Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Saya menyiapkan tiket kereta untuk perjalanan di pagi hari. - I prepare train tickets for the morning trip.

menyiapkan is the active verb “to prepare” or “to get something ready.” It comes from the adjective siap (meaning “ready”) plus the affixes meN- and -kan, which together form a transitive verb that takes a direct object (in this case, tiket kereta).

Why is the affix pattern meN-…-kan used here? What does it do?

The meN-…-kan affix turns a base word into a verb that means “to cause/make something [base].”
• meN- is the active-voice prefix (the N assimilates to the first consonant of the root).
• -kan is a suffix that often indicates “to do something for someone” or “to prepare/make ready.”
So menyiapkan literally means “to make ready.”

Could I use mempersiapkan instead of menyiapkan? Is there any difference?

Yes, you can say saya mempersiapkan tiket kereta….
• Both menyiapkan and mempersiapkan derive from siap and are synonyms meaning “to prepare.”
• mempersiapkan is slightly more formal and built on the noun persiapan (“preparation”), but in everyday speech they’re interchangeable.

Why does the sentence say tiket kereta instead of tiket kereta api? Are they the same?

Yes, kereta by itself commonly means kereta api (train).
• tiket kereta is a shorter, more colloquial way to say “train ticket.”
• If you want to be very clear, you can say tiket kereta api, but native speakers often drop api.

What role does untuk play in untuk perjalanan di pagi hari? Can it be omitted?

untuk is a preposition meaning “for” or “in order to.” Here it links the action of preparing tickets to their purpose: “for the trip in the morning.”
• If you omit untuk, the sentence becomes less clear—listeners might wonder “for what?”
• You cannot replace it with English-style infinitives. untuk is necessary to express “for [noun/phrase].”

What is perjalanan, and how is it different from pergi or jalan-jalan?

• perjalanan is a noun meaning “journey” or “trip.”
• pergi is a verb meaning “to go.”
• jalan-jalan is a verb (often reduplicated) meaning “to go for a stroll” or “to go sightseeing.”
You use perjalanan when you talk about the trip itself as a noun.

Why is di pagi hari used for “in the morning”? What does di do here? Can you say pada pagi hari or pagi-pagi instead?

• di normally marks location, but with time it means “at/in [time period].”
• di pagi hari = “in the morning.”
• pada pagi hari is also correct and slightly more formal.
• pagi-pagi is colloquial and means “early in the morning” (often implies very early).
All three express morning, but di pagi hari is the most neutral.

How do you know when the action takes place, since Indonesian verbs don’t change for tense?

Indonesian indicates time with adverbs or time expressions, not verb conjugation. Here di pagi hari tells you the action happens in the morning. If you wanted past, you could add kemarin (“yesterday”) or sudah (“already”), etc.

Can you change the word order? For example, can you say Di pagi hari saya menyiapkan tiket kereta?

Yes. Indonesian has a flexible S–V–O order for adverbials. Both are correct:
• Saya menyiapkan tiket kereta untuk perjalanan di pagi hari.
• Di pagi hari saya menyiapkan tiket kereta untuk perjalanan.
Moving di pagi hari or untuk perjalanan to the front or middle shifts emphasis but doesn’t break grammar.

The subject here is saya. Are there other ways to say “I” in Indonesian, and why use saya?

Common first-person pronouns include:
• saya – neutral and polite in most contexts
• aku – informal, used among friends or younger speakers
• gue/gua – very informal/slang (Jakarta).
Use saya in formal writing, with strangers, or in customer-service contexts. Use aku among close friends or family.