Sejak marks a starting boundary, while sampai and hingga mark an ending boundary. That sounds much like English since, until, and up to, but an Indonesian boundary phrase does not by itself say whether a situation continues, has stopped, or has not yet happened. Aspect words such as sudah, masih, and belum, together with the wider context, supply that time perspective.
This page covers boundary phrases with noun-like complements: dates, hours, life stages, places, and measurable endpoints. The use of these words before full subordinate clauses and the derivational forms built from them belong to adjacent pages.
Sejak: looking forward from an onset
Use sejak + time or event to identify the point at which a situation began. The situation normally remains relevant at the reference time, even when Indonesian does not use a tense ending comparable to English has lived or has known.
Saya tinggal di sini sejak 2020.
I have lived here since 2020.
Kami sudah berteman sejak kecil.
We have been friends since childhood.
Toko itu tutup sejak awal bulan ini.
That shop has been closed since the beginning of this month.
The required phrase sejak kecil means “since childhood.” Here kecil names a life stage rather than describing an omitted object. Other common onset complements include sejak kemarin, sejak pagi, sejak tahun lalu, and sejak pertemuan pertama.
Sejak establishes only the left-hand boundary. The predicate determines what began there, and aspect makes the current status clearer.
Dia sudah bekerja di rumah sejak Januari.
He/She has been working from home since January.
Hujan masih terus turun sejak tadi malam.
It has still been raining since last night.
Sejak kecelakaan itu, dia belum berani mengemudi lagi.
Since that accident, he/she has not dared to drive again.
In the first example, sudah presents the work arrangement as established. In the second, masih explicitly says it continues. In the third, belum says that the expected change has not occurred at any point after the onset. English puts much of this information into perfect and progressive verb forms; Indonesian distributes it across the boundary phrase, aspect word, and context.
Sampai and hingga: marking the far boundary
Both sampai and hingga can mark the point up to which an activity, state, or range extends. Sampai is neutral and extremely common in everyday speech and writing. Hingga is also standard but is especially frequent in careful news, administrative, and expository writing (formal).
Saya akan menunggu sampai pukul enam.
I will wait until six o’clock.
Perpustakaan buka hingga pukul sembilan malam.
The library is open until nine in the evening.
Harga cabai naik hingga dua kali lipat.
The price of chilies rose to as much as twice its previous level.
These words identify an endpoint; they do not automatically tell you what happens after it. Saya menunggu sampai pukul enam commits the speaker to waiting up to six, but only context tells us whether the speaker left exactly then or perhaps waited longer.
The endpoint can also be a stage in a sequence or a measured limit.
Bacalah laporan ini sampai halaman dua puluh.
Read this report through page twenty.
Peserta berusia tujuh belas hingga dua puluh lima tahun boleh mendaftar.
Participants aged seventeen to twenty-five may apply.
Dia bekerja sampai larut malam untuk menyelesaikan proposal itu.
He/She worked until late at night to finish the proposal.
In many schedules and instructions, the named final unit is naturally understood as included. Sampai halaman dua puluh, for example, normally includes page twenty. When inclusion must be made explicit—particularly in rules, contracts, or formal ranges—use sampai dengan “through and including.”
Formulir dapat dikirim sampai dengan 30 September.
Forms may be submitted through and including September 30.
Diskon ini berlaku hingga akhir pekan.
This discount is valid until the end of the weekend.
Building a range from start to finish
Use dari X sampai Y or dari X hingga Y to state both boundaries of a range. The required everyday pattern is dari Senin sampai Jumat “from Monday until Friday.” Names of days begin with capital letters in Indonesian.
Saya bekerja dari Senin sampai Jumat.
I work from Monday until Friday.
Loket itu buka dari pukul delapan hingga pukul empat sore.
That counter is open from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon.
Kami tinggal di Surabaya dari 2018 sampai 2022.
We lived in Surabaya from 2018 until 2022.
The first boundary phrase and the endpoint phrase remain separate units. In a schedule, dari is natural because the speaker is mapping a bounded interval. By contrast, sejak is usually better when only a past onset is stated and the situation continues to the present.
Kafe itu buka dari pagi sampai tengah malam.
That café is open from morning until midnight.
Kafe itu sudah buka sejak pagi.
That café has been open since this morning.
The first sentence gives the café’s full operating span. The second looks forward from this morning and presents the café as already open now. This is why simply replacing English since with dari is unreliable.
The source uses of dari page develops the broader source meaning, while the relative-time page covers boundaries defined by an earlier or later event.
Spatial and other non-temporal extent
Sampai and hingga extend beyond clock time. They can mark the farthest point reached in space, a text, a scale, or a process. Sampai ke adds an explicit directional phrase and often suggests “all the way to.”
Kami berjalan kaki sampai desa berikutnya.
We walked as far as the next village.
Banjir menggenangi jalan hingga halaman depan rumah.
Floodwaters covered the road as far as the front yard of the house.
Antrean mengular sampai ke pintu masuk stasiun.
The line stretched all the way to the station entrance.
Jalan setapak itu membentang dari kebun hingga pantai.
That footpath extends from the gardens to the beach.
With sampai ke pintu masuk, ke names the goal and sampai highlights that the line actually reaches that boundary. Plain ke pintu masuk would give a direction or destination without the same “as far as” meaning. See direction with ke for the underlying goal structure.
Word boundaries and spelling
Write every preposition separately from its complement: sejak kecil, sampai Jumat, hingga pantai, di rumah, and ke kantor. Under EYD V, free di and ke are separate, whereas prefixes attach: ditutup “closed” and kedua “second.” The distinction is grammatical, not a matter of pronunciation.
Kantor kedua di jalan ini buka sampai malam.
The second office on this street stays open until the evening.
Here kedua contains attached ordinal ke-, di jalan contains free locative di, and sampai malam contains a separate boundary word. The spacing guide gives a full diagnostic.
Common Mistakes
1. Using dari alone for continuing “since”
❌ Saya tinggal di Bandung dari 2021.
Incorrect for the intended continuing meaning ‘since 2021’ — dari alone presents a source but does not clearly mark an ongoing onset.
✅ Saya tinggal di Bandung sejak 2021.
I have lived in Bandung since 2021.
Use dari naturally when an endpoint follows: dari 2021 sampai 2024.
2. Omitting the endpoint marker in a full range
❌ Toko itu buka dari Senin Jumat.
Incorrect — the two boundaries need an endpoint marker.
✅ Toko itu buka dari Senin sampai Jumat.
That shop is open from Monday until Friday.
3. Treating sampai as proof that the situation is still continuing
❌ Dia tinggal di sini sampai 2020, dan dia masih tinggal di sini sekarang.
Contradictory in the intended reading — sampai 2020 normally presents 2020 as the end of that residence.
✅ Dia sudah tinggal di sini sejak 2020 dan masih tinggal di sini sekarang.
He/She has lived here since 2020 and still lives here now.
The preposition supplies a boundary; sudah and masih make the continuing status explicit.
4. Joining a boundary word to its complement
❌ Kami menunggu sampaimalam.
Incorrect spelling — sampai is separate from its complement.
✅ Kami menunggu sampai malam.
We waited until the evening.
Key Takeaways
- Sejak starts a timeline: sejak kecil, sejak 2020.
- Sampai and hingga mark its far boundary; hingga is particularly common in formal prose.
- Use dari X sampai/hingga Y for a complete range, and sampai dengan when inclusion of the endpoint must be explicit.
- Boundary phrases and aspect work together: sudah, masih, and belum show how the situation relates to the reference time.
- The same endpoint logic extends to space, pages, quantities, and scales.
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- dari: Source, Origin, Material, and ComparisonA1 — Use dari to express where something begins, comes from, is made from, or serves as a point of comparison.
- ke: Direction and DestinationA1 — Use free ke for movement toward destinations and endpoints, contrasting it with static di and attached ordinal or derivational ke-.
- pada: Time Points and Abstract LocationA2 — Use pada to anchor events at time points and to locate states, responsibility, or attention on an abstract holder.
- sebelum, sesudah, and setelahA2 — Place one event before or after another with sebelum, sesudah, and setelah, whether the complement is a noun phrase or a clause.
- sudah: Completed, Changed, and Now TrueA1 — Use sudah for realized events, changes of state, and newly established verbal, adjectival, nominal, and locative predicates.
- Writing di and ke: Prefix or PrepositionA1 — Choose solid or separate spelling for di and ke by identifying whether each form is an affix or a preposition.