Learn how to talk about ethnicity
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gina: Hi everyone, Gina here, and welcome back to IndonesianPod101.com. This is Basic Bootcamp Lesson 2 - Talking Nationality in Indonesian. |
| Fira: Halo! I’m Fira. |
| Gina: In this lesson, we’ll go over all the basics that will really help you understand Indonesian much quicker and easier. And we’ll have fun doing it! |
| Fira: In this lesson, you will learn how to talk about your nationality, and also the basic word order of an Indonesian sentence. |
| Gina: This sounds useful! The conversation takes place at a college campus, and it’s between two Indonesian students. |
| Fira: They are going to introduce themselves using formal Indonesian. |
| Gina: Okay. let’s listen to the conversation. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Gina: You know, Indonesian is not a "typical" choice of foreign language to learn, and that’s a shame really, because that part of the world has a mix of many fascinating cultures, and a long, complex history, and the country itself has the fourth largest population in the world. |
| Fira: Yeah, I know what you mean. And the cultural activities that you can find in Indonesia attract so many people. For example, gamelan. |
| Gina: Ah, yes, gamelan orchestra is great! |
| Fira: Talking about Gamelan, there are two major styles. One is Central Javanese, from the courts of the central part of the island of Java. The other is Balinese, from the neighboring island of Bali. |
| Gina: What’s the difference between them? |
| Fira: Well, Balinese gamelan orchestra is a bit more energetic, while Central Javanese gamelan is a bit calmer and more relaxed. |
| Gina: And Fira, what are some other cultural highlights of Indonesia? |
| Fira: Well, there’s a lot more than gamelan – there’s also "wayang kulit," or the "shadow play," and also various temples, and palaces all over the place. And places like the wild beauty of Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Papua. There’s a whole lot of stuff to see and do! |
| Gina: Yes - there is so much to explore. |
| Fira: Right. And you have to remember that there are more than 360 different languages spoken within Indonesia itself. That’s a great number. |
| Gina: That’s so many! And also why Indonesia is a country you must visit if you’re interested in cultural differences and harmonies. |
| Fira: Definitely! |
| Gina: Okay, now let’s move on to the vocab. |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Fira: The first phrase is "Saya orang Indonesia." Literally, this means "I person Indonesia." |
| Gina: So, can you break it down for us, please? |
| Fira: Sure. First, we have "saya," which means "I" or "me." |
| Gina: Right. So how do you say an "Indonesian person"? |
| Fira: "Orang Indonesia." (slowly) "Orang Indonesia" (slowly) The first word ‘Orang’ means "person." |
| Gina: Ah, okay. And afterwards, we have the word "Indonesia," the country, right? |
| Fira: That’s right. In Indonesian, you can simply say ‘orang’ and the country name to say your nationality. |
| Gina: And you can see, the word order is the complete opposite of the word order in English. In English, you’ll say ‘Indonesian person.’ But in Indonesian, you say ‘person Indonesia.’ |
| Fira: That is a basic rule when you’re adding two nouns together. When you describe something more about the noun, you should put the description after the noun, not before. |
| Gina: Can you give us an example? |
| Fira: Sure. When you’re saying “a beautiful house,” you can say “rumah indah.” You put the word ‘rumah’ meaning ‘house’ first, then the word ‘indah’ meaning ‘beautiful.’ |
| Gina: So it’s like saying ‘the house that’s beautiful’ in English |
| Fira: That’s right. |
| Gina: Now let’s talk about the next phrase. |
| Fira: "Saya orang Amerika" |
| Gina: "I’m American. |
| Fira: Amerika is the word meaning ‘America’ or ‘the United States.’ When you’re saying ‘American’ as a nationality, you can say ‘Orang Amerika (slowly) "Orang Amerika" |
| Gina: “American” or literally “Person America.” Since we’re talking about nationalities, let’s try a few more nationalities. How do you say "Japanese person"? |
| Fira: "Orang Jepang." (slowly) "Orang Jepang." Jepang is the word meaning ‘Japan.’ as a country name. |
| Gina: What about Australian? |
| Fira: "Orang Australia." (slowly) "Orang Australia." |
| Gina: It sounds very similar to the English word. What about French? |
| Fira: The word for France is ‘Perancis.’ (slowly) so you can say Orang Perancis to mean ‘French people.’ |
| Gina: And let’s talk about one more. What’s Chinese? |
| Fira: It’s ‘Orang Cina’. Cina means ‘China.’ |
| Gira: Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Gina: In this lesson, you will learn the basic word order in Indonesian. I think the best way will be using examples. So let’s take the sentence from the dialogue. |
| Fira: Sure. Let’s start with "Nama saya Ed" |
| Gina: Which means “My name is Ed" |
| Fira: Let’s break it down. Do you know what ‘Nama Saya’ means? |
| Gina: Sure. It means ‘My name.’ |
| Fira: Right. It literally means ‘Name my’ actually. |
| Gina: As we said in the vocab section, in Indonesian you can put the descriptor after the noun. |
| Fira: So first you say the word ‘Nama’ meaning ‘Name’, then ‘saya’, which literally means ‘I’. |
| Gia: So literally it’s ‘Name of me.’ |
| Fira: That’s right. |
| Gina: What about your name, then? |
| Fira: ‘Nama anda’. Anda means ‘you’ so it means ‘Name of you.’ |
| Gina: So listeners, make sure you put the descriptor after the nouns in Indonesian. Okay, let’s go back to the sentence. |
| Fira: After you say ‘Nama saya’, you can say your name. So your name is ‘Gina’, so Gina, you can say “Nama saya Gina" |
| Gina: Which literally means “name of I Gina”. So in Indonesian, you don’t need a verb like ‘to be’ right? |
| Fira: That’s right. You don’t have to put anything between the subject and your name. |
| Gina: Is there a verb meaning ‘to be’ in Indonesian? |
| Fira: There is, but people usually don’t use it. For example, you may see a sentence like "Saya adalah orang Indonesia." Here, the word ‘adalah’ is like the verb ‘to be’ in English. |
| Gina: But you don’t use it in daily conversation, only when you’re writing something. |
| Fira: That’s right. Unless you’re giving an official speech, you don’t really use this word in daily conversation. |
| Gina: Especially when you’re talking to your friends, you can simply skip saying the verb ‘to be’ in Indonesian. Now remember that you can always check the lesson notes to reinforce what you’ve learned in this lesson. |
Outro |
| Gina: Okay, that’s it for this lesson. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time. |
| Fira: Sampai ketemu lagi. |
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