Belakangan, pacar dia sering ikut makan siang bersama kami.

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Breakdown of Belakangan, pacar dia sering ikut makan siang bersama kami.

• makan siang: the lunch
• bersama: with
• sering: often

Questions & Answers about Belakangan, pacar dia sering ikut makan siang bersama kami.

What exactly does the word belakangan mean here? Is it the same as belakangan ini, akhir-akhir ini, or baru-baru ini?

• Belakangan here means lately/recently.
• Belakangan ini and akhir-akhir ini both mean these days/lately and often sound a bit more natural in everyday speech when you mean an ongoing trend.
• Baru-baru ini means recently but usually points to one or a few specific recent events, not an ongoing pattern.
• In your sentence, because of sering (often), belakangan (ini) and akhir-akhir ini are the best fits; baru-baru ini would feel off.

Examples:

• Belakangan (ini), pacar dia sering ikut makan siang... (ongoing trend)
• Baru-baru ini, pacar dia ikut makan siang... (suggests a recent occurrence, not necessarily frequent)

Can belakangan also mean later on (in the future/past), and if so, why doesn’t it here?

Yes. Belakangan can mean later (on) or afterwards in other contexts:

• Nanti belakangan saja. (Let’s do it later.)
• Belakangan ketahuan bahwa… (It was later found out that…)

In your sentence, the comma and placement at the start, plus the collocation with sering, make the intended meaning lately (a time frame in the recent past), not later.