Suffering from quarenborderm? Learn some Indonesian!
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:
- 15
- 59
- 837
- 50, 000
- 9 070 653
Answer key:
- 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).
- Lima puluh sembilan
- Delapan ratus tiga puluh tujuh
- Lima puluh ribu OR: setengah seratus ribu (because it’s a half of 100, 000 or seratus ribu).
- Sembilan juta tujuh puluh ribu enam ratus lima puluh tiga
Colours
Exercise:
Note: adjectives follow nouns
- I like the red
- I don’t like purple
- I like rainbows
- Purple is pretty
- Rainbows are pretty
- Dark yellow
- Light green
- My car (Mobil saya) is black
Answers: 8
- Saya suka merah
- Saya tidak suka ungu
- Saya suka pelangi
- Ungu adalah cantik
- Pelangi adalah cantik
- Kuning tua
- Hijau muda
- 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.
