Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Semakin sering keluarga berolahraga bersama, semakin sehat tubuh mereka. - The more often a family exercises together, the healthier their bodies become.

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Questions & Answers about Semakin sering keluarga berolahraga bersama, semakin sehat tubuh mereka.

What does the semakin … semakin construction mean and how does it work?

Semakin A … semakin B literally means “the more A, the more B.”
It’s used to express a proportional increase or decrease: as A increases, B also increases (or decreases, if B is negative).
In our sentence: as the family exercises more often, their bodies become healthier.

Why is the verb berolahraga formed with the prefix ber-?

Ber- is a productive prefix in Indonesian that forms intransitive verbs, often meaning “to have/get/have an activity.”
Olahraga by itself is a noun meaning “exercise.”
Berolahraga → “to exercise.”

Why is bersama placed after berolahraga rather than before?

Bersama here functions as an adverb of manner: it tells us how they exercise (“together”).
In Indonesian, manner adverbs normally follow the verb: [Verb] + [Adverb of manner] → berolahraga bersama.

What part of speech is sehat, and why does it follow tubuh?

Sehat is an adjective meaning “healthy.”
It follows the noun it modifies: tubuh (body) → tubuh sehat (healthy body).
With semakin, it becomes “increasingly healthy.”

Why do we say tubuh mereka instead of mereka tubuh?

In Indonesian, possessive pronouns (their, his, my) follow the noun: [Noun] + [Pronoun] → tubuh mereka (“their bodies”).
Mereka cannot precede the noun in this context.

Could we replace semakin with makin here? Are they interchangeable?

Is it acceptable to swap the two clauses, putting semakin sehat tubuh mereka first?

You could say: Semakin sehat tubuh mereka, semakin sering keluarga berolahraga bersama.
But this sounds odd, because it implies “the healthier they are, the more they exercise,” which reverses the intended cause and effect.
Keep the natural order: cause (exercise) first, effect (health) second.

Why don’t we use lebih instead of the second semakin? For example, semakin sering …, lebih sehat tubuh mereka?

You can say semakin sering …, semakin sehat to keep the parallel structure.
Mixing semakin …, lebih … breaks that symmetry and sounds less idiomatic.
If you really want lebih, you could recast the sentence differently, but the natural comparative pair in Indonesian is semakin … semakin ….