Table of Contents

Introduction

I have yet to encounter a structured, functional approach to learning Bahasa Indonesia. Phrase books confront the linguistic novice with a barrage of special purpose phrases ("Is the play a comedy or a tragedy?"). They are often badly organized into social situations (going to the market, at customs) where you are likely to have neither the time nor the inclination to be fumbling around with a silly little phrase book even if you did bring it with you, which is highly improbable. With these books, you can either memorize several hundred phrases that may or may not have an application. Or you can keep the book in your pocket and hope that your fingers are fast enough to find the phrase for "turn left here" before the taxi takes you completely out of town in a straight line.

Grammar books and dictionaries, although fine for a long-term study of the language, are even more of a hindrance in taxis and at the supermarket checkout. Language tapes also have their place in learning to communicate but this approach requires time and effort to achieve practical results.

What is required for the short-term visitor and even for the newly arrived longer-term expatriates is a list of common, useful and necessary words and phrases grouped into bite-sized quantities so the most important ones can be learned and used first.

The most useful phrase book I have found is Indonesian Words and Phrases by the American Women's Association. It provides some very important basic concepts and I recommend it highly but no one wants to memorize an entire book the first day in a new country. The following lists of words, organized by day, should help you to get through your first week while you are making plans for more extensive language training.

Optional words in the following vocabulary tables are provided in square brackets and correspond between columns (for example, [pagi | siang | sore | malam] = [morning | day | afternoon | evening]; pagi is morning, etc.). Fill-in-the-blank words (...) may be substituted from any handy phrase book or the word list in Appendix 3.

The appendices include a guide to pronunciation, help with finding words in the dictionary and a short essential word list.

Day 1. Being Polite

Day 2. The Taxi

Day 3. More Politeness

Day 4. Numbers

Day 5. Simple Sentences

Day 6. Asking Questions

The words in the following table are similar in both English and bahasa Indonesia. They may not be the most precise pronunciation and spelling but they will be understood by most people.

Similar Words in Both Languages

Day 7. Leftovers

Appendix 1. Guide to Pronunciation

With this simple guide, the novice speaker of Indonesian should be able to avoid most of the traps of basic communication.

RULES

• Most letters have only one pronunciation thereby avoiding the problems of English in which we are forced to memorize when an "a" is long (fall), short (fat), or some other manifestation (fate). That's one reason the bahasa Indonesia approximations to foreign words often appear strange at first sight--"bureau" becomes biro--but then you realize the Indonesian spelling is much more logical.
• The only letter that has two distinct pronounciations is "e". Usually it is pronounced as an "uh" sound, like "a" in "sofa". Sometimes it takes on an "ay" sound like "a" in "make". Common words using the "ay" sound are besok (tomorrow), merah (red) and restoran. Sometimes, the "e" is hardly pronounced (selamat becomes slamat).
• One of the main pitfall in pronunciation is the use of the letter "c" in bahasa Indonesia. The letter "c" is always pronounced as "ch" in "check". Another hazard is that "ngg" is a very different sound from "ng". See the Pronunciation Guide below for more details.
• There is a slight accented syllable that is either the last or next to last depending upon which book you believe. In my experience, Jakartans try to put the emphasis on the last syllable. For example, asking for em-ping' will likely get you a bowl of crispy chips. Asking, on the other hand, for em'-ping will get you a blank stare. When in doubt, try to pronounce the word monotonically--no emphasis is better than a wrong one.
• A "k" at the end of a word is pronounced as a glottal stop and if you don't know what that is, you're better off ignoring the terminating "k" altogether. The honorific Pak ("Mister" or "Father") sounds altogether unpleasant when pronounced like "pack", "pock", or the Bonanza standard "Pa". In actual fact, it's more like the sound you make when trying to blow a floating feather in someone else's direction.
• A double "a" as in maaf ("excuse me") is pronounced with a slight glottal stop between the vowels. You can get away with a slight pause (like ma af) but never simply maf.
• In bahasa Indonesia, some consonants ("b", "p", "t", "d", "v") have much softer sounds. Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between "b" and "d", "p" and "t", etc.

PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

Vowels

Diphthongs

Consonants (the easy part)

APPENDIX 2. How to Find Words in the Dictionary

Note that some root words really do begin with what appear to be prefixes: belanja, pergi, beri, kepala, kelapa, etc. They are usually common words. When in doubt, look up the entire word first.

Table A-1. Determining the Root of "me" and "pe" Words

Appendix 3: Word List

Some grammatical notes:

 

n	noun
v	verb
prep	preposition
adj	adjective
adv	adverb
int	interjection