Sending involves a sender, a transferred theme, and often a recipient or destination. Mengirim and mengirimkan normally select the sent theme as their object; mengirimi selects the recipient and leaves the theme after it. That suffix choice determines which participant can become the subject of the corresponding passive.
No person or tense endings
The verb family never agrees with person or number and never receives a tense ending. Separate words and context locate the event in time.
| Context | Indonesian | Cue |
|---|---|---|
| I, now | saya mengirim paket | context |
| she, yesterday | kemarin dia mengirim paket | kemarin |
| they, ongoing | mereka sedang mengirim paket | sedang |
| we, tomorrow | besok kami akan mengirim paket | besok, akan |
Saya mengirim paket kecil ke Surabaya pagi ini.
I sent a small package to Surabaya this morning.
Kemarin dia mengirim dokumen melalui kurir.
Yesterday she sent the documents by courier.
Besok kami akan mengirim undangan kepada semua anggota.
Tomorrow we will send invitations to all members.
English send, sends, and sent correspond to unchanged Indonesian predicates plus time cues. Bare kirim is not an infinitive.
Bare kirim: instructions and object voice
Bare kirim is natural in commands. It also follows a first- or second-person actor in object voice when the sent item is placed first.
Kirim berkasnya sebelum pukul lima sore.
Send the file before five in the afternoon.
Tolong kirim foto itu dalam ukuran asli.
Please send that photo at its original size.
Pesan ini saya kirim setelah rapat selesai.
I sent this message after the meeting ended.
Alamat lengkapnya harus kamu kirim melalui surel.
You must send the full address by email.
Actor-first saya kirim also occurs in conversation (informal). Careful actor-oriented prose normally uses saya mengirim. This is a voice and register contrast, not tense.
mengirim: send or dispatch a theme
Mengirim is transitive and usually takes the sent item, message, money, or person as its object. Express a destination with ke and a human recipient with kepada.
Toko itu mengirim pesanan ke alamat pelanggan setiap sore.
The shop sends orders to customers' addresses every afternoon.
Saya mengirim pesan kepada ketua kelompok semalam.
I sent a message to the group leader last night.
Perusahaan mengirim teknisi ke lokasi tambang.
The company sends a technician to the mine site.
Orang tuanya rutin mengirim uang untuk biaya hidup.
Her parents regularly send money for living expenses.
The object is the dispatched theme even when it is a person, as in mengirim teknisi. The recipient or destination is a separate participant.
Common combinations extend beyond physical parcels:
Kami mengirim salam kepada keluarga Anda di Medan.
We send our regards to your family in Medan.
Warga mengirim doa bagi para korban bencana.
Residents offer prayers for the disaster victims.
Maaf, saya salah kirim pesan tadi malam.
Sorry, I sent the message to the wrong place or person last night. (informal)
Kirim salam, kirim doa, and salah kirim are conventional combinations. Their exact English translation comes from the expression, not the root alone.
mengirimkan: the theme as a bounded transfer
Mengirimkan also selects the sent theme, often with kepada + recipient or ke + destination. It substantially overlaps with mengirim, but -kan can make the dispatch of a specified theme toward its endpoint more explicit. Formal instructions and careful transactional language use it frequently.
Saya mengirimkan surat kepada Rina melalui pos tercatat.
I send a letter to Rina by registered mail.
Bank telah mengirimkan kode verifikasi kepada nasabah.
The bank has sent a verification code to the customer.
Panitia akan mengirimkan sertifikat ke alamat masing-masing peserta.
The committee will send the certificates to each participant's address.
Mohon mengirimkan bukti pembayaran sebelum batas waktu.
Please send proof of payment before the deadline. (formal)
Aplikasi itu otomatis mengirimkan pemberitahuan kepada pengguna.
The application automatically sends a notification to the user.
There is no perfect English gloss that mechanically separates mengirim and mengirimkan. The unsuffixed form is fully transitive and often more concise; mengirimkan is common when the transferred item and endpoint are both elaborated. Learn actual collocations rather than treating -kan as an English tense or preposition.
mengirimi: select the recipient
Mengirimi makes the recipient the primary object. The sent theme follows as a second noun phrase, usually without kepada:
sender + mengirimi + recipient + theme
Saya mengirimi Rina surat setiap bulan selama ia di luar negeri.
I sent Rina a letter every month while she was abroad.
Kantor mengirimi semua pegawai formulir baru.
The office sends all employees a new form.
Doni mengirimi ibunya foto-foto dari perjalanan.
Doni sends his mother photos from the trip.
Penipu itu mengirimi korban pesan yang mendesak.
The scammer sends the victim urgent messages.
Mereka terus mengirimi para pelanggan berbagai brosur.
They keep sending customers various brochures.
The recipient-oriented perspective can also suggest repeated or multiple transfers, as in terus mengirimi ... berbagai brosur, but repetition is not obligatory. A single transfer is possible; the decisive fact is recipient-object selection.
The wider -i argument guide shows how this selected recipient behaves under passive voice and relativization.
Passive voice follows the selected object
Theme-oriented mengirim/mengirimkan correspond to dikirim/dikirimkan, with the sent theme as subject. Recipient-oriented mengirimi corresponds to dikirimi, with the recipient as subject and the sent theme still after the verb.
Surat itu dikirimkan kepada Rina melalui pos tercatat.
The letter is sent to Rina by registered mail.
Paket cadangan sudah dikirim ke kantor cabang.
The replacement package has already been sent to the branch office.
Rina dikirimi surat oleh kakaknya setiap bulan.
Rina is sent a letter by her older sibling every month.
Semua pegawai dikirimi formulir baru pagi ini.
All employees were sent a new form this morning.
Pelanggan itu terus dikirimi iklan yang tidak dimintanya.
That customer keeps being sent advertisements she did not request.
Compare the same event from two starting points:
Kode baru dikirimkan kepada pelanggan melalui SMS.
A new code is sent to the customer by text message.
Pelanggan dikirimi kode baru melalui SMS.
The customer is sent a new code by text message.
Passive di- is attached in dikirim, dikirimkan, and dikirimi. Locative di is separate in di kantor.
kiriman: the item sent
Kiriman commonly names a package, shipment, contribution, submission, remittance, or other item that has been sent. The exact sense comes from context.
Kiriman dari Bandung baru tiba menjelang siang.
The shipment from Bandung arrived toward noon.
Saya menerima kiriman foto dari teman lama.
I received a batch of photos sent by an old friend.
Cerpen itu merupakan kiriman pembaca dari Pontianak.
That short story is a reader submission from Pontianak.
Kiriman uang bulan ini terlambat dua hari.
This month's remittance was two days late.
These are lexicalized product readings. Kiriman is not the person who sends and does not name the whole delivery process.
pengiriman: sending, shipping, or delivery process
Pengiriman packages the event or service as a noun. It is frequent in commerce, logistics, administration, and reports (formal).
Biaya pengiriman sudah termasuk asuransi dasar.
The shipping fee already includes basic insurance.
Pengiriman antarpulau biasanya memerlukan waktu beberapa hari.
Inter-island shipping usually takes several days.
Nomor pelacakan akan aktif setelah pengiriman diproses.
The tracking number will become active after the shipment is processed.
Keterlambatan pengiriman disebabkan cuaca buruk.
The delivery delay was caused by bad weather.
Kiriman profiles what was sent; pengiriman profiles sending or the logistics process.
Common Mistakes
Giving the verb an English past ending
❌ Kemarin saya kirim-ed dokumen itu ke kantor.
Incorrect — Indonesian verbs do not take English tense endings.
✅ Kemarin saya mengirim dokumen itu ke kantor.
Yesterday I sent the document to the office.
Adding kepada after recipient-oriented mengirimi
❌ Saya mengirimi kepada Rina sebuah surat.
Incorrect — the recipient is the direct object of mengirimi and does not take kepada.
✅ Saya mengirimi Rina sebuah surat.
I send Rina a letter.
Confusing the sent item with the sending process
❌ Kiriman paket itu berlangsung selama tiga hari.
Wrong noun for a process extending over three days — kiriman profiles the item sent.
✅ Pengiriman paket itu memerlukan waktu tiga hari.
Shipping that package takes three days.
Choosing the wrong passive subject
❌ Surat itu dikirimi kepada Rina kemarin.
Incorrect — dikirimi selects a recipient subject, not the sent theme.
✅ Surat itu dikirimkan kepada Rina kemarin.
The letter was sent to Rina yesterday.
Separating passive di-
❌ Pelanggan itu di kirimi kode baru.
Incorrect spelling — passive di- attaches to the verb.
✅ Pelanggan itu dikirimi kode baru.
That customer was sent a new code.
Key Takeaways
- Mengirim and mengirimkan normally select the sent theme; a recipient appears with kepada and a destination with ke.
- Mengirimi selects the recipient as primary object and leaves the sent theme after it.
- Passive choice preserves that selection: theme dikirim(kan) versus recipient dikirimi.
- Kiriman profiles an item sent, while pengiriman profiles the sending or delivery process.
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- -kan: Meanings and Derivational NetworkC1 — Understand how -kan adds or promotes participants in causative, caused-result, benefactive, transfer, and lexicalized verb families.
- -i: Meanings and Derivational NetworkB2 — Understand how -i maps locations, goals, recipients, and repeatedly affected targets onto direct-object position across productive and lexicalized families.
- -an: Meanings and Derivational NetworkB2 — Understand how -an nouns package products, results, instruments, places, groups, and conventionalized activity readings.
- peN-...-an: Meanings and Derivational NetworkC1 — Understand how peN-...-an nominalizes events as processes, organized activities, results, and lexicalized institutions while preserving their participants conceptually.
- -i Applicative Patterns: Subjects, Objects, and Argument OrderB2 — Track actor subjects, target objects, remaining themes, passive agents, pronouns, and omitted arguments in -i applicative clauses.