Your Ultimate Indonesian Pronunciation Guide

A few letters, namely c, j, r, and v, make sounds that you might not expect. P, t, and k are almost the same, but they need a little explanation too.

C and j kind of go together. C always makes the ch sound like in “church,”while j makes the sound in “judge.”No exceptions here!

R is always trilled or rolled, as in Spanish or Russian. It tends to be rolled a little more forcefully than in Spanish, and if you listen to talk shows, sometimes you’ll hear people drag it out to almost comical levels.

Because of Dutch influence, v is always pronounced like the English fin “fair.”It’s not a particularly common letter in Indonesian, though when you pronounce loanwords or brand names, you’ll need to be aware of this.

Lastly, the sounds made by p, t, and k are never aspirated. In English, aspiration is the difference between the p in “pit” and the p in “spit.” At the beginning of stressed syllables, p, t, and k in English are pronounced with a slight puff of air, but this is never the case in Indonesian.

And when these sounds end a word, they’re not actually released. The voice stops before the sound is actually made, sounding like you’ve cut off the word in your throat.

Insider Tip:

Many millions of foreign learners simply use the English equivalents for c and j, and they do just fine. Nobody will ever point this out as a mistake. 

Technically, though, you should be pronouncing them far forward in your mouth, with your tongue tip pointed downwards instead of touching the roof of your mouth.

To make this unfamiliar variation of ch, try smiling really wide as you say the ch sound in English. That forces your tongue forward, and you automatically say it just like an Indonesian!

1- No Stress

Stress is a vital aspect of pronunciation in Indonesian sentences.

Word stress in Indonesian is fairly predictable, and never makes the sole difference between two words. In general, it’s on the second-to-last syllable. If that syllable has a schwa, then the stress is on the last syllable (even if that has a schwa too).

Adding prefixes and suffixes doesn’t change the stress. Therefore, the prefixes and suffixes never carry stress. So tanah (”land”) and pertanahan (”land use”) are pronounced with the stress on the same syllable.

In some Jakarta radio and television broadcasts, the announcers always stress the first syllable of every word, leading to a distinct broadcast voice that isn’t ordinarily used elsewhere.

One thing I’ve seen described very rarely anywhere else is this unique way that Indonesian people will repeat your words back to you to check what you’re saying.

When you give somebody a word or a name, for instance a street address, they’ll typically repeat it to you with a different stress.

For example, if you take a taxi and describe your destination, they’ll always repeat the name of the destination to you and stretch out the word. 

2- Don’t Waste Time on Words

When it comes to pronunciation in Indonesian phrases, in natural speech, whole parts of words will get left off. Not really “swallowed” as English can swallow groups of consonants, but more like there are accepted informal “short pronunciations” of many words.

The most common shortening is removing the me- from the beginning of verbs.

Super-fast grammar lesson in case you weren’t aware: Indonesian uses prefixes and suffixes to turn root words into transitive verbs, most often with the prefix meN-. The N is capitalized because it’s shorthand for several different forms that all begin with me-, based on the next letter.

So sewa becomes menyewa (”to rent something”), and obrol becomes mengobrol (“to have a chat”).

If we take the start of those prefixes off, we’re left with nyewa and ngobrol, which you’ll see and hear all the time!

• Di sini bisa nyewa motor?

“Can you rent a bike here?”

• Mereka sedang ngobrol.

“They’re chatting.”

3- Special Cases

Out of many different languages I’ve studied, Indonesian has some of the most regular pronunciation, and the most consistent written representation of sounds.

That’s probably because as a standardized language, it’s less than a hundred years old. Still, there are already a couple of small exceptions to take into account that aren’t easy to pick up from reading alone.

By the way, that’s why I always, always recommend listening to foreign languages as much as possible!

1. paham/faham - pikir/fikir

Paham, meaning “to understand,” is pronounced alternately with a pa- sound at the start, or a fa- sound. There’s no difference in meaning, and if you add the prefixes or suffixes, it always changes to memahami.

Exactly the same process happens with the word pikir, meaning “to think.” However, with the ber- prefix, it may occasionally appear as berfikir.

This happens to these two words because they’re Arabic loans, which have special accepted alternate pronunciations. More on that later on.

2. Delapan

The word for the number eight is three syllables long, and that’s just too many for a busy person to deal with. So when you go to a shop and hear a price, you’re likely to only catch “lapan” at first, because the d sound kind of blends in with the rest.

In a crowded minimart, this is surprisingly hard to disentangle from lima (”five”) or enam (”six”) if you’re not expecting it. 

3. Lumayan

This word means “pretty much” or “just about.” In Central Java, most people pronounce it as lumayén.

If you travel to East Java, you’ll notice that people pronounce it as it’s spelled. If you pronounce it that way, you’ll have a couple of people misunderstand you in Central Java. Just listen to how others pronounce it and imitate that, and be prepared to swap pronunciations if any problems come up. 

4. Tahu

There are two words spelled t-a-h-u. One means “to know” and the other means “tofu.” The difference is clear when they’re spoken aloud, though—the verb omits the h, and the nounpronounces the h strongly. 

This even gets reflected in informal writing, where you’ll see Indonesians write something like gak tau (”I dunno”).

However, there’s no need to stress about this. If you say tidak tahu and mean “I don’t know,” nobody will interpret that as “no tofu.”

As I hinted earlier, you can’t say two sentences in Indonesian without coming across a word derived from Arabic. It’s not just words related to religion, but words describing all kinds of everyday thoughts, actions, and objects. This makes some Arabic knowledge good to know when it comes to your pronunciation in Indonesian vocabulary.

What happens when these Arabic words, with their Arabic sounds, get transformed into the Indonesian sound system?

Well, first of all, there’s a new letter to contend with: z. If you see this letter, the word is almost definitely from Arabic.

I mentioned, though, that it’s pronounced the same as in English. And that’s true. But another perfectly acceptable pronunciation for this rare sound (in Indonesian terms) is j.

So you’ll hear—and sometimes even see—the word zaman (”time” or “era”) pronounced as jaman,and the word izin (”permission”) as ijin.

You’ll also find the letter combination kh, which is simply pronounced as h most of the time. If someone’s speaking very carefully and wants to sound a little more majestic, they may pronounce kh a little bit further in the throat, like the sound in the German ach.

Proper pronunciation is important, very important. Some say it’s even more important than getting the grammar perfectly correct! Why would this be?

1) Good Understanding 

If communicating with native speakers matters to you when learning Indonesian, you need to be understood when you talk, and you need to be able to understand the native speakers. After all, without understanding, the purpose of language is null and void! In order to be understood, you need to be able to speak the language in a way that is familiar to native speakers, or at least recognizable by them. 

When learning to speak a new language, you will learn that the more you progress the more intricate it becomes! For instance, almost every language has vocabulary that may look the same in writing, but because the words are pronounced differently, they have very different meanings. This means that you may say a word in Indonesian, and because of a slight change in pronunciation, the meaning of the word changes completely. Understandably, this can make for pretty embarrassing situations! At worst, your mispronounced Indonesian will sound garbled to a native speaker. 

Knowing the nuances of how a word or letter is pronounced will also help you to understand spoken Indonesian better.

No worries if this feels hard; you’re learning, and with our help at IndonesianPod101, you will not have a problem with mispronunciation if you follow our advice and examples carefully.

2) Good Communication 

Not pronouncing Indonesian or any other language correctly can lead to a lot of frustration because you’re unable to express what you mean, and you will not be understood correctly. Even if you have total knowledge of Indonesian grammar, and can write it like a native, not knowing how to speak it properly will only make for very frustrating communication all around.

3) A Good Impression 

Even if you’re only a beginner, it is possible to speak any language correctly. This way, you are bound to make a good impression on native speakers, and when you’re more fluent, you will be likely to garner a lot more respect than a fumbling newbie speaker who doesn’t care much for correct pronunciation. 

People often have a lot of patience for someone who learns to speak a new language, but native speakers are more likely to address you and engage with you in conversation if you work hard on your accent. This is simply because you’ll be able to understand one another! So, proficiency in pronunciation can mean the difference between having none or plenty of Indonesian speaking friends. It will also serve you well in the workplace, and make you popular with your Indonesian speaking managers and employers or employees.

Learning to speak Indonesian properly is also a sign of respect for not only the language, but also the native speakers and their customs. 

1) Use voice recording tools to perfect your pronunciation

IndonesianPod101 has plenty of resources to help you with your Indonesian pronunciation, so be sure to make thorough use of our recordings with native Indonesian speakers. These are available not only to demonstrate to you how you should pronounce Indonesian vocabulary, but also sentences and dialogues. Watch and listen to these over and over again to train your ear, and watch the teacher’s mouth as she speaks in the video lessons. Then, copy the speech as best you can. Later, you can record yourself to hear if you sound like a native speaker and compare yourself with native speakers. Great for self-motivation.

2) Practice in front of the mirror.

And see that you’re copying the correct lip and mouth movements.

3) Use our IndonesianPod101 dictionary!

Use the Indonesian dictionary provided by IndonesianPod101 to look up words and listen to the audio pronunciation. This will go a long way towards giving you an idea of how to pronounce a word or letter correctly.

4) Train your ear to the language!

Make an effort to listen often to Indonesian music and recorded books, and watch plenty of Indonesian movies and/or TV shows in Indonesian. This will train your ear to the language, and you’ll be surprised how quickly you pick up the accent. Remember, this is the way we learned to speak when we were young - mostly by listening to the adults talking, and repeating what they say!

5) Practice, practice, practice… 

Repetition of the same thing may be boring, but in learning a new language, you’re creating new pathways in your brain. For these to remain and become habitual, you will need to repeat the correct pronunciation often.

6) Make friends with a native Indonesian speaker.

Don’t be shy to address them in Indonesian! Ask them to correct you when you make a pronunciation mistake - this is a wonderful way to practice and learn the language first-hand, and also to make new friends.

7) Practice your pronunciation with your Indonesian teacher!

If you’re a serious student and don’t know where to meet native Indonesian speakers, consider investing in IndonesianPod101’s Premium PLUS plan. This means you will have your own native Indonesian teacher available to practice your pronunciation with, and much more! Send recordings of yourself speaking Indonesian and get feedback from your Indonesian teacher.

Although this article has a lot of information about how pronunciation in Indonesian can be complex, it really isn’t so bad. 

Do a ton of listening to native, natural speech, and you’ll slowly internalize all these features and end up speaking very well.

One of the complaints that I had about the learning materials I used when I started learning, was that the recordings were totally artificial and unrealistic.

People were stretching out every sound, and swinging the pitch of their voices up and down, way past realistic diction. The first time I tried watching an Indonesian TV show, it felt like a totally different language.

I personally like to speak along with, and shadow, different recordings when I learn a new language. It really makes me feel like I’m internalizing the feel of the language, rather than just the words and sounds.

Knowing how each sound is produced is a great first step, because it means you have an idea of what you should be doing (theoretically). 

Next, you just need to practice those speaking muscles. The more you actually speak with correct pronunciation, the easier it will be. 

And, of course, IndonesianPod101.com will be here to guide you on each step of your language-learning journey! With our help, you can be pronouncing Indonesian words like a native speaker before you know it. Sign up for a basic account to learn Indonesian pronunciation online for free, and to continue improving your Indonesian skills as a whole.

So, readers, do you feel more prepared for Indonesian conversation? Or is there anything you’re still struggling with? Let us know in the comments!