No doubt that Bahasa Indonesia is one of the easiest languages to master. I don't know much about linguistic and I've never done scientific comparison to other languages, and maybe I could be bias since it's my native language, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. I mean, how hard can it be? Without any reference to time in the grammar, such as present, past, future, and without reference to gender, it couldn't be that hard. We use Romans alphabet, we use a loooot of adapted English words, there is no specific tone, and to make it even simpler, there's only one rule for plurality: repeat the word twice. There is also no strict grammar rules with regards to what comes first.
Here is an example of three sentences saying the same thing:
Saya makan kemarin. (Word to word translation: I eat yesterday. Notice there's no past tense form in the verb "eat")
Kemarin saya makan. (Yesterday I eat)
Saya kemarin makan. (I yesterday eat)
An example used by my Bahasa Indonesia teacher when I was in middle school:
Kucing makan tikus mati kemarin di dapur. (Cat eat mouse dead yesterday in the kitchen)
Depending on how you say it, it can mean the following things below:
A cat ate a dead rat yesterday in the kitchen.
A cat is eating, a rat died yesterday in the kitchen.
A cat that ate a rat died yesterday in the kitchen.
A cat is eating a rat that died yesterday in the kitchen.
And there is this well-known TV commercial in Indonesia about "minyak kayu putih" which is an oil from leucadendron tree which you rub on your stomach, chest, or back to reduce nausea or to bring comfort during a cold or flu. And they wanted to promote using it for kids, so they came up with a slogan:
Buat anak kok coba-coba.
Which may mean two things:
Why would you experiment things on your kids. (Use their well-known brand) OR
Why would you experiment making babies.
So, as we can see learning and using Bahasa Indonesia can be "gampang-gampang susah" which literally means "easy easy hard." Hahaha... it's easy to learn I guess, but as it is with any other languages, it would take time to master.
And so this is the end of my very short lesson on Bahasa Indonesia. Now, go find a real language instructor to actually learn something useful ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment