Palembang/Why learn Palembang?

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Why Learn Palembang

Hi, welcome to this Palembang tutorial.

You might be wondering why on earth you should learn Palembang. Allow me to persuade you.

Demographic Reasons

Studying Palembang will ease your language barrier when you visiting some regions in Sumatra (most notably in the provinces of South Sumatra, Jambi, and Bengkulu). Therefore, learning Palembang gives access to about 10 million people. Palembang is important when you had planning to build or expand your business in South Sumatra or Palembang specifically.

Linguistic Reasons

Palembang is relatively easy—honest! Learning it is a valuable experience in itself, and what's more: you can pick up the basics within a few weeks. Here's why it is easy:

• No tenses. Palembang has no tenses at all. Adding time indicators (like yesterday, next week, etc.) and aspect markers (done, in the process of, will, etc.) into your sentences will do.
• Optional plurals. Unlike in say, German, plurals are very simple in Palembang, but also optional. You only need to repeat the noun (e.g. wong → wong-wong), or adding quantitative indicators (e.g. many, few) into the sentence (e.g. wong galo → all people).
• Uses the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet, which means that there is no need to relearn the alphabet, or use special software to type.
• Unique spelling. Palembang is very phonetic, just like French. Every character is uniquely spelled similar to the French language, with few exceptions. When you encounter a new word, you will always be able to pronounce it correctly.

I hope now you can see why Palembang is worth learning.

The Catch

Now, the catch is that every language has a culture attached to it. Palembang is no exception. Since the way Palembang people think differs from most westerners, there are some hurdles in learning it. For example, most western people prefer active sentences, while Palembangese usually prefer passive sentences and omit the subject if it is not important.

Also, in spoken Palembang, the formal grammatical rules are often broken by lots of shortcuts, usually specific to the region, not to mention slang words and idioms. However, all Palembangese that have finished grade school should be able to speak and comprehend proper Palembang.