Suffering from quarenborderm? Learn some Indonesian!

By · 15 May, 2020 · Blog, Features, News

Hey everyone, my name is Allegra Kavanagh and I am one of the Northern Territory’s facilitators. Today I am going to teach you some basics about Indonesian numbers & colours. I have also provided some exercises for you to do if you are suffering from quarenborderm.

Numbers

Fun fact:

  • (Se-): the prefix for words like sepuluh (10), sebelas (11) and seratus (100) means “a/ the/ singular” and can be applied to count other singular words.

For example:

Sebuah: a piece

Seorang: the person

How to say more complex numbers. E.g. 403:

403: Empat ratus tiga.

400= empat ratus + 3= tiga

432: Empat ratus tiga puluh dua

400= empat ratus + 30= tiga puluh + 2= dua

4529: Empat ribu lima ratus dua puluh sembilan

4000= Enam ribu + 500= lima ratus + 20= dua puluh + 9= sembilan

OR: Empat setengah ribu dua puluh sembilan (setengah= half, so 4 and a half thousand).

4,500: Empat setengah ribu + 20= dua puluh + 9= sembilan

Here are a few you can do yourself, the answer key is underneath:

  1. 15
  2. 59
  3. 837
  4. 50, 000
  5. 9 070 653

Answer key:

  1. Lima belas (The teens are different because the prefix is the number at the end, in this case 5 and the suffix is the group so 10’s = belas).
  2. Lima puluh sembilan
  3. Delapan ratus tiga puluh tujuh
  4. Lima puluh ribu OR: setengah seratus ribu (because it’s a half of 100, 000 or seratus ribu).
  5. Sembilan juta tujuh puluh ribu enam ratus lima puluh tiga

Colours

Exercise:

Note: adjectives follow nouns

  1. I like the red
  2. I don’t like purple
  3. I like rainbows
  4. Purple is pretty
  5. Rainbows are pretty
  6. Dark yellow
  7. Light green
  8. My car (Mobil saya) is black

 

Answers: 8

  1. Saya suka merah
  2. Saya tidak suka ungu
  3. Saya suka pelangi
  4. Ungu adalah cantik
  5. Pelangi adalah cantik
  6. Kuning tua
  7. Hijau muda
  8. Mobil saya berwarna hitam

Cautionary NOTE:

If you don’t take anything else from this post, please take this:

If you want to say my car, please do not say saya mobil unless you are indeed a transformer. My car, boat, dog etc is the object before the descriptor so mobil saya is usually a preferable mode of transport.

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