Word Stress

Words between parentheses show how the word is pronounced. A dot “.” indicates syllable breaks. The symbol “ˈ” denotes the stressed syllable.

1. In Indonesian, word stress usually falls on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable. Since most native Indonesian words are bisyllabic (“having two syllables”), this means the stress is typically on the first syllable. For example, lihat /ˈli.hat/ (see), datang /ˈda.taŋ/ (come), makan /ˈma.kan/ (eat), and mandi /ˈman.di/ (bathe) all have stress on the first syllable. However, in words with more than two syllables like selamat /sǝ.ˈla.mat/ (safe) or organisasi /or.ga.ni.ˈsa.si/ (organisation), the stress falls on the second and fourth syllables, respectively, because these are the penultimate syllables of the words.

    datang ‘come’

    makan ‘eat’

    selamat ‘safe’

    organisasi ‘organisation’

2. However, if the penultimate syllable contains a schwa /ə/, the stress typically shifts to the last syllable. For example: pergi /pǝr.ˈgi/ (to go), enam /ǝ.ˈnam/ (six), belum /bǝ.ˈlum/ (not yet), and besar /bǝ.ˈsar/ (large, big).

    pergi ‘go’

    besar ‘big’

    enam ‘six’

3. Word stress remains unaffected by added affixes like the suffix memperhatikan /məm.pər.ˈha.ti.kan/ (to observe, base word hati), keterangan /kə.tə.ˈra.ngan/ (explanation, base word terang), memberikan /məm.bə.ˈri.kan/ (to give, base word beri), membersihkan /məm.bər.ˈsih.kan/ (to clean, base word bersih).

    memperhatikan ‘observe’

    keterangan ‘explanation’

    memberikan ‘to give’

    membersihkan ‘to clean’

Exceptions and Variations

While these rules generally hold true, there are exceptions, and variations may occur depending on regional dialects and influences.

Exercise

Listen to the following sound files. It is important that you not only look at the words, but also at their base words in brackets. Some words do not have affixes attached to it.

    berwawancara (wawancara)

    dewasa

    gerakan (gerak)

    mengetahui (tahu)

    pembangunan (bangun)

    pertanian (tani)

    segera

    sementara

    tersenyum (senyum)