Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Guru membagikan kue manis kepada murid-murid setiap sore. - The teacher hands out sweet cakes to the students every afternoon.

membagikan comes from the root bagi (to divide/share). The prefix me- turns it into an active verb, and the suffix -kan makes it causative or benefactive – i.e. “to cause something to go to someone.” So while bagi alone is “share/divide,” membagikan is “distribute/hand out (to someone).”

Why is kepada used before murid-murid, and could we use untuk or simply omit the preposition?

kepada marks the indirect object (the recipients) — equivalent to “to” in English.

kepada murid-murid = “to the students.”
You wouldn’t omit it, because then murid-murid would look like a direct object of membagikan, which is ungrammatical. untuk could sometimes mean “for,” but it doesn’t highlight the act of giving as clearly as kepada does here.

Why is the adjective manis placed after the noun kue instead of before it?

In Indonesian, adjectives usually follow the nouns they describe. So you say kue manis (cake sweet) rather than manis kue.

What does the reduplication in murid-murid signify? Can we just say murid?

Reduplication (murid-murid) explicitly marks plurality or “a group of students.” You can say murid to mean “student” (singular) or even “students” (in a generic sense), but murid-murid removes any doubt and stresses “students (plural).”

What does setiap sore mean, and why is it placed at the end of the sentence?

setiap sore means “every afternoon.” Time expressions like this commonly go at the beginning or at the end in Indonesian. Here, placing it at the end simply states when the action happens without shifting the focus.

Can we move setiap sore to the front? Would that change meaning or emphasis?

Yes. You can say Setiap sore, guru membagikan kue manis kepada murid-murid. That front‐positioning emphasizes “every afternoon” more strongly but doesn’t alter the basic meaning.

Does Indonesian strictly follow Subject-Verb-Object word order as in this example, or is it flexible?

The default is SVO (Subject-Verb-Object), much like English, but Indonesian is fairly flexible. You can rearrange elements (especially for emphasis) as long as the roles of subject, verb, object, and other markings remain clear.