I’ve heard some exaggerated claims like, “Every word is pronounced exactly how it’s spelled,” or “Each letter is always pronounced the same way.” That’s normally true, but it’s not always the case.
Posts tagged as “indonesian”
The Dutch East Indies, or Netherlands East Indies, was formed as a colony of the Netherlands in 1800 when the country nationalized the Dutch East…
I still remember very vividly the moment I became hooked on the study of Indonesia and on the mystery of translation between Indonesian and English.…
Corporate and public organisations now operate on a global scale. Whether dealing with an overseas client, colleague or supplier, or exploring a new business partnership.…
Indonesian has thousands of words that resemble English words. Lots of them serve an obvious purpose: they fill a gap in the vocabulary. Examples of these are…
If words are flesh and grammar is bones, then the flesh of Indonesian has an unmistakable English flavour by now. What you might not know…
The basic sentence in Indonesian is often said to consist of a “topic” (the thing or person that is the beginning point for what you…
Whether you’re living in Indonesia or just on holiday there, some of your most useful phrases will be formulas to ask for things – goods, services and…
On my first trip to Indonesia twenty years ago, I arrived in the village of Ubud in Bali and was sitting in my losmen. Two…
Posted by ‘The Indonesian Way’, a textbook for the Indonesian language by George Quinn and Uli Kozok. Expressions of disagreement are often prefaced with an…
How did Arabic loanwords end up in Indonesian?1 Various answers to this intriguing question have been put forward in an effort to trace the long road these…
Most Indonesians are Muslims. Many follow the orthodox requirement to pray to God five times a day. Before praying you must prepare yourself physically and…