All Things Indonesian

Apa kabar? Welcome to All Things Indonesian. I'm Ati Kisjanto, I’ve been teaching Indonesian since 2014, after being an advertising person in my previous life. I teach intensive courses on Indonesian language as well as its cultures and customs to British diplomats who are going to be posted in Indonesia. During Covid, I was introduced to Zoom and suddenly my student base grew to corporate clients from around the world.

Teaching adults, especially senior level managers and future ambassadors, has its challenges. They are intensive learning students who have great curiosity and an insatiable appetite for various topics. In their intensive classes, the topics need to be stimulating and fun, otherwise we will end up with yawning students who dread three hours of continuous lessons every day, five days a week.

I hope All Things Indonesian will help you navigate Indonesian culture and customs. Follow my Instagram or Facebook, and listen to my whole series of podcasts. At the end of it you’ll not only be fluent in Indonesian customs and culture, but also manage to learn the language easily and enjoyably.

Greeting: "Basa Basi" - Chit Chat: Small Talk is a friendly conversation that we usually have with somebody that we don’t really know or when we first met. It’s a courteous chat to make each other comfortable or an ice breaker. In Indonesian we called it "basa basi". An abbreviation of "bahas sana bahas sini", which means discussing about this and that.

In Britain, people would talk about the weather to break the ice. Funnily enough, this would not work in Indonesia, people would look at you funny as the weather would be 32C all year long. Indonesian will start with “Apa kabar?” which means “What’s the news?” the answer can be “Kabar Baik” (The news is good) or just “Baik” (Good) or “Baik-baik saja” (All is well)

Or we can go straight to asking “Dari mana?” which means “Where are you from?” And that is a portal to an array of conversations. The answer could be: “Dari rumah” (from home) or I just came from home, “Dari Manchester (from Manchester) or I’m from Manchester, “Dari Indonesia” (from Indonesia) or I’m originally from Indonesia, “Dari kedutaan” (from the embassy) or I work at the embassy, “Dari IBM (from IBM) or I work at the company called IBM, “Dari kerja (from work) or I just came from work.

Sometimes the ice breaker can be “Mau ke mana?” which literally means “Where are you going?”

The answer could be: “Mau ke kantor” (to the office) or I’m going to the office, “Mau ke London” (to London) or I’m off to London, “Mau pulang” (going home) or I’m going home.

“Belum” means “not yet”. “Belum” is the most aspirational and optimistic word in Indonesian vocabulary.

The question can be: “Have you had breakfast?” , “Do you have a partner?”, “Are you married?”, “Have you been to London?”, “Have you been to the moon?” all that will be answered with “not yet” or “belum”. If you answer with “No”

On official forms that you need to fill for a family card or bank application, the choices for marital status column are not: married or single, but married or not yet married.

Try saying: "Mbak muda mudah marah, muka merah di rumah murah" (Easily angered red faced young sister is at a cheap house)

"Malu-malu kucing": Literally means shy like a cat (malu = shy, kucing = cat). When one wants something but is too shy to ask or admit it (malu-malu tapi mau. Tapi = but, mau = want). Or one pretends to be shy (pura-pura malu. Pura-pura = pretend)

Thank you for joining Ati Kisjanto at The Language Show 2024 on November 9, 2024. Ati talked about What can idioms and proverbs tell you about culture https://languageshowlive.co.uk. for more information

For those who have listened and subscribe to All Things Indonesian podcast on Spotify, the sixth episode will be out at the end of September 2024.

For queries please contact me at [email protected] or visit my Instagram, Facebook and Podcast: All Things Indonesian