Before I used to speak Frenglish, now I just speak Bahaglish.
Yep, that's right after 2 month in Indonesia I was finally able to understand an entire text message from my ojek Kiki (motorcycle chauffeur) that had at least 3 sentences. How 'bout that?
In my opinion, bahasa Indonesia is a pretty fun language to learn. For example to make plurals, Indonesian just say the word twice: anak is a kid, anak-anak is kids. Another logical component of the language is, let's say rumah is room: rumah makan (literally room and eat) is restaurant, rumah sakit (room and sick) is hospital and so on...
Also, there are no conjugaison, everything is in imperative present form. Altough words like yesterday (kemarin) or tomorrow (besok) exist, everything here is deeply rooted in the present...
Another funny thing about he language is to say I like to eat you say Miss Caroline suka makanan. In other words Indonesians very often will use the third person singular ( as if you're talking about someone else) to refer to themselves. haha.
Having a maid and an ojek that don't know a word of English or French definitely helped me improve faster. I bet many of you are still thinking "people must speak a little English in a capital of 10,000,000 people, Caroline is exaggerating". WRONG, wrong, wrong, and yes it does get on my nerves OFTEN. On the positive side, as an English speaking teacher to French kids it helps me understand their highly expressive distress, irritation and annoyance they have with me by the end of a regular school day.
To finish, some words that have been very useful in my daily life so far are:
Hujan : rain, Saya perlu : I need, Makanan: to eat, Baik baik: I'm good, Aba kapar?: How are you?, jam berapa? what time...?, saya capek: I'm tired, saya sakit sidikit: I'm a little sick, saya suka gado-gado: I like gado-gado (typical vegetable dish), ya, bisa: yes, I can, tolong camu bisa beli: can you please buy...? Baggus: good (in it's all good), and my favourite ... tidak gawat : No big deal!
I am in Bukit Lawang as I am writing... in a super small internet place among the Orang-Outang. I am on vacation and having therefore a lot of time to realize how much I am missing my friends and family.
With L.o.v.e, C-
We miss you too copine!
ReplyDeletepas mieux..
ReplyDeleteMy australian expat once said, to learn bahasa you just need to memorize 500 verbs, nouns and adjectives, and you mix it together into one sentence. Bahasa doesn't have complicated grammar like french does. That's why it's easy for english speakers or french speakers to learn bahasa. C'est la raison pour laquelle, it's hard for Indonesians to learn english, let alone french. :)
ReplyDeleteBtw, Rumah is not room, it's house
To eat is makan, while makanan is food. Makanan is a derivated noun from makan. V+an = noun, that's the general rule. Minum-Minuman, Belanja (to shop)- belanjaan (stuffs that you bought). Comme ci comme ca...