Sentence Structure (SVO)

By Speak Indo, from the Speak Indo Indonesian course.

Neutral Indonesian often uses Subject-Verb-Object, but context allows subjects or objects to be omitted or moved.

How it works

A useful neutral pattern is Subject + Verb + Object. Indonesian has no articles ('a', 'an', 'the'), no grammatical gender, and verbs do not change for person. In real conversation, a subject or object is often omitted when everyone knows who or what is meant. Time phrases and topics can also come first: Besok saya kerja (Tomorrow I work) and Buku itu sudah saya baca (That book, I have already read).

Examples

• Saya makan nasi.
  I eat rice.
• Dia minum kopi.
  He/She drinks coffee.
• Kami belajar bahasa Indonesia.
  We study Indonesian.