Indonesian/Essential words and easy words
This might be a useful resource for teachers, or someone designing a course. The ideal way to introduce these words would be through examples; the very easy words can be introduced incidentally, without requesting the student to memorize it. This encourages the student, by giving them something they can discover and understand without it being spelled out.
Essential words
[edit | edit source]These are very common words - learn these early on and it will make understanding and learning easier.
| Indonesian | English | Suggested association |
|---|---|---|
| sudah | already | Indonesian has no "tense" - words such as sudah and belum are used instead. |
| belum | not yet | |
| lagi | again; (happening) now | |
| ada | there is; present |
Easy words
[edit | edit source]| Indonesian | English | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| sarung | sarong | (sarong is the Malaysian form) |
| nama | name | |
| orang | person | Orang hutan ("orang utan" in English) means forest person. |
| hutan | forest | Orang hutan ("orang utan" in English) means forest person. |
| bir | beer | |
| matahari | sun | Heard of the famous spy Mata Hari? She took her name from Malay. |
| mata | eye | mata hari means eye of the day |
| hari | day | mata hari means eye of the day |
| lampu | lamp or light | |
| kecap | soy sauce | |
| sekolah | school | |
| nasional | national | Indonesian has many words which have come from Dutch - some are very similar to the English equivalents. |
| kulkas | refrigerator | Sounds like "cool case". Another Dutch word. |
| bakteria | bacteria | Many medical and scientific words are similar to the English word - with practice, you can often guess them. |
| guru | teacher | Any teacher is a "guru" - so a school teacher is a guru sekolah. One of dozens or hundreds of Sanskrit words. |
| mantra | Magical prayer, for example by a dukun (shaman) | from Sanskrit |
Speakers of other languages
[edit | edit source]If the learner speaks:
- Portuguese (or Spanish),
- Dutch (or Flemish)
- Sanskrit (or Hindi or Urdu)
- Chinese (Mandarin? Hokkien?), or
- Arabic
then they can find some words they might recognize at Wikipedia:List of loan words in Indonesian.
If you do yoga and know some Sanskrit terms, you may recognize some words such as:
- "gajah" meaning elephant
- "surya" meaning sun