a word which has attained a rather dubious prominence in recent discussions about expat life in Indonesia. It is also very prominent in discussions about social trends in broader Indonesian society. That word is the verb melarang, which…
For English speakers, asking simple questions in Indonesian can be more difficult than you would think. One of the problems here is the common but mistaken assumption that the Indonesian word ‘apa‘ is directly equivalent to the English ‘what’. However, if you go about translating English sentences into Indonesian by substituting ‘apa‘ for ‘what’ willy-nilly,…
In this week’s installment, we look at a number of words relating to being ‘economical’ or ‘parsimonious’. If you use the wrong one, you are liable to give offence, so it is important to get them sorted out. This lesson will focus on five Bahasa Indonesia words- pelit, hemat, menghemat, irit and mengirit– and give…
Sedang vs. Lagi One of the most useful, but also most confusing, words in the Indonesian language is lagi. This is largely because it has multiple meanings and uses, some of which are extremely common in colloquial Indonesian but rarely covered in formal ”learn Indonesian books”. This post aims to clear up the difference between…
Seperti and Sepertinya Two words that you will often encounter in Indonesia are seperti and sepertinya. Although they have a related meaning, they are not the same. The first means ‘like’ in the the sense of ‘resembling’. Here are a couple of examples I found online: 1) Rumah artis Bollywood itu seperti istana India. The…
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