Katherine Davidsen - Indonesian for Beginners: Learning Conversational Indonesian (With Free Online Audio)

Learning Conversational IndonesianINDONESIANFOR BEGINNERSKatherine Davidsen & Yusep Cuandani Selamat Datang! Welcome! W elcome to the Indonesian language, people, culture and nation! In this course you will learn not only how to understand, speak, read, and write basic Indonesian, but you will also study important aspects of Indonesias amazingly diverse culture, as well as its people and its 17,000 islands. This course aims to provide access to understanding the language and culture, applying it in a way that is relevant and meaningful, as well as appropriate, to the learner. At the same time, the learner will be challenged to take risks, use prior knowledge and understand that communication takes many forms, both spoken and written. Background to the language Indonesian is a modern language, being a contemporary variety of Malay that came into being after Indonesian independence from the Dutch in 1945. Historically, Malay had been the lingua franca of the Indonesian archipelago (sometimes called Nusantara, literally the islands between), from pre-colonial times onward to when European explorers and colonizing powers such as the Portuguese and Dutch arrived. Malay continues to be one of Indonesias major regional languages (along with Javanese and Sundanese), and is also spoken in Malaysia (as Bahasa Malaysia), Singapore and Brunei.

Indonesian was chosen as the national language not only for its ubiquity around the archipelago, but also as it does not have hierarchical speech levels (as do Javanese and Sundanese), and was thus thought to be more egalitarian. Like English, it has both been influenced by and borrowed from a range of other languages: basic everyday words like sekolah (school) and bendera (flag) are originally from Portuguese; technical words relating to vehicles and machinery are often of Dutch origin, such as bensin (petrol) or pabrik (factory), while the most recent borrowings tend to be from English (media sosial or medsos for social media; paket for packet; asimilasi for assimilation). There are also neologisms from Sanskrit, a reminder of Indonesias Hindu past, such as karyawisata (school trip) and tunawisma (homeless), borrowings from Hokkien Chinese (especially foods) and a great deal of input from Arabic, as the holy language of Islam, the regions dominant religion. Add to this influence from regional languages, both in vocabulary and structure, and you will begin to appreciate the richness of Indonesian. As a national language, Indonesian is known as Bahasa Indonesia (please avoid the foreigners trap of referring it to Bahasa, which just means language) and coexists with the variety of regional languages around the country. Particularly outside the big cities, children grow up learning the regional language as their mother tongue, before starting to learn Indonesian at school.

Increasingly, Indonesian is being spoken in the home, and there is a shift in some areas away from regional languages. Yet, the variety of Indonesian spoken in a particular place will reflect characteristics of that area: the Indonesian as spoken in Manado, the capital of North Sulawesi province, is very different to the Indonesian found in Medan, North Sumatra, or indeed the Jakarta dialect. Indonesian therefore acts as the language of Indonesia, a unifying force and national standard which is compulsory to pass in any educational setting. While this course is to some extent aimed at upper Secondary learners (such as those studying Indonesian B ab initio for the International Baccalaureate), it should also be of great use to those studying Indonesian as a modern language in other secondary school courses, such as the International General Certificate of Secondary Education, or Higher School Certificate. Ideally you as the learner should have a teacher, whether a native speaker (ideal for pronunciation and accent) or a former learner of Indonesian who is now proficient (who can empathize with learning it as a second language). However, if you do not have access to an educator of the language, you should still be able to make use of this course, particularly through the ability you will develop to transfer skills and language beyond the contexts given in this book.

Todays interconnected world, where information and resources in hundreds of languages are only a click away, facilitates integrating various forms of communicative interaction in ways not thought possible when language learners relied solely on black and white textbooks and cassette recordings. This course involves reading and writing, as well as some listening and speaking tasks, incorporating readings, various text types and dialogues. These are adapted from or inspired by a variety of sources and media (online, print, electronic, visual, etc.) from across the archipelago, demonstrating different social strata and various ethnic settings. This should provide the learner with a broad overview of contemporary Indonesia, its people and language. The format of this course is structured around the concept of a year in Indonesia, with 12 units covering different events, seasons and happenings taking the learner on a journey through time. It has been proven that if we can relate our learning to a particular context, we are far more likely to embed our knowledge and develop our skills for future use.

In this way, culture and background information become key to the learners understanding of the language, and help her or him to place what they have learned in context as part of a wider narrative. We strongly advise mastering structures and vocabulary in each unit before proceeding further, as language skills are built on vocabulary and mastery of grammar. However, it is important to remember that you do not have to understand every word when learning a new language. The course will challenge you to think, guess from context and use your prior knowledge, as well as the glossary. The hope is that you can use the book (and your teacher) to help you become more independent in your learning of Indonesian. Units are based on the following format, and contain: An introduction, with images and captions Key grammar points New vocabulary and phrases lists Sample conversations Listening practice Indonesian and meusing Indonesian about ourselves Key questions and statements Reading texts A brief outline of pronunciation and basic facts about the structure of the language can be found in the Quick Reference Grammar.

Quick Reference Grammar Pronunciation and Sounds Indonesian is a phonetic language and is therefore relatively simple to pronounce. There are six vowel sounds: