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Lesson Transcript

Halo semuanya, nama saya Fira! Hi everybody! I’m Fira.
Welcome to IndonesianPod101.com’s “Bahasa Indonesia dalam 3 menit”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Indonesian.
In the last lesson, we learned how to use the verb datang, “to come”. We will now jump into our lessons dedicated to question words in Indonesian. Our first one is the most commonly used question word in Indonesian: what.
Imagine you want to ask your friend "What are you doing?" How will you do it?
You will ask - Kamu sedang ngapain?
So let’s break down this question:
Kamu is in between the formal and informal way of saying “you”. It's usually used among friends and young people.
Sedang makes the sentence present progressive.
And finally, ngapain is the informal way of asking “doing what”. It comes from the base word Apa.
So, altogether it is Kamu sedang ngapain?
“What are you doing?”
If you want to sound more formal, you can use Melakukan apa instead of Ngapain. So it will be Kamu sedang melakukan apa? - "What are you doing?"
melakukan is the formal form of "do."
and apa means “what”
You can use it if you are talking to an older person, or a superior person in a working context.
Here are some more examples of "What" questions.
"What are you reading?" Kamu sedang membaca apa?
"What are you eating?" Kamu sedang makan apa?
If you want to ask somebody’s name, you have to use the word Siapa instead of apa. So, you can ask Kamu namanya siapa? "What is your name?"
To ask about their job, say Kamu pekerjaannya apa? "What is your job?"
Namanya means “the name” and pekerjaannya means “the job”. The suffix -nya on nama and pekerjaan will make the question sound softer and more polite. It will also make you sound really good at Indonesian!
Now it’s time for Fira’s Insights.
Watch out for questions in Indonesian that enables various possible answers. For example, "Which one do you prefer?"
Kamu suka yang mana?
In this case, you have to use Mana, meaning "which" or "which one".
In this lesson, we learned how ask “what” questions.
In the next lesson, we will learn about "where" questions.
I’ll be waiting for you in the next Bahasa Indonesia dalam 3 menit lesson.
Sampai jumpa lagi!

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