Saya pergi ke kantor lewat jalan belakang.

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Breakdown of Saya pergi ke kantor lewat jalan belakang.

• saya: I
• kantor: the office
• pergi: to go

Questions & Answers about Saya pergi ke kantor lewat jalan belakang.

Why doesn’t pergi change form to indicate that the action happened in the past?

Indonesian verbs do not inflect for tense. pergi is the base form and can refer to past, present, or future. Time is usually shown by adverbs or context:

• kemarin saya pergi… (yesterday I went…)
• sekarang saya pergi… (now I’m going…)
• besok saya pergi… (tomorrow I will go…)

Can I use berangkat instead of pergi here? What’s the difference?

Both pergi and berangkat mean “to go,” but:

• pergi is more general (“to leave/go somewhere”).
• berangkat emphasizes departure or a scheduled trip (train, flight, etc.).
  In everyday speech Saya pergi ke kantor is more common; Saya berangkat ke kantor sounds slightly more formal or focused on the act of departing.

There are two prepositions: ke in ke kantor and lewat in lewat jalan belakang. Why both?

They serve different functions:

• ke marks the destination: ke kantor = “to the office.”
• lewat indicates the route: lewat jalan belakang = “via the back road.”
  You need ke to show where you’re going and lewat to show how you get there.

What exactly does lewat mean here, and how is it different from melalui?