A Boring (yet Useful) Guide to Indonesian Affixes
Grammar is the great aunt you are obliged to visit for money and candy but secretly despise spending time with. None of us are excited to study the grammar points of a language because it isn’t the fun part, although it is incredibly useful for moving forward in fluency. In Indonesian, there is a fast drop off in pace of learning because of the prevalence of affixes that scatter most every sentence. The purpose of this article is to help other English speakers that are currently oblivious to the grammar points of Indonesian that are fairly important for advancing fluency. I have heard from other colleagues on the Fulbright program that asking their local community for explanation on this aspect of their language has been difficult as they are not used to explaining concepts in their own languages to foreigners. I hope to use this time to explain my understanding of the affixes using a native-English frame of mind. I hope this is helpful to all of you learning Indonesian!
Here we go:
-ber
This is a prefix that is useful in certain situations when trying to take a common noun and transpose it into a verb. Two typical examples of this grammar point at work is the words sepeda (bike) and Bahasa (language). You can easily make these words verbs simply by adding ber- to the word and now you have bersepeda (to cycle) and berbahasa (to speak).
Note: Be careful not to add this to words that are already in their verb form; you will get a few chuckles.
Peng-/pem-/pe-
The best way I can explain this prefix is akin to a reflexive verb in most Latin-based languages. It is a bit like the ending -er in English. For example, to send (kirim) can become pengirim (sender). Jual (sell) can be penjual (seller) as well. This is a relatively straightforward affix and I have been able to make up words where my vocab is lacking using my knowledge of this affix and though there are some caveats (such as the differences between peng, pem and pe, which is based on the beginning letter of the word) it is relatively easy to apply in daily conversations.
-kan
I like to think of this affix as meaning “to cause something to be ______” If I use the word kering (adj. dry) I can combine the root word with the suffix -kan to read keringkan which literally means to make something dry. Without it you may be making the linguistic assumption that your clothes will hang themselves up by themselves. Basically, anytwith hing that requires your effort to create a result, its fairly useful to incorporate this affix.
Me-/meng-/mem-
Another affix that depends on the word and the first letter of the root word, this is usually the first thing you discover as you are flipping through Bahasa Indonesia language books. Every verb seems to start with an m; how could that be possible? Well, the me- part of the word is actually a prefix that in this form, keeps the verb in the neutral form or is a more polite use of the verb. I will use the example from before and use the verb for send. Do you remember it? I’ll let you think…
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.
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Got it?
Kirim. (Write it down! 😊) Well this is actually the regular form of the verb. If you want to be formal or polite, you would say mengirim. The same thing goes for every other verb.
One other important caveat is that the command/imperative form of the verb is always the regular (biasa) form. You would never say “Mengirim ini untuk saya,” but “Kirim ini untuk saya.” In addition, words like traditional dance (tari) are the regular form, while menari specifies the use of the word as a verb.
Ke-/-an
If you’ve taking planes during your time in Indonesian, you may have noticed the uncomfortably long word for departures (kebrangkatan). Well, knowing your affixes clears the confusion up pretty quickly when you realize the root word brangkat means to go and the affixes ke and -an signal a transformation of the word from verb to noun, effectively communicating “departures”. -an is a pretty typical affix to transform verbs and adjectives to nouns such as beda (different) -> bedaan (difference). Fun fact: to turn the root into a verb you use the affix from above: berbeda (to differ). This doesn’t go with all adjectives so you need to pay attention to the way the word is transformed in realtime. But know, that generally -an at the end of a sentence means the word is a noun.
-nya
This last one is arguably the most frequently heard affix in indonsia and you may already know its general meaning. It’s typically used to infer a definite article such as “the” in English. The purpose is to convey that a mentioned object or person is the one you are currently referring to. “Di mana pantainya?” (Where is the beach *that was previously mentioned?) You can also use it in examples of possessive clauses such as “Itu bukunya siswa.” (That’s the student’s book.) However if the second word is moreso used as a pronoun, you may not use -nya. Ex. You would never say “Mau ke pantainya Parangtritis.” (I want to go to Parangtritis beach). You in this case must say “Mau ke pantai Parangtritis.” -nya is also used conversationally to mean something like “What….!” Or “How…!” Ex. “Enaknya!” (How delicious!)
There definitely are more affixes that I have not mentioned and I don’t myself feel like I’ve grasped all of the ones mentioned here fully as they are arguably the hardest part of this language. However, I have a pretty firm understanding of their meaning in context of conversation and I hope that with this article you too begin to pick out in conversation where you notice these affixes most frequently used and learn to mimic people around you. Don’t be afraid to try and use them around Indonesians. It’s a great memorization technique to ask for clarification of a grammar point in order to learn more. Happy studying and I hope you continue to make micro-discoveries of this awesome language!
P.S. I am also a musician/songwriter. You can find my music on Spotify under my Polish name KASIA. Inspirations range from Christina Aguilera, Amy Winehouse, Joni Mitchell to Raveena. ❤
