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 pitfalls 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 slightly 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

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Diphthongs

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Consonants (the easy part)

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Source: www.seasite.niu.edu

If you can keep up with the pace, within one week you will be more functional than the average expat is after two months of slaving over phrase and grammar books. Have fun and don’t forget to practice.

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Source: www.seasite.niu.edu

Learn five more useful nouns and five more verbs from a reliable phrase book, dictionary, or the word lists in the Appendix.

You should be at the stage now where you can teach someone a little English. Try it!

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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

Source: www.seasite.niu.edu

Learn at least five new nouns and five new verbs that are useful to you. These phrases aren’t guaranteed get you a better room at the Wisma Delima, for that you need a teacher or more time with a phrase book. These phrases, though will ensure that you won’t go hungry on your fifth day.

Before heading out for the day, memorize a couple of new words you will need to know for the day’s activities. Write them down and give youself a quiz. Bring the paper you wrote them down on.

You should have noticed by now that many foreign, especially English, words are commonly used by Indonesians: hotel, taxi, film, bank, photocopy, photo, beer, restaurant, McDonald’s and toilet will likely be understood. Be on the lookout for these words in advertisements and other signs. It’s an easy way to add to your vocabulary. A more extensive list of these similar words is provided on the next page.

^{Click on the word to hear it pronounced.}

Source: www.seasite.niu.edu

When spoken, prices are usually in thousands and hundreds (for example Rp. 10,500 is ten thousand, five hundred). Understanding numbers when spoken takes some practice. Another perplexity is that when discussing prices, often the units are omitted. If a figurine is quoted to you as “Enam (six)” and you don’t know for certain whether they are talking about six thousand or six million, you probably shouldn’t be shopping there.

The basic one-to-nine numbers are handy for spelling out addresses and giving shoe sizes. These are usually spelled out as in 147 (satu-empat-tujuh for one-four-seven). Don’t worry about the hundreds and thousands, it’s only your fourth day.

An Australian mate of ours managed to successfully bargain for goods in Bali using only the numbers from one to five. This approach is not recommended.

^{Click on the word to hear it pronounced.}

Source: www.seasite.niu.edu

Indonesians are very good at helping you get over culture shock. They like to chat and find out about people and to tell you about themselves.

You will be stopped on the street and asked your age, name and address. Don’t take it too seriously and you don’t have to give a straight answer. These are simply polite questions, to answer “Where are you going?”, “Over there.”, “Ke sana” is good enough.

^{Click on the word to hear it pronounced.}

Source:

• www.seasite.niu.edu

Street names and addresses are rarely sufficient to get you where you are going in Jakarta unless you are going to a very well known building, hotel or shopping center. Remember to learn the local pronunciation of your hotel or street, you may need it to get back home. Many place and street names are derived from English or other languages, but sometimes they are not pronounced as you would expect. For example, the “Hotel Orchid” is pronounced Ortchid and “Golf” usually has two syllables (Gol-ef).

The best way of giving directions in a taxi is to mention the neighborhood (Kebayoran Baru, Blok M, Jalan Thamrin, Kemang, Pondok Indah etc.) and the street. If there are any tricky turns before you get there, you may want to mention that, too. Don’t fall asleep on the ride. Lacking specific instructions, drivers often take you in circles.

^{Click on the word to hear it pronounced.}

Source: www.seasite.niu.edu

Any conversation beyond the vocabulary here assumes that you know more about the language than you actually do. This may put you on the receiving end of a long monologue to which you are expected to nod and make the occasional non-committal response.

^{Click on the word to hear it pronounced.}

Source : www.seasite.niu.edu

I have yet to encounter a structured, functional approach to learning Bahasa Indonesia [Note from SEASite: The text used in NIU's Indonesian classes, Bahasa Tetanggaku by Ian J. White (Longman: Melbourne, Australia), is "a notional-functional course" in Indonesian; another well-known text is Beginning Indonesian through Self-Instruction by John U. Wolff (SEAP, Cornell University: Ithaca, NY)] . 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.

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

Source: seasite.niu.edu – Indonesian in 7 Days Page