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How Difficult Is Indonesian? | ||
Tags: Indonesian | Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5829 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 17 of 35 10 August 2010 at 12:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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So Iverson, could you compare the extent by which Malay and Indonesian differ to that of European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese or are the differences greater? Edited by stelingo on 10 August 2010 at 12:30am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ALS Senior Member United States Joined 5801 days ago 104 posts - 131 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Finnish, Russian | Message 18 of 35 10 August 2010 at 7:44am | IP Logged | |||||
I suspect he's full of it or didn't name this 'wmsp-sweep grammar rule' correctly. A lot of Google searching doesn't come up with anything about that, in fact the only two relevant searches are that Antimoon comment and this website. Obviously though I'm no expert in Indonesian, so perhaps someone who's more experienced can either explain this mystery rule or denounce it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 19 of 35 10 August 2010 at 9:42am | IP Logged | |||||
Right now I'm too much of a beginner to be sure, and besides I can only speak on the basis of written materials because I haven't heard any Indonesian recently. There must be people on this forum who can give a more qualified answer 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kosongbebas Diglot Newbie Indonesia Joined 5515 days ago 8 posts - 70 votes Speaks: Indonesian*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 20 of 35 10 August 2010 at 9:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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As a native of Bahasa Indonesia, perhaps I can't give a detailed insight to the difficulty of Bahasa Indonesia for foreigner. Right now, I am learning and will be learning in the future of English, Spanish, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese. So based on my study of those 4 language, I will try to find (compare) which parts I considered the difficult ones and which ones are the easy ones.
Vocabulary, Bahasa Indonesia is based from a market Malay from Sumatera Island, which is used as a trading language in the region. Therefore most of them come from Malay. Since Indonesia has long history with Arabic world trough trading, there are some loan words from Arabic languages, especially those about religion. Recently there are some loan words from English, in example "internet" and "email". Even when there are Indonesian alternatives; usually the loan word is the one used (I can't even recall the Indonesian alternative without the help of dictionary, it is in my passive vocabulary). The most loan words are from Dutch (I don't know which ones, but for Dutch speaker, I think it will be a boost). Loan words from Chinese usually about foods. There are also few loan words from Spanish/Portuguese like "meja" (table) from "mesa". There are also some influences of local languages. So for English speaker, I think this will be a difficult part. There is no gender in word, the example of some exceptions is "putra" and "putri" which means "son" and "daughter". This is similar to English. Generally, you can add "laki-laki" (male) or "perempuan" (female) for human and "jantan" (male) or "betina" (female) for animal. In example to say "putri" (daughter) you can add "anak" (child) with "perempuan" (female) into "anak perempuan" (which translated directly female child). There are also some words which mean the same things, although with different feels. In example is "mati" (died). There are "mati", "meninggal", "mampus", "gugur", and "berpulang". All of those means "die", but each has different feel. In example "mampus" has a harsh tone and often used for criminal (newspaper won't use them tough). "Gugur" on the other hand has a meaning of die in honor and often used for heroes. To be on save side, you can use "mati" generally or for human "meninggal". This same thing I also find in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese. So I think it is normal for every language. Do not afraid of it. Vocabulary in Bahasa Indonesia is based on root words, so it will save some problem to learn them all. Like "makan" (eat) which can be changed into "makanan" (food), or "dimakan" (to be eaten). Or "main" (play, root words only and rarely used) which can be changed into "bermain" (play), or "mainan" (toys). This feature is what I considered a bonus and also the most difficult part of Bahasa (These feature also appears in some local languages). It helps in obtaining lots of vocabularies as long as you learn root words and the additions (suffix, prefix, etc). Native speaker usually can turn the additions instantly into the meaning of the additions (There is usually more than 1 meaning for each additions, similar to Japanese particles, which usually have several usages). The example of those additions are "di-", which usually means passive action, on the other hand "ber-" and "me-", which usually means active action. On the other hand, it is the blocking wall of Bahasa. My Japanese friends usually have difficulty to use the correct additions and to translate it, It is similar to my difficulty in using particle and verb form in Japanese. Grammar, almost none except for those "addition" (suffix, prefix, etc) that I have mentioned earlier. In short explanation the grammar of Bahasa is Subject Verb Object. You may add information of time or location. For continues tense you can use "sedang" (is doing), for perfect tense you can use "telah"/"sudah" (have), for future you can use "akan" (will). The verbs are not changed like English or Spanish, in example: "saya sedang makan sekarang" (I am eating right now), "saya akan makan" (I will eat), "saya sudah makan" (I have eaten). Only the information of time is changed, for example adding "kemarin" (yesterday) you can make a present "dia makan ayam" (he eats chicken) into past "kemarin dia makan ayam" (yesterday he ate chicken). It is as simple like that. Verbs also does not change based on the Subject like in English or Spanish, in example: "saya makan" (I eat), "dia makan" (he eats), or mereka makan (they eat). For conditional you can replace "if" into "jika" (if I eat = "jika saya makan"). You can also replace "can" with "bisa", "dapat" or "may" with "boleh". Bahasa also don't have "to be" (So there is no am, is, or are of English; Shi4 (是) of Chinese; -desu (ーです) of Japanese; nor ser and estar of Spanish. The closer you can get is "adalah" but it is rarely used). It is also doesn't have "in", "at", "on" of English (the most difficult part of English for me), nor "Ni" (に) or "De" (で) particle of Japanese. All of them replace with "di". There is also no difference in "I", "my" of English or "Usted", "Su" of Spanish. You can use "saya" (I). For example to say "my computer" is "komputer saya". There is a difference to English as the word "saya" is located after the items. I think that is almost all grammars of Bahasa Indonesia. Most of the time, you can just translate word by word and follow the S-V-O rule. Pronunciation, there is intonation similar to English and Japanese, but the intonation is unlike Spanish one, which can changed tense, or even Chinese one, which can changed meaning. The only troublesome part is to difference "e" there is two way to pronounce and it is not showed in written Bahasa Indonesia, a good dictionary usually shows it. It is shown in the example of "apel". The most common e (similar to Japanese "e" (え)) is in "apel" (apple) and the rare one is "apel" (a general assembly usually for government personnel). This is simpler than English which has a different way to pronounce "a", "y", "e", "i", etc. Spanish pronunciation is almost the same to Indonesia, except most words only have 1 way to pronounce, unlike "b", "c", "v", or "k" of Spanish. On the other hand, there is no way to sound like a native. Indonesia is influenced by lots of local languages. So there are different dialect based on the local language. It is usually that local language is the first language, and Bahasa Indonesia is the second language. The best and normal way is without dialect, which is common in eastern Indonesia since local languages there tend to have few speakers (hundreds or less). On the other hand people on Sumatra Island tends to speak similar to Standard Malay since their local language is Malay (a different Malay from Standard Malay of Malaysia tough). Myself is influenced by Sundanese. For other Indonesian (in example Javanese), the way I speak is considered like a "slow sea wave". These differences make Indonesian more forgiven for dialect (Generally Indonesian, especially those in village, are helpful or willing to help even to the unknown people.). Indonesian also use "a-z" only so more friendlier to learn and to write in computer. There are not any characters like Chinese or Japanese. About the material (Sorry it is not Colloquial, I have just checked the audio again) Pimsleur, Linguaphone, and Teach Yourself series' audios have a bit Malay dialect (especially Pimsleur seems to be recorded in Malay dialect, Teach Yourself is the most natural one in my opinion based on pronunciation), so except Pimsleur, they are only a little bit strange for me (I hear them out curiosity). Perhaps that is the way Indonesian should be, but for sure it is not normal compare to the one used in News Program on TV. Real colloquial Indonesia tends to "straight" in intonation without "wave" like in Malaysia's Malay (and of course faster than the ones recorded). But other than that, I think those (except Pimsleur) are good resources for Bahasa Indonesia. Indonesia's Bahasa Indonesia and Malaysia's Malay have difference mostly in Vocabulary (there are false friends), very few in grammar, and dialect (Malaysian speak like wave in my ear.). In example, Iverson example of "bahagian" (Malay), it is "bagian" in Bahasa Indonesia. I need several seconds of loading to understand what Iverson means. I keep thinking of "bahagian" as "bahagia" which means "happy". I need to translate the English ("part") to Indonesia and finally understand it. On a side note, Malaysia's Malay also has more influence of English in vocabulary. This is a bonus for English speakers, but on the other hand, most Malay speaking people usually have better English. So for English speakers, I doubt you will find your Malay to Malay speakers as useful as your Bahasa Indonesia to Indonesian speakers. Most Indonesians (outside tourist area like Bali) find English is hard (I included) and a "killer" in national test (English is mandatory in school, but school can't teach it (designed to test not to teach)). Additional: Indonesia between friend (Slank) version. Bahasa Indonesia, that is spoken, is usually different from what normally used. A simple way to use "slank" is to change the word "I", which is "saya" into "gue", or "gua" and to change the word "you", which is "kamu" into "lo". This is from a Chinese Dialect, which is often used in market. That is enough to make your formal Indonesian into a more relaxed Indonesian (similar into "tu" form in Spanish and dictionary form of Japanese.). There are also some words introduced by television star, but usually they come and fade. On advertising side, Indonesian Language is a national language and lingua franca of over 220 millions people (the easiest of largest language with almost no grammar, no tones, and no strange letter), a language of a nation very diversity in culture for those interested in culture (Bali, Borobudur, and Komodo Island is only few of them), a language of a large and very consumptive nation with high preference for foreign product for businessmen, and a language of a nation very rich in natural resource and cheap labors for those industrialists. Lately political stability, and security stability is good, the only downside for business is high corruption in government official from top to the bottom from social sector to the highest court (This can be good or bad depends on your view point). Since English penetration is still low, Bahasa is almost your only key to access it. :D Edited by kosongbebas on 11 August 2010 at 8:05am 37 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 21 of 35 10 August 2010 at 9:54am | IP Logged | |||||
Speak of the sun and the sun shines ... thanks to Kosongbebas.
It sounds like a homemade abbreviation of some rule in transformation grammar, but unless you study that kind of grammar you have no clue to what he s speaking about. I have even done a Google on "sweep 'transformational grammar'" without finding anything useful. It is extremely bad communication from this professor. I wonder how his teaching is? However I have now copied/translated/studied bilingual texts in (mostly) Bahasa Malaysia for a month now, and my impression is that the constructions in Bahasa are quite straightforward, even though they are different from Danish and English. Insofar there are problems they can reside in the correct choice of affixes and the idiomatically correct ways to specify time, number, gender etc which aren't expresed by morphological endings as in Western languages. I have no clue about which things can be swept away. Edited by Iversen on 11 April 2015 at 12:25pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ALS Senior Member United States Joined 5801 days ago 104 posts - 131 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Finnish, Russian | Message 22 of 35 10 August 2010 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
I tried a lot of terms in Google too, such as "Indonesian grammar sweep" and "Indonesian wmsp" and found no relevant results, even if I dropped the "Indonesian" part. So he was either making it up or was using a term nobody else uses. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| valentine Newbie Indonesia Joined 5217 days ago 4 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Indonesian* Studies: English | Message 23 of 35 10 August 2010 at 9:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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if i tried to positioning myself as a foreigner of bahasa indonesia, i think indonesian
was a very difficult language to learn. even the indonesians are not too good in "formal indonesian", except the teacher of bahasa indonesia. if you want to have a conversation with people in indonesia, believe me, you don't need grammar at all, because they all are futile. there's so many slang words in indonesia, and each other are different depend on the tribe, and the province of course. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| luncai Diglot Newbie Malaysia Joined 6124 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: Malay*, English Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 24 of 35 11 August 2010 at 10:37am | IP Logged | |||||
"Bahagian" from the verb "bahagi" (to divide) is a common Bahasa Malaysia word; I'm surprised it's not in the dictionary. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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