When I was little, I always hated getting in trouble at a friend’s house.
Something about being in a slightly unfamiliar environment made the feeling of shame and embarrassment ten times worse.
It’s kind of the same when you have to apologize for something in a foreign language, right?
You’re completely out of your comfort zone, to begin with, and now you’ve gone and messed something up to the point where you’ve got to rely on your language skills to get you out of trouble, and say sorry in the Indonesian language.
Lucky for you, if you land into trouble in Indonesia, you’ve already got an advantage.
Indonesians are extremely accommodating and are more often than not perfectly willing to let an altercation go without so much as a raised voice.
But you don’t want to just rely on the goodness of others, do you? You want to do the right thing and own up to your mistakes. As you learn to say sorry in Indonesian, lessons like this one will greatly benefit you!
To that end, here are the words, phrases, and grammar you’ll need to pull off a flawless apology in Indonesian. Start with a bonus, and download your FREE cheat sheet – How to Improve Your Indonesian Skills! (Logged-In Member Only)
- Saying Sorry for Small Things: The Magic Word Maaf
- Saying Sorry for Big Things
- Everything’s Okay: How to Accept an Apology
- When to Apologize in Indonesian Culture? Hint: All The Time.
- Conclusion
1. Saying Sorry for Small Things: The Magic Word Maaf
As you learn how to say sorry in Indonesian, vocabulary is the first step. The simplest word for apologizing is maaf. As you may recall, the doubled letter means that you pronounce it with a little hitch in your voice, like in the English word “uh-oh.”
The word originally comes from the Arabic word mu’aaf, which means “exempt.” Over time, the word entered Malay, and eventually Indonesian.
It’s pretty versatile for four little letters! Let’s take a look at some of the ways it can be used.
1- As an Exclamation
When you learn how to say sorry in Indonesian language, simple apologies are a good place to start. If you bump into someone, you can say something like this:
- Oh! Maaf!
“Oh! Excuse me!”
And just like the English phrase “excuse me,” which has a few meanings, you can also use maaf to get someone’s attention. Not always, though. The cultural norms here run pretty deep, so let’s break down what it means.
You use maaf to ask for attention when the person is your superior. In a class, for instance, students will usually prefix their questions with maaf, and they’ll certainly do so if they’re about to go use the bathroom or take a phone call.
There’s another word, permisi, which also means “sorry,” “excuse me,” and “please let me by.” You use permisi to get attention from a serviceperson, or in other words, in a situation when you’re expected to need the attention or service of others.
Here, you can see how to use it in a restaurant:
- Permisi! Minta bill ya.
“Excuse me! I’d like the bill please.”
And now compare how you’d use maaf:
- Maaf, tapi saya tidak pesan ini.
“Sorry, but I didn’t order this.”
2- With Particles
We already mentioned oh, maaf, but you can also use the particle ya, placed after the word, to indicate that the thing you’re apologizing for was a little bit serious (but there’s really no harm done).
- Kok, lupa membawa surat. Maaf ya.
“Whoops, I forgot to bring the letter. Sorry!”
This same ya is occasionally replaced by loh, particularly in informal written dialogue.
It sounds perfectly natural once or twice, but make sure you don’t add in the particle when something serious has gone wrong. The implication is that you’ll either fix the mistake, or that it wasn’t a big deal to begin with.
The particle ya can also be directly attached to the English word “sorry,” usually spelled sori in Indonesian to reflect its pronunciation. It’s even less serious than maaf ya!
3- As a Verb or Noun
By itself, maaf simply means “excuse” or something like “freedom from punishment.”
Just like most words in Indonesian, maaf can be made into a verb or noun with the careful use of prefixes. There’s a number of obscure words that can be made with the wide variety of Indonesian prefixes out there, but you only really need to know one.
When learning how to say sorry in Indonesian, grammar is essential. So here’s a tip: By adding the me- prefix and the -kan suffix, we get memaafkan, “to excuse.”
- Saya tidak akan memaafkan kamu.
“I’m not going to forgive you.”
Note that this doesn’t mean “to apologize.” For that, we use the phrase minta maaf, or literally “ask for forgiveness.” It’s most often paired with the two prepositions kepada and atas, which both have many meanings, but mean “to someone” and “for something” in this context. Let’s see how to say sorry in Indonesian phrases with some examples:
- Saya harus minta maaf kepada istriku.
“I have to apologize to my wife.” - Dia minta maaf atas apa yang dia melakukan.
“He apologized for what he did.”
The polite and humble way to say “I apologize” (as opposed to “I’m sorry,” which is less serious) is simply Saya minta maaf. Adding mau, meaning “want,” helps it even further, in the way that you can say “I would like to apologize,” in English.
- Saya mau minta maaf kepada kamu.
“I want to apologize to you.”
Let’s get a little more serious for a moment.
2. Saying Sorry for Big Things
It turns out that maaf works well all the way up the politeness scale, beyond “I’m sorry” in Indonesian.
To make it more serious, we’ll add a few more words to the sentence.
- Saya benar-benar minta maaf.
“I’m truly sorry.”
Benar means “truly” or “seriously.” Doubling it, or “reduplicating” in linguistic terms, intensifies the word. The effect is far more genuine than saying “I’m really, really sorry” in English. By the way, some people spell the word bener, but that’s looked down on as incorrect.
We can also swap out the word minta for the word mohon, meaning “to beg.” They mean almost exactly the same thing, but mohon is a more formal word associated with speechmaking and writing.
- Saya mohon maaf atas kesalahan saya.
“I beg forgiveness for my mistakes.”
Indonesian is relatively special among world languages in that it doesn’t have a wide set of vocabulary to express different levels of the word “apologize.” Instead, there are additional phrases around a single root word.
For instance, there’s a particular formal phrase used in religious ceremonies related to apologies, and it still includes that same word maaf.
- Mohon maaf lahir dan batin.
“I apologize for my life and soul.”
You wouldn’t use this outside of religious contexts, which means it’s not actually an apology that you can use in daily life. It does appear on greeting cards for Ramadan, though!
So when things get more serious in terms of what you did wrong, it’s important to own up to your own faults and specifically say what your mistakes were.
Spell them out explicitly and use the same words we’ve been looking at, and you’ll see that you come across as a lot more serious and humble.
- Saya mohon maaf atas kesalahpahaman hari ini.
“I apologize for the misunderstanding today.”
Kesalahpahaman, meaning “misunderstanding,” is one of my favorite words in Indonesian because it looks so different from its English counterpart yet ends up meaning exactly the same thing.
Salah means “wrong” and paham means “to understand.” The circumfix (a prefix plus a suffix) ke-an creates a noun from a root word, very much like “to understand” can become “an understanding” with the addition of a suffix in English.
Put all that together and you have a “misunderstanding!” This word is commonly used in speeches and newspaper reports, as it’s nice and long and impressive.
- Saya bertanggung jawab atas semuanya.
“I am responsible for everything.”
The ber- prefix here is a little bit hard to translate, and you’d be better off consulting a more complete grammar guide if it’s completely new to you.
Essentially, you’re saying that you have or possess whatever’s attached to that prefix. And in this case, that’s tanggung jawab, a set phrase meaning “responsibility.”
One word or two, that phrase is often paired with untuk or atas, meaning “for,” to explain, well, what you’re responsible for.
With this example, you’re responsible for semuanya or “everything!” That’s a lot of responsibility! It doesn’t take any changes to the phrase, though, to lessen that burden.
- Saya bertanggung jawab untuk keterlambatan paket.
“I am responsible for the package’s delay.”
Let’s have a look at what you can do to convince others that you’ve turned over a new leaf. You can’t just say you’re sorry and then keep on doing the same old things.
- Saya tidak akan melakukan hal ini lagi.
“I won’t do this thing again.”
We can, of course, bring in benar-benar at any time to really make our feelings clear.
Lagi means “again” and can be used for things happening again in the past or the future.
- Saya lupa mematikan lampu dan AC lagi!
“I forgot to turn off the light and the air-con again!”
This should keep you in the clear through whatever mistakes you might have made.
3. Everything’s Okay: How to Accept an Apology
Now, though, let’s look at a few cases where you’re on the opposite end of the apology. What can you say?
The catch-all phrase, interestingly enough, is very close to its English equivalent.
- Tidak apa-apa.
“It’s nothing.”
Tidak is one of a handful of commonly used words meaning “not.” This word, and this particular phrase, are so common that they often get shortened in rapid speech.
- Gapapa.
“No prob’.”
Very formally, you can respond to a request for forgiveness in the affirmative. Remember that we can turn maaf into a verb meaning “to forgive” like so:
- Saya maafkan Anda.
“I forgive you.”
No big deal!
4. When to Apologize in Indonesian Culture? Hint: All The Time.
It’s kind of a joke among foreigners living in Indonesia: in order to do anything politely, you have to first apologize for existing. Saying sorry in Indonesian culture is just a part of life.
Virtually every email or letter that makes a formal request will include the word maaf to show deference on the part of the person making the request.
And at the end of speeches or presentations, it’s customary to apologize for any misinformation or mistakes you may have inadvertently included.
- …terima kasih. Saya minta maaf atas kesalahan apapun.
“…thank you. I’d like to apologize for any mistakes.”
If you happen to be employed as a teacher, you may even feel frustrated as your students apologize for asking questions! Then again, teachers leading classes of foreigners have to get used to students simply asking without any formality.
- Maaf Pak, tapi saya mau tanya…
“Excuse me, sir, but I’d like to ask…”
Lastly, when you take your leave from a group, you’ll have to apologize as well. In some cultures, it’s normal to say something when you’re heading off, and in others no special phrase is necessary. But in Indonesia, it’s expected that you’ll say:
- Maaf, saya akan pergi.
“Sorry, I’m gonna go.”
What if you don’t follow this? What are the consequences?
The thing is, Indonesians are almost never going to correct you for missing this cultural cue. However, you run the risk of slowly being perceived as ruder and ruder over time. People probably won’t be able to articulate why they think you’re not fitting in, but there’s always going to be something that separates you from others.
That’s why it’s so important to be aware of the kinds of cultural differences that can exist, because how are you supposed to follow cultural cues that you’re not even expecting?
5. Conclusion
People often give the advice that if you want to pick up certain cultural nuances in a foreign culture, you should watch a lot of TV.
That advice is particularly useful here when talking about norms of politeness. TV shows let you watch people from different levels of society interact constantly, and you can really learn a lot about the right times to say each of the phrases in this article.
Even more modern web series will shed a lot of light on this. Some of them don’t show the more traditional levels of politeness, but they’re still valuable because you’ll get to see how young and trendy Indonesians navigate apologies.
The more exposure you have to actual Indonesians living out their lives through TV, movies, or online videos, the more you’ll internalize how this all works together.
And then, if worst comes to worst and you find yourself in hot water in Indonesia, you’ll know exactly how to keep cool and make apologies in Indonesian.
Do you feel more prepared now to say sorry in Indonesian? Or are you still a little fuzzy on how to apologize in Indonesian? Let us know in the comments!
Author: Yassir Sahnoun is a HubSpot certified content strategist, copywriter and polyglot who works with language learning companies. He helps companies attract sales using content strategy, copywriting, blogging, email marketing & more.
