Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Pegawai kantor membeli kopi panas di kantin setiap pagi. - Office employees buy hot coffee at the canteen every morning.

pegawai means “employee,” kantor means “office.” Together, pegawai kantor literally “office employee,” i.e. “office worker.” In Indonesian, compounds often place the modifier noun after the head noun.

Why is there no plural marker on pegawai kantor?

Indonesian nouns do not change form for plural. Number is inferred from context. If you need to stress “more than one,” you can reduplicate the noun (e.g. pegawai-pegawai).

Why don’t we use articles like “a” or “the” before pegawai kantor?

Indonesian has no grammatical articles. Definiteness or indefiniteness comes from context or optional quantifiers (e.g. seorang pegawai kantor “an office worker”).

What role does di play in di kantin?

di is the preposition for static location (“at” or “in”). So di kantin means “at the canteen.”

Why is the verb membeli used instead of just beli?

The root verb beli (“buy”) takes the prefix me- to form an active, transitive verb. Before b, me- assimilates to mem-, giving membeli (“to buy [something]”).

In kopi panas, why does panas come after kopi?

Adjectives in Indonesian normally follow the noun they describe. So kopi panas is literally “coffee hot,” i.e. “hot coffee.”

Why are di kantin and setiap pagi placed where they are in the sentence?

Indonesian typically follows Subject–Verb–Object, then adverbials like location and time. Hence di kantin (location) and setiap pagi (time) come after the object. However, word order is flexible, e.g.

Setiap pagi pegawai kantor membeli kopi panas di kantin.
Di kantin pegawai kantor membeli kopi panas setiap pagi.

What does kantin mean?

kantin means “canteen” or “cafeteria,” the place in an office (or school) where you buy food and drinks.