Collocations with kena | Indonesian Grammar

The core of kena is not simply “be hit.” It presents something as coming into contact with, falling under, or being affected by an impact: rain, anger, deception, tax, fines, and illness all fit this network. That shared affectedness explains why one short predicate reaches across weather, sanctions, disease, and conversational accounts of bad luck.

This page maps the most useful collocations. It does not attempt every dictionary sense or replace the full kena construction overview, which explains subjects, agents, and its relationship to passive voice.

The affectedness map

Complement type	Typical combination	Interpretation
physical contact	kena tiang, kena air	touch/hit/be exposed to
weather/environment	kena hujan, kena banjir	be caught in/affected by
social event root	kena marah, kena tipu	undergo an adverse event
sanction/liability	kena denda, kena pajak	be subject to a charge
illness	kena flu, kena penyakit	come down with/be affected by

The complement after kena is therefore not always a verb and not always an object. In kena hujan, hujan names the environmental impact. In kena tipu, the bare event root describes what the subject undergoes.

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Translate kena only after identifying its partner. “Be affected by” captures the family resemblance, but natural English may need “get caught,” “be fined,” “come down with,” “get scammed,” or “hit.”

Contact and exposure: kena air, hujan, and targets

In literal contact uses, one entity reaches another. The result may be damaging, inconvenient, or completely neutral.

Bola tendangan Rafi kena tiang lalu memantul keluar.

Rafi's shot hit the post and then bounced out.

Ujung lengan bajuku kena cat yang masih basah.

The end of my sleeve touched the paint while it was still wet.

Jangan sampai bagian dalam kamera kena air laut.

Do not let the inside of the camera come into contact with seawater.

Meja kerja saya kena sinar matahari langsung setiap pagi.

My desk gets direct sunlight every morning.

With weather, kena hujan presents exposure as something that happened to the traveler or object. It is especially natural in conversation. More careful alternatives include terkena hujan and kehujanan.

Kami kena hujan waktu berjalan dari halte ke penginapan.

We got caught in the rain while walking from the bus stop to the guesthouse. (informal)

Kotak-kotak di teras kena hujan semalaman dan mulai lembek.

The boxes on the porch were exposed to rain all night and started going soft. (informal)

Petugas lapangan terkena hujan deras selama proses pendataan.

The field officers were caught in heavy rain during data collection. (careful/formal)

Saya kehujanan saat pulang, jadi langsung mengganti pakaian.

I got caught in the rain on the way home, so I changed clothes immediately.

These alternatives overlap but are not mechanical substitutions. Kehujanan packages the involuntary experience; terkena hujan is comfortable in careful reporting; kena hujan is concise and conversational.

With marah, the subject receives someone else's anger or scolding. With tipu, the subject undergoes deception. Both combinations focus the affected person's experience.

Aku kena marah karena lupa mengunci pintu belakang.

I got told off because I forgot to lock the back door. (informal)

Doni kena marah atasannya setelah mengirim berkas yang salah.

Doni was scolded by his supervisor after sending the wrong file. (informal)

Beberapa pembeli kena tipu lewat akun toko palsu yang tampilannya meyakinkan.

Several buyers got scammed through a convincing-looking fake shop account. (informal)

Saya hampir kena tipu, tetapi bank memblokir transaksinya tepat waktu.

I almost got scammed, but the bank blocked the transaction in time. (informal)

Neutral Standard Indonesian can use dimarahi and ditipu. Those passives report a patient-oriented event without necessarily dramatizing it as a setback.

Pegawai itu dimarahi oleh pelanggan di depan rekan-rekannya.

The employee was scolded by a customer in front of the colleagues.

Korban ditipu melalui tautan pembayaran yang menyerupai situs resmi.

The victim was deceived through a payment link resembling the official site. (news/formal)

The choice guide develops this discourse difference. Harm alone does not force kena; genre and viewpoint matter too.

Kena plus a passive-like bare root

Conversational Indonesian often puts a bare event root after kena: kena tipu, kena pukul, kena curi, kena suruh. The basic shape is:

affected participant + kena + bare root (+ actor/complement)

Penonton di baris depan kena pukul bola yang keluar lapangan.

A spectator in the front row got hit by a ball that went out of bounds. (informal)

Sepeda lipat Rio kena curi saat diparkir dekat pintu samping.

Rio's folding bike got stolen while parked near the side entrance. (informal)

Kami kena suruh mengulang formulir karena tanda tangannya kurang jelas.

We were told to fill in the form again because the signature was unclear. (informal)

Dia kena paksa menyerahkan kata sandi oleh orang yang mengaku petugas.

He/She was forced to hand over the password by someone claiming to be an officer. (informal)

The root stays bare: kena tipu, not kena ditipu or kena menipu for this construction. Kena is a separate word, never a voice prefix.

Not every passive can be recast this way. Beneficial or neutral combinations such as kena puji, kena kirim, and kena beri beasiswa are normally poor choices because kena invites an imposed, salient effect. Use ordinary di- voice unless a genuine context creates an affected or ironic reading.

Legal obligation and financial liability

Everyday speech uses kena pajak, kena denda, and kena biaya tambahan when a person, transaction, or item falls under a financial rule.

Kalau nilainya melewati batas itu, barang kirimannya kena pajak impor.

If its value exceeds that threshold, the shipped item is subject to import tax. (conversational)

Pengemudi itu kena denda karena berhenti di jalur khusus bus.

That driver was fined for stopping in the bus-only lane.

Pembayaran dengan kartu tertentu kena biaya layanan tambahan.

Payments with certain cards incur an additional service fee. (conversational)

Legal and administrative prose usually chooses a more explicit valency pattern. An affected item or person can be dikenai pajak/sanksi; a charge or sanction can be dikenakan kepada/atas someone or something.

Barang dengan kategori tersebut dikenai pajak sesuai ketentuan yang berlaku.

Goods in that category are subject to tax under the applicable regulations. (formal)

Denda administratif dikenakan kepada penyelenggara yang terlambat melapor.

An administrative fine is imposed on organizers who report late. (formal)

Perusahaan tersebut terkena sanksi setelah melanggar kewajiban pelaporan.

The company was subjected to sanctions after violating its reporting obligation. (formal)

Do not use kena pajak as though pajak were an actor. It is the liability that reaches the subject.

Illness: kena flu and kena penyakit

In everyday health talk, kena + illness often means contract, develop, or come down with an illness.

Tiga orang di rumah kena flu pada minggu yang sama.

Three people in the household came down with the flu in the same week. (informal)

Anaknya pernah kena demam berdarah saat masih sekolah dasar.

Their child once had dengue fever while still in primary school. (informal)

Tanaman cabai kami kena penyakit setelah hujan turun terus-menerus.

Our chili plants developed a disease after continuous rain. (conversational)

Careful medical or public-health language often uses terkena, terinfeksi, mengalami, or menderita, chosen according to the diagnosis.

Dua pasien terkena demam berdarah setelah bepergian ke daerah endemis.

Two patients contracted dengue fever after traveling to an endemic area. (careful)

Pasien tersebut menderita penyakit ginjal kronis dan menjalani pemeriksaan rutin.

The patient has chronic kidney disease and undergoes routine examinations. (formal/medical)

Kena penyakit is natural though nonspecific in ordinary conversation, but it does not automatically fit a clinical report.

Colloquial event clusters

Affected kena readily joins conversational time and stance words.

Tadi aku kena macet hampir satu jam di dekat pintu tol.

I got stuck in traffic for almost an hour near the toll gate. (informal)

Ponsel Rika kena air lagi, padahal baru selesai diperbaiki.

Rika's phone got wet again, even though it had just been repaired. (informal)

Untung kami enggak kena hujan pas jalan pulang dari pasar.

Luckily we didn't get caught in the rain while walking home from the market. (informal)

Dia malah kena tegur karena masuk lewat pintu khusus staf.

He/She actually got reprimanded for entering through the staff-only door. (informal)

Negative tidak kena pajak means “not subject to tax” or “not hit by,” depending on the complement. Enggak kena tipu (informal) means the deception did not succeed, not necessarily that nobody attempted it.

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Formalization is lexical as well as morphological: kena denda may become dikenai denda, kena penyakit may become menderita penyakit, and kena tipu may become ditipu. There is no single replacement for every collocation.

Common Mistakes

1. Restricting kena to physical hitting

❌ Kami kena hujan berarti hujan memukul tubuh kami secara fisik.

Incorrect analysis—kena extends to environmental exposure.

✅ Kami kena hujan sebelum berhasil menemukan tempat berteduh.

We got caught in the rain before finding shelter. (informal)

2. Adding passive di- after kena

❌ Pembeli itu kena ditipu lewat pesan berantai.

Incorrect mixed construction—use a bare root after affected kena.

✅ Pembeli itu kena tipu lewat pesan berantai yang mencantumkan tautan palsu.

That buyer got scammed through a forwarded message containing a fake link. (informal)

3. Using kena for neutral good news

❌ Sinta kena beri penghargaan oleh sekolahnya.

Pragmatically wrong—this beneficial event calls for ordinary passive voice.

✅ Sinta diberi penghargaan oleh sekolahnya atas kegiatan sukarela.

Sinta was given an award by her school for volunteer work.

4. Writing kena as a prefix

❌ Sepatunya kenalumpur waktu melewati jalan belakang.

Incorrect spelling—kena is a separate predicate.

✅ Sepatunya kena lumpur waktu melewati jalan belakang yang becek.

His/Her shoes got muddy while taking the wet back road. (informal)

5. Reversing the formal sanction frames

❌ Setiap pelanggar dikenakan kepada sanksi administratif berikut.

Incorrect alignment—the person is dikenai a sanction, or the sanction is dikenakan kepada the person.

✅ Setiap pelanggar dikenai sanksi administratif sesuai dengan ketentuan berikut.

Every violator is subject to administrative sanctions under the following provisions. (formal/legal)

Key Takeaways

Kena organizes contact, exposure, adversity, sanctions, and illness around an affected participant.
In kena hujan/pajak/penyakit, the complement names an impact; in kena tipu/pukul/suruh, it is a passive-like bare event root.
Bare-root patterns are especially conversational and do not accept an added di- or meN-.
Formal alternatives differ by domain: ditipu, dikenai pajak atau denda, terkena penyakit, and menderita penyakit are not one mechanical paradigm.

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