Semua and seluruh can both translate English all, but they organize totality differently. Semua includes every member of a set or all of a quantity. Seluruh covers an entity, area, institution, or population as one complete whole. Compare semua sekolah “all the schools” with seluruh sekolah “the whole school.”
This page develops membership versus total coverage. It leaves classifier selection, noun derivation, and full relative-clause analysis to dedicated adjacent pages.
The basic distinction
| Determiner | Question it answers | Typical phrase |
|---|---|---|
| semua | Are all members/amounts included? | semua siswa |
| seluruh | Is the whole extent or bounded total covered? | seluruh sekolah |
Semua siswa sudah mengumpulkan tugas sebelum tenggat.
All the students submitted the assignment before the deadline.
Seluruh sekolah dihias untuk perayaan ulang tahun kota.
The whole school was decorated for the city's anniversary celebration.
In the first sentence, the students are separate members and none is excluded. In the second, the school is construed as one institution or physical complex whose full extent was decorated.
Semua with count nouns
With count nouns, semua normally precedes a bare noun: semua siswa, semua buku, semua pintu. The quantifier itself supplies plural interpretation, so ordinary nouns do not need reduplication.
Semua buku di rak atas boleh dipinjam.
All the books on the top shelf may be borrowed.
Tolong periksa semua pintu sebelum meninggalkan gedung.
Please check all the doors before leaving the building.
Semua tamu menerima kartu nama dan jadwal acara.
All the guests received a name badge and the event schedule.
English marks books, doors, and guests for plural. Indonesian leaves buku, pintu, and tamu in their ordinary forms because semua already establishes plurality. Reduplication can have discourse functions of its own, but it is not a plural agreement requirement after semua.
Semua with mass nouns
Semua can also include all of a contextually identified mass or substance. The “members” are then portions of one amount rather than separate countable objects.
Semua air di dalam ember tumpah ketika gagangnya patah.
All the water in the bucket spilled when its handle broke.
Dia menggunakan semua gula yang tersisa untuk membuat selai.
She used all the remaining sugar to make jam.
Semua informasi dalam berkas itu harus diperiksa kembali.
All the information in that file must be checked again.
Thus semua is not restricted to English-style plural count nouns. What matters is exhaustive inclusion of the relevant quantity. The context must delimit it: semua air di dalam ember means all water in that bucket, not all water in existence.
Seluruh as whole extent
Seluruh naturally combines with a singular-looking noun that has spatial, temporal, bodily, institutional, or abstract extent: seluruh kota, seluruh hari, seluruh tubuh, seluruh proses.
Setelah perjalanan panjang itu, seluruh tubuh saya terasa pegal.
After that long journey, my whole body felt sore.
Listrik padam di seluruh kota selama hampir dua jam.
The power was out throughout the entire city for almost two hours.
Kami mengikuti seluruh proses pendaftaran tanpa bantuan agen.
We completed the entire registration process without an agent's help.
English alternates among whole, entire, and throughout. Indonesian seluruh unifies these readings through complete coverage. With a place after di, di seluruh kota has a distributive spatial reading: across the whole city.
When both can modify people or material
Seluruh can occur with a plural human category when the people form a bounded population: seluruh siswa kelas itu “the entire student body of that class.” The meaning is collective coverage, not a simple requirement that seluruh take singular nouns.
Seluruh siswa kelas itu berkumpul di aula untuk foto bersama.
The entire class's student body gathered in the hall for a group photo.
Semua siswa kelas itu sudah menerima hasil ujian masing-masing.
All the students in that class have received their individual exam results.
The first sentence views the class roster as one complete population gathered together. The second foregrounds each member receiving an individual result. Both are grammatical, but the construal differs.
Mass nouns allow a similar overlap. Semua air dalam tangki dipakai stresses that none of the amount remains. Seluruh air dalam tangki tercemar presents the complete bounded volume as affected. Speakers often prefer one according to discourse perspective, not a rigid count/mass ban.
Position and pronoun-like forms
The canonical determiner position is before the noun: semua siswa itu, seluruh tubuhnya. A demonstrative remains at the right edge of the full phrase.
Semua can follow a personal pronoun for emphatic inclusion: kami semua, mereka semua. The suffixed forms semuanya “all of it/them” and seluruhnya “all of it, in its entirety” can stand without an overt following noun.
Kami semua setuju untuk menunda perjalanan sampai cuaca membaik.
All of us agreed to postpone the trip until the weather improves.
Saya membaca laporannya, tetapi belum memahami seluruhnya.
I read the report, but I haven't understood all of it.
Berkas itu seluruhnya ditulis dalam bahasa Indonesia.
The file is written entirely in Indonesian.
Write free semua and seluruh separately and lowercase. Attached -nya is solid: semuanya, seluruhnya. Personal names retain capitals, and the reverential expression Sang Pencipta has the prescribed capitals.
For the right-edge placement of demonstratives and other modifiers, see determiner and modifier order.
Common Mistakes
1. Using seluruh for unrelated individuals
❌ Seluruh tiga pelanggan memilih menu yang berbeda.
Incorrect — three separately counted customers are not packaged as one collective population here.
✅ Ketiga pelanggan memilih menu yang berbeda.
All three customers chose different dishes.
2. Confusing all schools with the whole school
❌ Seluruh sekolah itu menerima bantuan.
Incorrect for the intended meaning 'all those schools' — this instead presents one school as a complete institution.
✅ Semua sekolah itu menerima bantuan.
All those schools received assistance.
3. Reduplicating a noun after semua
❌ Semua siswa-siswa sudah masuk kelas.
Incorrect — semua already supplies plural interpretation.
✅ Semua siswa sudah masuk kelas.
All the students have entered the classroom.
4. Writing the determiner as part of the noun
❌ Semuaair di dalam botol sudah diminum.
Incorrect spelling — semua is a free determiner.
✅ Semua air di dalam botol sudah diminum.
All the water in the bottle has been drunk.
Key Takeaways
- Semua exhausts members of a set or all of a delimited amount.
- Seluruh covers one bounded entity, area, institution, process, or population in full.
- Semua sekolah means all schools; seluruh sekolah means the whole school.
- Seluruh + people requires a collective population construal, not merely separate individuals.
- Free determiners stay separate; semuanya/seluruhnya attach -nya.
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