Bridging the Gap

Ever since I came to work in Indonesia, I have been trying my darndest to learn to speak and write in Bahasa Indonesia. It took me about a month to be able to speak at least a smattering of Bahasa Indonesia to get me thru my day. Using my handy Inggris-Bahasa-Inggris kamus (that's dictionary to you), I used to write down at least 10 words that I don't understand, look up their meaning, and using these 10 words the following day in my conversation. Two months of studying the language, I find myself still groping for words to express my self. The hardest part for me was how to construct the sentences. Bahasa Indonesia has no tenses and usually the structure is the reverse in English. A lot of words are almost the same as in Tagalog so it wouldn't seem to hard to at least be able to communicate, although in "barok" style. So for you trying to learn Bahasa Indonesia, below are my 10 words for the day:

1. pagi -morning ("selamat pagi" means good morning)
2. siang -afternoon
3. malam- evening
4. apa kabar? - how are you?
5. terima kasih - thank you
6. sama- sama - welcome (could also mean together)
7. berapa - how many?
8. harga -price
9. harganya berapa - how much?
10. mahal/mura - expensive/cheap


Hope this will get you started in learning Bahasa Indonesia.

Sukses!