About Bahasa Indonesia

Last Christmas my husband and I went to Wales to visit our father in law and his wife. While in there we stayed in a beautiful B&B, owned by a lovely couple who invited us for tea and a bit of a natter. During our conversation I learned that, surprisingly, their children live and work in Indonesia. Knowing that I am too, from Indonesia, the lady of the house started to tell me about her experience when she was visiting Indonesia, and also... about her struggle learning Indonesian language -- which in Indonesia we call Bahasa Indonesia.

She said that it is difficult to make sense of Bahasa Indonesia and its vocabulary. 

"How can 'one' is 'satu' and 'two' is 'dua'?" she asked me -- flabbergasted. 

I can totally understand where she's coming from. For an English speaking individual, Bahasa Indonesia would sound so foreign. Of course, French and German would sound foreign too, but as French and German shared the same Germanic root, it would be easier to make sense of their language. But Bahasa Indonesia? It is just completely alien.

My husband is an Englishman -- born and bred in England. His second language -- if you asked him -- is sarcasm, and he's very fluent at it. He is also struggling with Bahasa Indonesia, although according to him it is all because of his lacking of memorising skill. I am not going to admit it in front of him, but I guess a part of it is because I don't have the teaching skill (nor patience) to teach him Bahasa Indonesia properly. 

Right... Bahasa Indonesia should not be difficult, and I am not saying it because I was born and also grew up in Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia is probably one of the simplest languages. Here's why it shouldn't be as difficult as you think it is:

source: http://satu-1-satu.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/kehebatan-bahasa-indonesia-di-mata-dunia.html

1. It is written in the usual Latin alphabet -- the 26 of them. You wouldn't find unrecognisable characters, nor accents, umlauts, etc. Just like your usual English writing. But...
2. It is easier to pronounce. While in English the letter "a" in 'apple', and 'apricot' will be pronounced differently, in Bahasa Indonesia all vowels would be pronounced all the same -- except for 'e' and 'o' -- each have two different sounds.
3. It doesn't have tenses. The way you know if a deed is done is by adding adverbs or time pointers. As a result of that, the verb form never changes. And...
4. Nouns don't have genders, and the plural form is just the same. 
5. You can drop words without changing the meaning. 

See? Simple! Theoretically... 

So, I thought it would be nice if I could help people (English speaking for now) who want to learn Bahasa Indonesia. Who knows that Bali would be your next holiday destination? You would want to go shopping without keep looking at your dictionary don't you?

Talk to you soon. Sampai jumpa.