Malay can describe an indefinite portion, an exact half, a cut piece, or a selected subset. Sebahagian pelajar presents “some students” without first defining a complete set, while sebahagian daripada pelajar itu explicitly selects some members from “those students.” That contrast is often optional in loose context, but it is a powerful way to make reference precise.
English uses of in many partitive expressions, including “half of the bread” and “a piece of cake.” Malay does not translate that word mechanically. Daripada is most informative when it marks selection from a known set or whole; a measure or portion word can stand directly before an unbounded noun.
sebahagian + noun: an unbounded portion
Sebahagian means “a part/some portion.” Directly before a noun, it commonly quantifies an unbounded group or mass without asking the listener to retrieve a previously identified total. Compare the non-partitive quantity system on the page about beberapa and indefinite number.
Sebahagian pelajar menaiki bas ke kampus.
Some students take the bus to campus.
Sebahagian wang itu akan digunakan untuk membaiki bumbung.
Part of that money will be used to repair the roof.
Kami terpaksa membuang sebahagian makanan yang sudah rosak.
We had to throw away some of the food that had gone bad.
In sebahagian pelajar, the speaker introduces a non-total quantity of students. There may be a relevant population in the background, but its boundary is not grammatically foregrounded. Sebahagian wang itu can still contain a demonstrative: itu identifies the money, while sebahagian selects an unspecified amount of it through direct quantification.
Sebahagian besar and sebahagian kecil describe the relative size of the portion. They remain vague rather than mathematically exact.
Sebahagian besar penduduk di kawasan itu bekerja sendiri.
A large proportion of residents in that area are self-employed.
sebahagian daripada: explicit selection from a defined set
Adding daripada presents the portion as selected from a source set. This is especially natural with a demonstrative, a pronoun, an exact group, or another expression that defines the whole.
Sebahagian daripada pelajar itu sudah menghantar tugasan mereka.
Some of those students have submitted their assignments.
Sebahagian daripada mereka memilih untuk pulang awal.
Some of them chose to go home early.
Dua daripada sepuluh cadangan itu telah diluluskan.
Two of those ten proposals have been approved.
The semantic logic is source selection: start with pelajar itu, mereka, or sepuluh cadangan itu, then take a portion from it. This use of daripada is different from a plain measure construction such as dua gelas air, where no previously bounded set of water-glasses is being selected.
In many real sentences, both a direct construction and a daripada construction are grammatical. Compare sebahagian pelajar kelas itu with sebahagian daripada pelajar kelas itu. The second makes the “from among that class's students” structure explicit and is often clearer in careful prose (formal). The distinction is therefore one of construal and clarity, not an absolute claim that definiteness mechanically forces daripada every time.
Sebahagian daripada peserta yang mendaftar tidak hadir pada hari pertama.
Some of the participants who registered did not attend on the first day. (formal)
With a personal pronoun such as mereka, use daripada in standard partitive phrasing: sebahagian daripada mereka. Bare sebahagian mereka can be misread as a possessive chain or sound compressed.
separuh: one half viewed as part of a whole
Separuh means “half” and readily profiles one of two equal portions of a whole. It can stand directly before a noun or occur with daripada when source selection is being emphasized.
Saya makan separuh roti itu dan menyimpan selebihnya.
I ate half of that bread and saved the rest.
Separuh daripada kawasan itu masih dinaiki air.
Half of that area is still flooded.
Mesyuarat itu mengambil masa separuh hari.
The meeting took half a day.
Separuh roti itu packages “half + that bread” directly. Separuh daripada roti itu explicitly starts from the whole loaf or item and selects half; it can be useful when contrasting that half with the remainder. In both cases, the intended whole must be recoverable for a mathematically exact half.
setengah: half a unit, amount, or item
Setengah also means “half” and overlaps substantially with separuh. It is particularly frequent before units and time expressions: setengah kilogram, setengah jam, setengah meter. It can also divide an ordinary item, as in setengah roti “half a loaf/piece of bread.”
Saya membeli setengah kilogram cili merah.
I bought half a kilogram of red chillies.
Perjalanan itu mengambil masa setengah jam sahaja.
The journey took only half an hour.
Dia makan setengah roti sebelum keluar bekerja.
He/She ate half a loaf/piece of bread before leaving for work.
There is no perfectly rigid rule separating setengah and separuh in every context. Both can express one half, and regional or collocational preference matters. A useful tendency is that setengah integrates smoothly into a quantity phrase before a measure, whereas separuh more transparently evokes one part of a particular whole. Learn frequent combinations rather than forcing a categorical English distinction.
The form setengah-setengah can mean “certain/some” in older or more formal writing (formal, less common), as in setengah-setengah pihak “certain parties.” Contemporary neutral prose usually prefers sesetengah pihak, sebahagian pihak, or a more exact description.
sepotong: a conventional piece or slice
Sepotong means “one piece/slice” and does not promise any exact fraction. Its plural-count counterpart is dua potong, tiga potong, and so on. The following noun identifies what has been cut or portioned.
Saya hanya mahu sepotong kek keju.
I only want one piece of cheesecake.
Letakkan sepotong limau nipis di tepi gelas.
Put a slice of lime at the side of the glass.
Penjual itu membungkus tiga potong kuih untuk kami.
The seller wrapped three pieces of kuih for us.
The size and shape come from convention and context. A potong of cake may be wedge-shaped; a potong of fish may be a cross-section; a potong of cloth may be a cut length or piece. If equality matters, state it: lapan potong yang sama besar “eight equally sized pieces.”
Do not add daripada merely because English says “a piece of”: sepotong kek, not sepotong daripada kek. The latter becomes natural only when explicitly selecting a piece from a defined inventory, for example satu daripada tiga potong kek itu “one of those three pieces of cake.”
bahagian daripada: naming a part and its source whole
Bahagian is a full noun meaning “part, section, portion, division, or department.” The construction bahagian daripada X explicitly relates that part to the whole X. Unlike sebahagian, bahagian can take its own numeral and modifiers.
Bab ini ialah bahagian daripada laporan akhir.
This chapter is part of the final report. (formal)
Satu bahagian daripada dinding itu perlu dibina semula.
One section of that wall needs to be rebuilt.
Bahagian terbesar daripada peruntukan itu digunakan untuk penyelenggaraan.
The largest portion of that allocation was used for maintenance. (formal)
Here daripada identifies the containing whole: the report, wall, or allocation. Bahagian can also be organizational, as in Bahagian Kewangan “Finance Division,” but that lexical institutional meaning is not a partitive construction.
Compare the related forms:
| Expression | Usual perspective |
|---|---|
| sebahagian pelajar | some students; unbounded subset |
| sebahagian daripada pelajar itu | some selected from those students |
| separuh kek itu | one half of that cake |
| setengah kilogram tepung | half a kilogram of flour |
| sepotong kek | one context-sized piece of cake |
| satu bahagian daripada laporan itu | one section belonging to that report |
The remainder and the whole
Partitives often contrast with semua “all,” keseluruhan “the whole/entirety,” or selebihnya “the rest.” Naming both portion and remainder prevents ambiguity about what happened to the whole.
Sebahagian daripada wang itu dibelanjakan, manakala selebihnya disimpan.
Some of that money was spent, while the rest was saved.
Kami membaca separuh buku itu malam tadi dan akan menghabiskan selebihnya hari ini.
We read half of that book last night and will finish the rest today.
Buku itu is a bounded whole, while selebihnya retrieves the complement of the already mentioned portion. Malay needs no agreement between these quantity expressions and the noun.
Common Mistakes
1. Adding daripada after every portion word
❌ Saya membeli setengah daripada kilogram gula.
Incorrect — the measure unit follows setengah directly.
✅ Saya membeli setengah kilogram gula.
I bought half a kilogram of sugar.
2. Omitting daripada with a pronoun-defined set
❌ Sebahagian mereka sudah pulang.
Unclear/nonstandard as a careful partitive — use daripada to select from the pronoun set.
✅ Sebahagian daripada mereka sudah pulang.
Some of them have gone home.
3. Hiding an explicitly defined selection
❌ Sebahagian pelajar itu dipilih daripada kumpulan lain.
Ambiguous — this can initially group itu with pelajar rather than clearly mark selection from the set.
✅ Sebahagian daripada pelajar itu dipilih untuk menyertai pertandingan.
Some of those students were selected to take part in the competition.
4. Treating sepotong as exactly one half
❌ Saya sudah makan sepotong, jadi tepat separuh kek itu sudah habis.
Incorrect inference — the size of sepotong is conventional, not mathematically fixed.
✅ Saya sudah makan separuh kek itu.
I have eaten half of that cake.
5. Using daripada inside an ordinary piece measure
❌ Dia mengambil sepotong daripada roti untuk sarapan.
Unnatural for an unbounded serving — no source-set linker is needed.
✅ Dia mengambil sepotong roti untuk sarapan.
He/She took a piece of bread for breakfast.
Key Takeaways
Bare sebahagian + noun presents an unbounded portion; sebahagian daripada + defined set makes source selection explicit. Separuh and setengah both express half, with setengah especially common before measurement units. Sepotong identifies a context-sized piece, while bahagian daripada names a part and relates it explicitly to its whole. Use daripada for that selection or source relation—not as a universal translation of English of.
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