These are beautiful times for language learners.
Even ten years ago, language learning materials on the Internet were nothing like they are today.
We’ve had YouTube for a decade and a half, and only in the last several years has it become possible—or even likely—that someone could learn a language mostly through YouTube.
If you’ve set out to learn Indonesian, YouTube may have you feeling left out at this point. Why should other language learners get all the fun?
Never fear, though. Today’s article is going to introduce you to the top ten YouTube channels for Indonesian learners! Later, we’ll show you why IndonesianPod101’s channel is the best source for learners at every level.
- → Before starting, check out our vocabulary list for Talking About YouTube!
Table of Contents
- Think Bahasa
- Titan Tyra
- Mastering Bahasa
- KOMPAS Tekno
- EpicVice
- Pijaru
- Minute to Win It Indonesia
- Net Media
- The IndonesianPod101 YouTube Channel
- How You Can Learn a Language with YouTube
- Conclusion
1. Think Bahasa
Category: Educational
Level: Beginner
Think Bahasa is one of the best Indonesian YouTube channels for people who have just started learning Indonesian, especially in terms of coming to grips with the spelling and pronunciation. There are quite a few videos that focus on listing vocabulary for certain situations, as well as videos with lists of phrases that beginners might want to know.
Additionally, you’ll find videos with short stories, each a couple of minutes in length. Listen to a native speaker recite a story and see how well you can follow along! This is a great type of video to put on repeat in the background as you’re washing the dishes or doing the laundry. An extra three to five minutes of Indonesian listening every day can make a surprising amount of difference!
2. Titan Tyra
Category: Vlogger
Level: Advanced
Titan is a vlogger from Jakarta with several wide-ranging tastes. Here’s just one shopping video, where she tries out and explains a bunch of different things she bought during a trip to Korea. You’ll also find travel and dance videos, as well.
What sets her apart from the large number of vloggers out there? Subtitles! On most of her recent videos, she’s got English and Indonesian subtitles to help you follow along.
You’ll definitely need them, too, since she speaks very quickly and fluidly switches between English and informal Indonesian. This is excellent practice material for advanced learners wanting to get totally immersed in Indonesian as it’s really spoken.
3. Mastering Bahasa
Category: Language
Level: Beginner-Intermediate
If you’ve ever Googled any questions related to Indonesian, you’ve definitely seen results from Mastering Bahasa in addition to IndonesianPod101. It’s one of the most in-depth resources you can find online for articles explaining the Indonesian language—but did you know they have a YouTube channel, too?
Not only do they have the classic grammar explanation and phrase videos, but they also have some interesting out-of-the-box videos like this one about Indonesian-speaking celebrities!
4. KOMPAS Tekno
Category: News, Tech
Level: Intermediate-Advanced
On YouTube, Indonesian news site Kompas—one of the most popular websites in Indonesia for news and general lifestyle articles—has a thriving presence. This channel is their tech outlet, where they publish reviews and analyses of the latest gadgets.
The great thing about review videos like these is that you can quickly get a feel for the style. After you’ve seen five or ten of them, you know exactly what to expect and they’re easier to follow. The hosts also speak clearly and slower than vloggers, and they use a casual style but don’t use much slang.
- → Check out this vocabulary list for Technology to learn some words in advance!
5. EpicVice
Category: News, Interest
Level: Intermediate
This one has the general feel of a light magazine you’d see at the grocery store. EpicVice’s videos cover human interest or general news stories from around the world, as well as Buzzfeed-esque topics like the “top 10 most powerful animals.”
Aside from the easily digestible content, we recommend you go through the videos and click on some of the ones made before 2018. Back then, they had subtitles in Indonesian! They’ve unfortunately stopped going forward, but that archive is definitely valuable.
6. Pijaru
Category: News, Media
Level: Advanced
Example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbgaVbLklBU
Pijaru is a wonderful example of the kind of internet show possible nowadays with YouTube. They have vlogs, webseries, cartoons, and more, all in easily digestible clips of ten minutes or less. For some reason or another, podcasts haven’t really taken off in Indonesian culture – but that hasn’t stopped Pijaru from creating PisPod, a comedy podcast.
Only a handful of the webseries have subtitles, but fortunately they’re the soft kind as well, and they can be turned on or off. The webseries, by the way, are excellent because of the way they depict different points of view of Indonesian society, like those of housekeepers or marketing department employees.
7. Minute to Win It Indonesia
Category: Game Show
Level: Intermediate-Advanced
If you don’t have the luxury of living in Indonesia as you learn, you might be unwittingly creating gaps in your vocabulary due to only exposing yourself to certain parts of the language. Particularly, what some language learners call “tiny verbs” like “tie, stack, lift, twist,” and so on.
This is where watching Indonesian TV on YouTube can benefit you.
Fortunately, the worldwide game show Minute to Win It has put all of their Indonesian episodes online, and they’re absolutely perfect for advanced learners to fill in these vocabulary gaps. If you’re not familiar with it, participants have to complete challenges with household objects in sixty seconds, like in this one where they have to throw ping-pong balls and knock other ping-pong balls out of a small hoop. No subtitles unfortunately, but each plot is simple to understand without them.
8. Net Media
Category: Talk Show
Level: Advanced
This one kind of goes hand-in-hand with Minute to Win It, since both are the kind of things that Indonesian people tend to watch in everyday life. If you go into any little warung (a small restaurant), you’ll probably see the TV showing either sepak bola (“football”) or talk shows like these.
This one is challenging because there are no subtitles in either English or Indonesian. Therefore, it’s definitely best to wait until you’re at an advanced level before tackling this stuff.
However, the repetitive format of the Indonesian talk show means that you’ll quickly get used to what you’re seeing. This channel also has general entertainment news like award shows, which is great because it also strengthens your general knowledge of Indonesian pop culture.
9. The IndonesianPod101 YouTube Channel
Category: Educational
Level: All Levels
IndonesianPod101 probably puts out the most content on YouTube in the Indonesian learning space. With just a glance at this channel, you’ll understand how valuable it can be for your learning, especially when it comes to building your listening practice.
Our short listening comprehension videos are broken up from the Absolute Beginner level to Advanced, and they all have an excellent flow to them—dialogue with animation, comprehension questions, and dialogue again with English and Indonesian subtitles. That’s extremely valuable and not something available everywhere, making us the top Indonesian YouTube channel for learners.
10. How You Can Learn a Language with YouTube
It might be hard to believe, but you can actually make enormous strides in your language abilities using YouTube alone.
The easiest way is to watch, watch, and watch some more. As long as you keep looking up unknown Indonesian words as they come up, you’ll slowly get exposed to them more and more over time, and their meanings will stick in your brain.
After all, this is how a lot of young Indonesians have such good English—they find vloggers and TV shows in English on YouTube and watch them over and over until they don’t even realize they’re becoming fluent.
However, the best kind of videos just happen to be the ones that exist on the IndonesianPod101 page, where you can follow along with English and Indonesian subtitles at the same time in situations that slowly get more difficult as you improve.
- → How else can you learn Indonesian effectively? Here’s a list of Simple Strategies for Learning Comfortably at Home!
11. Conclusion
As you can see, the IndonesianPod101 YouTube channel is definitely one of the best. As it turns out, the website is too!
When you sign up with IndonesianPod101.com, you immediately get access to a treasure trove of lessons on hundreds of different topics. You’ll find vocabulary lists, articles about pronunciation, and of course the award-winning podcast that you can take with you and listen to at any time.
The best way forward for your Indonesian is a combination of a high-quality course like IndonesianPod101’s and real-life content for native speakers (like you can find on the video channels above).
As you learn new words and concepts with our podcast, you’ll run into them again and get those memories reinforced. Before you know it, you’ll be finding new Indonesian YouTube channels on your own and learning faster than ever before.
Before you go, let us know which of these Indonesian YouTube channels interests you the most and why. Are there any good ones we missed? If so, let us (and your fellow Indonesian learners) know in the comments.
