Many Indonesians are confused: which is the correct spelling: photo, foto, or poto. In fact we can find all three variants. The official spelling is foto, but, as many Indonesians cannot pronounce the sound /f/, the word is often rendered in pronunciation, but also in spelling as poto. The spelling photo mimics English usage, but is wrong. English has a number of redundant letters or letter combinations (graphemes), and English is also a very conservative languages in regards to its
The Indonesian language has borrowed extensively from European languages, particularly from Dutch, but also from Portuguese. The word for Christmas has been taken directly from Portuguese and it is spelled and pronounced the same way: Natal. Where Portuguese greet each other using Feliz Natal! Indonesians greet each other with Selamat Hari Natal! or simply Selamat Natal!. The word selamat, which simply means ‘safe (from calamities)’ is an Arabic loanword. Here are some usages of selamat: Selamat tahun baru!Nappy New Year
You arrive in a new city and you don’t know the way to your hotel or a specific restaurant. How do you ask for directions? And if you are in a bus, how do you ask where to get off? Permisi, Pak. Di mana Hotel Garuda? Excuse me, Sir. Where is the Garuda Hotel? Numpang tanya, Bu. Kalau ke Rumah Makan Sederhana saya bisa naik apa? Excuse me, Ma’am. If to the Sederhana Restaurant what can I take? Permisi, Bu.
When people ask me “Do you speak bahasa?” my answer is “Of course!” Almost every human being speaks a language! It also happens quite often that I get a request to translate a text into “Bahasa“. Bahasa means ‘language’, and nothing else. So what “Bahasa“, please? The word bahasa is derived from the Sanskrit language, and is used for many Indian and Southeast Asian languages, but most commonly for Indonesian (bahasa Indonesia), Malay (bahasa Melayu), and Malaysian (bahasa Malaysia). So,
Sambal Hati Petai The word hati means ‘liver’. Indonesians love eating liver, especially chicken liver which is often prepared with chili, fried potatoes, and petai, which in English is named ‘stink bean’. It indeed has a strong smell that is not everyone’s cup of tea (but I personally love them!). You can find hundreds of recipes of this very popular side dish by searching for sambal hati ayam petai. In Indonesia, the liver (hati), and not the heart (jantung), is