Indonesian is one of the most difficult languages to learn. The grammar may be comparatively easy compared with English, but the socio-linguistics is a different matter altogether. Indonesian is what is sometimes termed a 'high-context'' language. In overly-simple terms, this means that, in spoken conversations, Indonesians do not use as many words to get their meaning across as speakers of 'low-context' languages such as English and Dutch do.
The difficulty for learners is that Indonesians have an uncanny ability to communicate meaning through 'unspoken' language. In essence, what is 'not' said conveys an awful lot of meaning. Therein lies the difficulty of Indonesian. That, coupled with the fact that an awful lot of ideas are worded in ways that are not immediately obvious to English speakers. It is not simply, as one person I heard mistakenly claim, a matter of putting English phrases into Indonesian.
This all becomes much more apparent the more you start getting beyond superficial 'selamat pagi, dari mana? Saya dari Australia.'- type conversations and trying to have more deeper engagements with Indonesians, especially if you are among a group of them rather than one-on-one. I've been in situations where conversations around me, that I am included in, go completely over my head. Not because I don't understand the words - I do - but because what is 'not' said throws me off. I understand every word, but I have no idea what they're talking about!!
Oh, and for the love of krupuk...please please please stop calling Indonesian 'bahasa'.
Sugeng enjing Mas...saking pundi?
ReplyDeleteHehehe...that would explain why most expats who despite lording it here for years can't speak a word.....
Normally the excuse is "Terrible memory" or "just not good with languages", I put them down as just being pathetic, but there we go...
Wez mari....gateli cok.
I think the absence of tense markers to indicate time, and the absence verb "to be", are two of the things that makes it difficult for English speakers to speak or write Indonesian well.
ReplyDeleteDecent Australian students at the end of their 2nd year of Indonesian at uni still often get completely stuck in class for how to say e.g. "Where HAVE YOU BEEN?", or "I DID study Law, but I don't study it any more."
More advanced students, such as their teachers, might not get so dramatically tripped up by those features (i.e. no tenses and no "to be"), but they still often catch themselves sounding pretty non-native-like.
Yeah, once again, the context is required in many cases to be able to interpret the tense. What's interesting though is that even with their 'uncanny' ability to convey meaning through what is not said, I seem to hear a lot more 'Maksudya?' in the course of your average daily conversation than we might hear in English, suggesting that even Indonesians often struggle with the vagueness of their discourse.
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