AI Speaking Exercises
Hello, We have recently added several AI speaking exercises to TIW Lessons 6, 15, 31, 48, and 59. We would like to invite you to try them out and share your feedback with us. At this stage, the exercises have not worked entirely as expected. ChatGPT does not consistently speak aloud, while Gemini does produce... Read More >...
Finding Your Best Way to Learn Indonesian: Methods, Practice, and Flexibility
In general, I fully agree with the perspective presented in the video below, in which a professor of second language acquisition explains effective strategies for learning a foreign language as an adult. At the core of successful learning are well-designed texts, supported by high-quality audio recordings and clear visual context. For our intermediate and advanced... Read More >...
The weak and the strong e in Indonesian
The Schwa or “weak e“ Like most languages, Indonesian has two distinct e sounds, even though the spelling system does not indicate the difference between them. The more frequent sound is the e-pepet, also known as the schwa or weak e, which is transcribed in the IPA as /ǝ/. It is pronounced like the a... Read More >...
Indonesian vs Malaysian
Are Malay and Indonesian the same language? Let me begin this blog with a few observations about the English language. One day, I was speaking with my students at the University of Hawaiʻi when they started complaining about another professor in our department. “We know he speaks English,” they said, “but we simply cannot understand... Read More >...
Mari & Ayo
Both mari and ayo are interjections used to invite or urge someone to do something—similar to the English “come on.” The difference between them is subtle, but ayo carries more force. If you want to speak with emphasis, use ayo: Ayo, bangun, sudah siang ni. Come on, wake up, it’s already late. Ayo masuk! Come... Read More >...
Important Changes to our Intermediate Level Courses
«Baca Yuk!», our intermediate Indonesian course, has been updated. Before, there was only one single Anki (flashcard) deck. Now, that «Baca Yuk!» has grown to over 30 lessons, it was time to rearrange the existing Anki deck. Now, you can revisit the previous learned vocabulary after every four lessons. Instead of one, we now have... Read More >...
Review of «The Indonesian Way» by Jessica Fox
Our beginner-level textbook, «The Indonesian Way», has been reviewed by Dr. Jessica Fox, who holds a Ph.D. in Second Language Studies from Michigan State University. The review was published in her article Toward a task-based textbook for Indonesian language learning in the Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages, Vol. 19 .... Read More >...
The Plural in Indonesian
In textbooks for the Indonesian language, you may read that the plural form is created by reduplicating the noun. In Indonesian for Beginners by Restiany Achmad, on page 6, it states: However, this is not entirely accurate! For example, how would you translate “When I was a child, there were no computers”? Would it be…... Read More >...