Learning Indonesian as a Singaporean Chinese
In 2010, I spent a year studying Javanese gamelan in Solo, Central Java. One challenge was the language: being there meant speaking either Indonesian or Javanese.
While the latter is probably better for a student of traditional Javanese arts, I chose to rely on learning Indonesian for communication. I reasoned that the “easier” language would be enough for the time being since my focus was learning music.
Indonesian: The easier language?
What makes a language easier to learn can be subjective, depending on what one already knows.
However, Indonesian is often described as an accessible language to English speakers for its generally consistent pronunciation of its Latin script. The American Foreign Service Institute keeps an oft-cited list that groups languages according to their difficulty for trainees: Indonesian together with Malay, leans towards the easier side of the scale, though considered more challenging than languages that are “more similar to English”.
Its grammar also seems relatively uncomplicated — or perhaps its listeners are more tolerant if a learner cannot command the full range of affixes to its verbs, and will still be able to work out meaning from context.
Indonesian’s ease may be connected to its history: its roots are in Malay, though probably not in Malay’s most literary and courtly forms as found in Sriwijaya and Malacca.
According to Dr George Quinn, Malay was used as a lingua franca throughout the region, borne by traders and religious teachers. It was also one of the Dutch administration languages that was eventually chosen as the national language of the Indonesian republic. I’ve wondered if this emphasis on communication is what contributes to the patient attitude people have had to my imperfect speaking: as long as they get the gist, they generally don’t (outwardly) flinch at an awkward turn of phrase.
Getting there
Setting off before the existence of Google Translate, I was armed with a handy bilingual dictionary, and whatever passing familiarity a Chinese person in Singapore would have with Malay.
Fortunately, once I reached Solo, I found that many social interactions often started with a similar set of questions: how many siblings I had, whether I liked Indonesian food, what was my favourite dish, what I enjoyed about Indonesia and so on. This gave me a chance to prepare and hone my answers — My answer to “kok belum punya pacar” (“why don’t you have a girlfriend”) evolved from an embarrassed giggle to “iya, belum ketemu jodoh dari Tuhan” (“I haven’t been granted a soulmate from God”).
There were also common conversational patterns that help new speakers get the hang of the language. One was the propensity for Indonesian hosts, when offering food, to encourage you to eat it by saying “di sana nggak ada” (“you don’t have it over there [at home]”). Whether or not this is actually true, a conversation usually develops around food and whether one can find rice, tempeh, or other types of Indonesian tubers back home.
On the whole, Solo felt a much more social place than Singapore, with many more opportunities for small interactions between various people — neighbours, classmates, warong shopkeepers and customers, the laundry ladies — and probably a result of being a new face in the area.
There was a lot more casual chatting — which helped me expand my vocabulary and build phrases to use in my own conversations. I kept little notebooks to record phrases that caught my ear to check more completely in the dictionary later. Although these days Google Translate makes things much quicker and easier, there is a certain pleasure in looking through a list of words found from one’s social encounters.
Another helpful move was pasting paper on my walls and writing down useful words and phrases to make memorisation faster. This worked especially well for numbers and certain standard phrases that one uses from time to time: “semoga cepat sembuh” (“get well soon”), “semoga sukses” (“all the best”), “turut berduka cita” (“my condolences”).
The rewards of confusion
To live and study in a country where one is simultaneously learning the language can be challenging. It is like constantly paddling in the sea, trying to stay afloat of every unfamiliar thing and hoping you can keep abreast should a wave of attention come your way.
At times it could be, admittedly, pretty boring: I sometimes found myself stuck helplessly in conversations where the other person went on and on, more intent on my participation rather than my comprehension.
At other times — as a city kid used to finding my way about myself — it was embarrassing to feel so helpless and dependent on friends to bring me around or accompany me to run errands.
In the end, the time and effort to live in another language pays off in many different ways: a greater sense of independence, warmer relationships with those one speaks to, and a confidence that comes from surviving in a place different from home.
Written by Thow Xin Wei
