07 Jan 10 Indonesian English Dictionary

Indonesian English Dictionary – General Issue

When you learn Indonesian language, it is very important that you have a good Indonesian English dictionary to help you in your Indonesian learning. However for those who already have one, sometimes it is confusing and even frustrating to look up those Indonesian words in the Indonesian English dictionary. You have no idea how to find the Indonesian words in the dictionary. And you start wondering if the Indonesian English dictionary you have is a good one. If it is, why can’t you find the Indonesian words you are looking for?

Indonesian English Dictionary

For example, you are trying to find the meaning of the word “membawa” in an Indonesian English dictionary. You start opening the pages of ‘m’, hoping to see the word ‘membawa’. But after a while you still can not find the word. What is going on here? What did you do wrong? Why can’t you find the word ‘membawa’ in the pages of the first letter of ‘m’? If you’ve been in this situation before, and still have no clue of how to use the Indonesian English dictionary to look up the Indonesian words, let me help you how to find the Indonesian words in the Indonesian English dictionary.

The Fact About Indonesian English dictionary

The first rule to use the Indonesian English dictionary when trying to find a certain Indonesian word is that you have to take the root word first instead of the full word. For instance, when you are trying to find the word ‘membawa’, try to find out what the root word of the word you’re looking for. In this case, the root word of ‘membawa’ is ‘bawa’. Therefore you have to open the pages of the first letter ‘b’, instead of ‘m’, to find the word ‘bawa’ and there you will find the full word of ‘membawa’.

The same rule applies to when you’re trying to find the meaning of other Indonesian words containing prefixes, such as ber-, meng-, men-, ter-, ke-, mem-, me-, peng-, pem-, and other prefixes. But the question is now: How to know the root word of each Indonesian word with prefixes? The only answer to this question is to learn some basic Indonesian grammar, and that way you can easily recognize the root words of all Indonesian words with prefixes. Therefore it is indeed essential to learn some basic Indonesian grammar so that you can use your Indonesian English dictionary effectively.

All the Indonesian words listed in the Indonesian English dictionary are listed according to their root words, instead of the full words, therefore you need to understand of how to break those full Indonesian words with prefixes to get the root words. And the only way to do this is by learning the Indonesian grammar.

Unfortunately most Indonesian English dictionaries don’t tell nor teach the users exactly of how to find those Indonesian words with prefixes in the dictionaries themselves. It is assumed that all users are familiar of how to use the Indonesian English dictionaries. And this has made many English speakers who are learning Indonesian feel frustrated and confused.

How to Use Indonesian English dictionary

Below you can find some useful tips on how to separate Indonesian words into prefixes and root words so that you can take only the root words.

For the words beginning with the prefix ‘mem-‘, just omit the prefix, and you’ll get the root word. For example, the root word of ‘membawa’ is ‘bawa’.

For the words beginning with the prefix ‘men-‘, just omit the prefix, and you’ll get the root word. For example, the root word of ‘mendapat’ is ‘dapat’. However there are also some words beginning with ‘men-‘ which you have to replace the prefix ‘men’ with ‘t’, and you’ll get the root word. For example, the root word of ‘menaruh’ is ‘taruh’.

For the words beginning with the prefix ‘meny-‘, just replace the prefix with an ‘s’, and you’ll get the root word. For example, the root word of ‘menyisir’ is ‘sisir’.

And there are still other similar rules regarding other prefixes which are easy to understand.

After you understand the above rules, you can easily use your Indonesian English dictionary more effectively.

21 Nov 09 Indonesian Grammar

Do I need to learn Indonesian Grammar?

By: Indonesianlanguage.net

Having trouble with your Indonesian grammar lately? Confused on the right words to choose, or not really sure when to use the right punctuation, and sometimes your subject and your verb just does not come in agreement with each other. Do you often find yourself getting caught up with those Indonesian grammar dilemmas? Actually when you learn Indonesian, you can forget learning about the grammar if your only goal is to be able to converse in Indonesian. Therefore it is highly suggested that beginners should not learn Indonesian grammar at all (which can be confusing sometimes) at the early stages of the Indonesian learning process since we can still communicate in Indonesian even when you hardly know anything about Indonesian grammar.The Indonesians rarely use the proper grammar in their daily conversation. The Indonesians only use the proper Indonesian grammar in their formal writing or any formal occasions, such as news broadcast or formal speech. Therefore rather than worrying about your grammar issues and wasting your valuable time and effort on checking errors with your Indonesian sentences, why not consider getting more vocabularies and phrases mostly used in daily conversation? That way you can communicate in Indonesian more quickly.

However if you intend to learn in depth Indonesian language, including the writing Indonesian language, you’ll need to learn about the Indonesian grammar as well, especially for those in the intermediate and advanced level. The knowledge about Indonesian grammar includes the knowledge about suffixes and prefixes and how to form different words with different meanings with those suffixes and prefixes.

Examples of Indonesian Grammar

Unlike the English language, Indonesian grammar is much more simple and easy to understand, though it might seem confusing in the later stages. However many English speakers can succeed speaking in Indonesian quite well even though they never really learn Indonesian grammar formally.

Below are some examples of how different suffixes and prefixes can form a new word with different meaning:

Adjective	Noun	Verb
Kuat (strong)	Kekuatan (strength)	Menguatkan (strengthen)
Aman (safe)	Keamanan (safety)	Mengamankan (save)
Ragu-ragu (doubtful)	Keraguan (doubt)	Meragukan (doubt)
Bersih (clean)	Kebersihan (cleanliness)	Membersihkan (clean)
Puas (satisfied)	Kepuasan (satisfaction)	Memuaskan (satisfy)

Indonesian Grammar

So actually it is not difficult at all to learn about the Indonesian grammar. All you need is only the key and formula and lots of practice and practice.

For the intermediate and advanced learners, it is necessary to learn about the Indonesian grammar which is mostly used in formal Indonesian language, such as in newspapers, magazines, news broadcast (either on television or in radio) and speech. At the end of the session, the learners should be able to compose a formal Indonesian composition or speech. They should also be able to read newspapers and magazines which use very formal Indonesian language.

So Indonesian grammar is just a tiny part of the Indonesian language which shouldn’t scare you off at all.

For further info, please check my other tip on: