Indonesian for Beginners: Learning Conversational Indonesian (With Free Online Audio)

By Katherine Davidsen and Yusep Cuandani

Selamat datang! Learn to read, write, and speak Indonesian!

By completing the 12 lessons in Indonesian for Beginners, you will learn not only to understand, speak, read and write basic Indonesian, but also about many important aspects of Indonesia's amazingly diverse culture, people, and places. This book provides a gateway to understanding the Indonesian language and country, and helps you to apply what you learn in a way that is relevant, meaningful and fun.

The course is structured around the concept of spending a year in Indonesia--experiencing different seasonal events which bring the learner on a journey. In this way, the cultural and background information becomes a natural part of the understanding of the Indonesian language and helps you to place what you learn into context within a full narrative about life in Indonesia.

Each chapter contains the following elements:

• An introduction with images and captions
• Grammar points
• A word bank presenting key vocabulary
• One or more sample conversations
• Listening practice and readings
• An "Indonesian and me" section that uses Indonesian to talk about yourself
• Key questions and statements
• Drills and exercises

Indonesian for Beginners includes reading, writing and speaking tasks based on authentic real-life materials. While aimed at learners taking a classroom course, it can also be used by anyone studying Indonesian in other ways--in a high school course or as a self-study book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
• Release date: Aug 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781462920044

Book preview

Selamat Datang! Welcome!

Welcome to the Indonesian language, people, culture and nation! In this course you will learn not only how to understand, speak, read, and write basic Indonesian, but you will also study important aspects of Indonesia’s amazingly diverse culture, as well as its people and its 17,000 islands. This course aims to provide access to understanding the language and culture, applying it in a way that is relevant and meaningful, as well as appropriate, to the learner. At the same time, the learner will be challenged to take risks, use prior knowledge and understand that communication takes many forms, both spoken and written.

Background to the language

Indonesian is a modern language, being a contemporary variety of Malay that came into being after Indonesian independence from the Dutch in 1945. Historically, Malay had been the lingua franca of the Indonesian archipelago (sometimes called Nusantara, literally the islands between), from pre-colonial times onward to when European explorers and colonizing powers such as the Portuguese and Dutch arrived. Malay continues to be one of Indonesia’s major regional languages (along with Javanese and Sundanese), and is also spoken in Malaysia (as Bahasa Malaysia), Singapore and Brunei.

Indonesian was chosen as the national language not only for its ubiquity around the archipelago, but also as it does not have hierarchical speech levels (as do Javanese and Sundanese), and was thus thought to be more egalitarian. Like English, it has both been influenced by and borrowed from a range of other languages: basic everyday words like sekolah (school) and bendera (flag) are originally from Portuguese; technical words relating to vehicles and machinery are often of Dutch origin, such as bensin (petrol) or pabrik (factory), while the most recent borrowings tend to be from English (media sosial or medsos for social media; paket for packet; asimilasi for assimilation). There are also neologisms from Sanskrit, a reminder of Indonesia’s Hindu past, such as karyawisata (school trip) and tunawisma (homeless), borrowings from Hokkien Chinese (especially foods) and a great deal of input from Arabic, as the holy language of Islam, the region’s dominant religion. Add to this influence from regional languages, both in vocabulary and structure, and you will begin to appreciate the richness of Indonesian.

As a national language, Indonesian is known as Bahasa Indonesia (please avoid the foreigner’s trap of referring it to Bahasa, which just means language) and coexists with the variety of regional languages around the country. Particularly outside the big cities, children grow up learning the regional language as their mother tongue, before starting to learn Indonesian at school. Increasingly, Indonesian is being spoken in the home, and there is a shift in some areas away from regional languages. Yet, the variety of Indonesian spoken in a particular place will reflect characteristics of that area: the Indonesian as spoken in Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi province, is very different to the Indonesian found in Medan, North Sumatra, or indeed the Jakarta dialect. Indonesian therefore acts as the language of Indonesia, a unifying force and national standard which is compulsory to pass in any educational setting.

While this course is to some extent aimed at upper Secondary learners (such as those studying Indonesian B ab initio for the International Baccalaureate), it should also be of great use to those studying Indonesian as a modern language in other secondary school courses, such as the International General Certificate of Secondary Education, or Higher School Certificate. Ideally you as the learner should have a teacher, whether a native speaker (ideal for pronunciation and accent) or a former learner of Indonesian who is now proficient (who can empathize with learning it as a second language). However, if you do not have access to an educator of the language, you should still be able to make use of this course, particularly through the ability you will develop to transfer skills and language beyond the contexts given in this book. Today’s interconnected world, where information and resources in hundreds of languages are only a click away, facilitates integrating various forms of communicative interaction in ways not thought possible when language learners relied solely on black and white textbooks and cassette recordings.

This course involves reading and writing, as well as some listening and speaking tasks, incorporating readings, various text types and dialogues. These are adapted from or inspired by a variety of sources and media (online, print, electronic, visual, etc.) from across the archipelago, demonstrating different social strata and various ethnic settings. This should provide the learner with a broad overview of contemporary Indonesia, its people and language.

The format of this course is structured around the concept of a year in Indonesia, with 12 units covering different events, seasons and happenings taking the learner on a journey through time. It has been proven that if we can relate our learning to a particular context, we are far more likely to embed our knowledge and develop our skills for future use. In this way, culture and background information become key to the learner’s understanding of the language, and help her or him to place what they have learned in context as part of a wider narrative.

We strongly advise mastering structures and vocabulary in each unit before proceeding further, as language skills are built on vocabulary and mastery of grammar. However, it is important to remember that you do not have to understand every word when learning a new language. The course will challenge you to think, guess from context and use your prior knowledge, as well as the glossary. The hope is that you can use the book (and your teacher) to help you become more independent in your learning of Indonesian.

Units are based on the following format, and contain:

•An introduction, with images and captions

•Key grammar points

•New vocabulary and phrases lists

•Sample conversations

•Listening practice

•Indonesian and me—using Indonesian about ourselves

•Key questions and statements

•Reading texts

A brief outline of pronunciation and basic facts about the structure of the language can be found in the Quick Reference Grammar.

Quick Reference Grammar

Pronunciation and Sounds

Indonesian is a phonetic language and is therefore relatively simple to pronounce. There are six vowel sounds:

There are also three diphthongs:

The English words given in the left column of the above table are taken from the NATO phonetic alphabet. This is widely known in Indonesia and can be useful when spelling out names (e.g. London Echo Echo spells ‘Lee’).

The complete Indonesian alphabet is given below

Word stress normally falls on the second-last or penultimate syllable. However, you can never stress an unstressed e sound, so when an e is the penultimate syllable, the last syllable is stressed instead. The accents below indicate the stressed syllable:

Indonesian spelling

Indonesian, known as Bahasa Indonesia in Indonesian, being a relatively young language (officially proclaimed and developed from the nation’s independence in 1945) uses the Latin alphabet. Its spelling is very similar to Malay—not a surprise, considering that it was based on a regional language, Malay, used in Sumatra.

There are five vowels, with two variants of e. É is much less common than e, and for that reason, Indonesian does not use accents in writing. In this book, é will be marked in the glossary, but not in general text. This is to make your reading as authentic as possible, but allow you to check pronunciation if you are unsure.

Sentence word order

Indonesian word order is much like that in English. The subject comes first, then the verb, and then the rest of the sentence:

One important difference in word order, however, is that the noun comes first, followed by the modifier:

Adalah is used for the to be-verb:

However, adalah is often left out:

Singular and plural forms

Indonesian often does not use singular and plural forms. Buku can mean a book, or several books. Whether there is one or many can often be worked out from context:

However, there are some words which can be used to indicate plurality. For example, when referring to people, para is used before the noun to show that there are a large number:

Reduplication of words

Reduplicating words, or doubling them, can also indicate plurality or variety of things or actions.

Sometimes the doubled form can take on a whole new meaning:

Some words are reduplicated as a set form, where the reduplication gives the words no special meaning:

Gender

There are generally no masculine, feminine, or neutral nouns or pronouns in Indonesian. For example, the word for he, she, or it is dia.

There are a small handful of nouns that are gender specific (most of these are given gender by the addition of Sanskrit suffixes):

Pronouns

As stated above, Indonesian pronouns do not show gender, nor do they differ according to subject and object. However, they do have their own singular and plural forms:

These pronouns are sometimes shortened and used as affixes. For example, aku is sometimes shortened to -ku (bukuku my book, kujalan I walk), kamu can become -mu (mobilmu your car), and engkau can become kau (mobil kau your car). Meanwhile, dia on the end of a word usually becomes -nya (bukunya her book, dibuatnya made by him).

Demonstrative pronouns follow the pattern below:

Comparatives and superlatives

To make a comparative in Indonesian, simply add the word lebih (more) before the adjective, and to make a superlative simply add paling (most):

The ter- prefix can be used with various adjectives to show the superlative:

Conversely, use the word kurang (less) if you want a negative focus:

Word Forms and Affixes

Many new words in Indonesian are created by adding prefixes, suffixes or both (affixes) to other words.

The prefix ber-

Ber- usually shows that a word is an intransitive verb. You can usually translate a ber- verb as meaning to have something, or to have a certain characteristic. As a result, ber- verbs can often be translated as adjectives:

Ber- very occasionally appears as be- (e.g., belajar to study).

The ber-an form

Ber- sometimes appears with an -an suffix. This shows that something is being done between two subjects (reciprocity), or plurality:

The prefix meN-

Adding the prefix meN- signifies that a verb is transitive which means it can take a direct object. The last letter of this prefix varies, depending upon the first letter of the word it is added to, as shown in the table below:

When the prefix meN- prefix is added to verbs starting with t, k, s, or p the following meN- forms are used and the first letter of the verbs is dropped off:

Nearly all these verbs take an object:

A few of them do not:

The verb suffix -kan

MeN- verbs can also take suffixes. One of the most common is -kan. This shows that there is a direct object that the verb is affecting:

Sometimes -kan may mean to do something for someone:

The -kan suffix can also change the verb into an adjective:

The verb suffix -i

MeN- verbs can also take the -i suffix, which can imply any of the following:

The verb prefix memper-

This prefix is a variant of the meN- prefix. Memper- is used in the same way as meN-, but with a sense of someone specifically causing an action.

The verb prefix di-

While the addition of meN- makes a verb active, the addition of di- makes a verb passive. Di- is attached to the base form of the verb, but unlike the meN- prefix it never changes:

With a di- verb, the doer of the action can be mentioned using the word oleh (by), though since word order alone is enough to show who performed the action, oleh is not always used:

There are other more complex passive forms using di- which are not included in this book.

The noun form ke-an

Ke-an usually indicates a noun form. Generally speaking, ke-an nouns have general, abstract meanings:

Some ke-an words suggest a condition of suffering:

Ke-an can also indicate something accidental:

The prefix pe-

The pe- prefix indicates a noun or doer:

The prefix peN-

This prefix is similar to pe-, but tends to have verbs or actions as its base word.