Friday, August 21, 2009

#2 Pronouns

Please read and or listen to the following conversation:

Ridwan: Halo(Hello)
Yudhi: Halo (Hello)

Ridwan: Permisi, siapa nama kamu? (Excuse me, what is your name. Lit: Excuse me, who name you)

Yudhi: Nama saya Yudhi, kamu? (My name is Yudhie, and you. Lit: name of me Yudhie, you?)
Ridwan: Saya Ridwan Kurnia, panggil saja saya Ridwan. (I am Ridwan Kurnia, you can call me Ridwan. Lit: I Ridwan Kurnia, just call me Ridwan).

Yudhi: Senang berjumpa dengan kamu, Ridwan! Selamat datang di Jakarta (Nice to meet you, Ridwan! Welcome to Jakarta. Lit: Happy to meet with you, Ridwan! Welcome in Jakarta)

Ridwan: Saya juga. Terimakasih (me too. Thanks).


After reading and or listening this conversation, you’ll be able to start to identify some of the pronouns in Bahasa Indonesia. In all, here they are:

Saya (sometimes aku) = I, me, myself
Kamu (sometimes anda in a very formal way) = you
Kita = inclusive we
Kami = exculsive we
Mereka = they
Dia = she or he or it.

In bahasa, the pronouns don’t change regardless of its function or position. For example: saya can be used as I, my or mine.

Saya Yudi Kristanto (I am Yudi Kristanto)
Nama saya Yudi Kristanto (My name is Yudi Kristanto)
Panggil saja saya Yudi (Just call me Yudi).

Special case for dia (he/she/it), the form of its, her or his become a suffix –nya. For example: her house (rumah dia (it may also, but more often with: rumahnya)

Now do this exercise: Write these sentences into Bahasa
We are (inclusive) doctors.
You are a singer.
She is a Christian
My uncle is a soldier.
Her father called them to her house.
Vocabulary guide: doctors (dokter), singer (penyanyi), Christian (Kristen), a (seorang; es. to indicate person), uncle (paman), soldier (tentara), called (memanggil), house (rumah). Please post the answers as a comment or an e-mail.

Audio format: here

2 comments:

  1. Translation exercise:
    Kita dokter.
    Kamu seorang penyanyi.
    Dia seorang Kristen.
    Paman saya seorang tentara.
    Ayahnya memanggil mereka ke rumahnya.

    I had to look up the words for "father" (ayah) and "to" (ke).

    Suggestion: Dialog is a good way to teach. Because we cannot print in two columns, with Bahasa on left and English on right, I think it might be better for this blog to first show the dialog completely in Bahasa, and then after, to show it in English, not with the English in () after the Bahasa for each line. The reason is, when I am listening to you read the dialog in Bahasa, it is hard to visually skip over the English in parentheses. I would like to see just the Bahasa dialog, then after it, the English translation. This is how it is done in the best Audio/Visual method of teaching foreign languages. You are on the right track. Thanks for this lesson.

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  2. Great job! and brilliant suggestion! Thanks.. You got it perfect for the translation. There is no mistake. Congratulations! :)

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