Breakdown of Terkadang saya minum teh hangat sebelum tidur.
Questions & Answers about Terkadang saya minum teh hangat sebelum tidur.
In Indonesian, time adverbs like terkadang are very flexible. Placing it at the start emphasizes the frequency:
• Terkadang saya minum teh hangat…
You could also say:
• Saya terkadang minum teh hangat…
or even
• Saya minum teh hangat terkadang sebelum tidur.
But the most natural spots are before the subject or immediately before the verb.
Both saya and aku mean “I,” but they differ in register.
• saya is neutral or polite—safe in formal situations and with people you don’t know well.
• aku is informal and closer to English “I” used among friends or family.
So in a casual chat you could say Terkadang aku minum teh hangat sebelum tidur, but saya is more universally appropriate.
Indonesian has no articles. To specify “a cup,” you add a classifier and a numeral or quantifier:
• satu cangkir teh hangat = “a cup of warm tea”
• sedikit teh hangat = “a little warm tea”
Without a quantity word, teh hangat simply means “warm tea” in general.
In Indonesian, adjectives almost always follow the noun they modify. English word order is Noun + Adjective in reverse, but Indonesian is:
• teh hangat (tea warm)
• buku baru (book new)
• rumah besar (house big)
Indonesian verbs do not conjugate for tense. Instead, you rely on:
- Context (e.g. habitual vs. one-time)
- Time markers (adverbs or particles) such as sudah (already), akan (will), baru saja (just), or terkadang (sometimes).
Here, minum stays in its base form while terkadang signals a recurring/habitual action.
sebelum is a subordinating conjunction meaning “before.” It can directly introduce:
• a noun: sebelum tidur (“before sleep”/“before sleeping”)
• a clause with an understood subject: sebelum (saya) tidur
Adding saya is grammatically fine but often omitted because the subject is clear from the main clause. You could also front the phrase:
• Sebelum tidur, terkadang saya minum teh hangat.