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Kabut tebal menutupi jalan pagi ini.

Kabut tebal menutupi jalan pagi ini.
Thick fog covers the road this morning.

Breakdown of Kabut tebal menutupi jalan pagi ini.

pagi ini
this morning
tebal
thick
jalan
the road
kabut
the fog
menutupi
to cover
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Questions & Answers about Kabut tebal menutupi jalan pagi ini.

In kabut tebal, why is the adjective tebal placed after the noun, unlike English thick fog?

In Indonesian, the normal order is noun + adjective, the opposite of English:

  • kabut tebal = thick fog
    • kabut = fog
    • tebal = thick

Other examples:

  • buku baru = new book
  • rumah besar = big house
  • mobil cepat = fast car

Putting the adjective before the noun (e.g. tebal kabut) is not normal in everyday Indonesian and will usually sound wrong or poetic at best. So you should generally follow:

NOUN + ADJECTIVE, not ADJECTIVE + NOUN

There is no the or a/an in Kabut tebal menutupi jalan pagi ini. How do articles work in Indonesian?

Indonesian has no direct equivalent of English articles (a / an / the). Nouns stand on their own, and context tells you whether it’s specific or general.

In the sentence:

  • kabut tebal could be understood as:

    • the thick fog
    • a thick fog
    • thick fog

  • jalan can be:

    • the road, the street, or just the way / path

If you need to be very specific, you can add other words:

  • kabut tebal itu = that thick fog (specific)
  • sebuah jalan = a road (emphasizing “one road”, but sebuah is not used as often as a/an in English)

Most of the time, Indonesian just omits anything like the or a, and leaves it to context.

Does menutupi mean “cover”, “is covering”, or “covered”? How is tense expressed here?

The verb menutupi itself has no tense. Indonesian verbs usually do not change form for past, present, or future.

  • menutupi literally: to cover / covering

The time is shown by time expressions or context. Here:

  • pagi ini = this morning / this morning (today)

So depending on context, Kabut tebal menutupi jalan pagi ini. could be translated as:

  • Thick fog covered the road this morning. (past)
  • Thick fog is covering the road this morning. (current situation this morning)

If you want to emphasize past, you can add words like:

  • tadi pagi = earlier this morning
    • Kabut tebal menutupi jalan tadi pagi. = Thick fog covered the road earlier this morning.

But grammatically, the verb form menutupi stays the same.

What is the difference between tutup, menutup, and menutupi?

All come from the same root tutup (close/shut/cover), but the meN- prefix and -i suffix change the function:

  1. tutup

    • root form, often used as an adjective or bare verb
    • pintu tutup = the door is closed
    • Tutup pintunya! = Close the door!

  2. menutup

    • meN- + tutup
    • active verb: to close / to shut / to cover
    • Focus is often on the action, sometimes on the thing being closed
    • Dia menutup pintu. = He/She closes the door.

  3. menutupi

    • meN- + tutup + -i
    • active verb with -i often meaning “to cover something completely / to cover a surface”
    • Focus is on the object or area being covered
    • Salju menutupi jalan. = Snow covers the road.

In your sentence:

  • Kabut tebal menutupi jalan emphasizes that the fog is covering the road (as an area/surface).
  • You could say Kabut tebal menutup jalan, but menutupi is more natural when something like fog, snow, etc. covers an area.
Can pagi ini be placed in other positions, like at the beginning or middle of the sentence?

Yes. Time expressions in Indonesian are fairly flexible. These are all grammatical:

  1. Kabut tebal menutupi jalan pagi ini.
  2. Pagi ini, kabut tebal menutupi jalan.
  3. Kabut tebal pagi ini menutupi jalan. (possible, slightly different emphasis)

Nuance:

  • At the beginning: Pagi ini, kabut tebal menutupi jalan.

    • Emphasizes this morning first, like “As for this morning, thick fog covered the road.”

  • At the end (original sentence):

    • More neutral and common in everyday speech and writing.

The safest, most neutral options are (1) and (2).

What exactly does jalan mean here, and how is it different from the verb “to walk”?

jalan in Indonesian can be both:

  1. a noun: road/street/way/path

    • jalan = road/street
    • di jalan = on the road
    • In your sentence, jalan clearly means road.

  2. a verb: to walk, to go

    • Saya jalan. = I walk. / I’m walking.
    • Mereka jalan ke sekolah. = They walk to school.

In your sentence, Kabut tebal menutupi jalan pagi ini., the structure is:

  • kabut tebal (subject)
  • menutupi (verb)
  • jalan (object)
  • pagi ini (time)

Because jalan is in object position after a transitive verb, it is understood as a noun: the road, not “walk”.

Could you say Kabut tebal itu menutupi jalan pagi ini? What does itu add?

Yes, you can say:

  • Kabut tebal itu menutupi jalan pagi ini.

Adding itu makes kabut tebal more specific/definite, similar to that thick fog or the thick fog (that we both know about).

Nuance:

  • Kabut tebal menutupi jalan pagi ini.

    • General statement: Thick fog covered the road this morning. (not necessarily one specific fog previously mentioned)

  • Kabut tebal itu menutupi jalan pagi ini.

    • Refers to a particular fog that the speaker and listener can identify from context (for example, one they both saw, or that was already mentioned).

So itu works somewhat like that or sometimes like a more definite the.

Could I say Kabut yang tebal menutupi jalan pagi ini instead of kabut tebal? What’s the difference?

Both are grammatical:

  • Kabut tebal menutupi jalan pagi ini.
  • Kabut yang tebal menutupi jalan pagi ini.

However, yang changes the feel a bit:

  1. kabut tebal

    • Simple noun + adjective
    • Most common, neutral way: thick fog

  2. kabut yang tebal

    • Literally: fog that is thick
    • The yang clause makes it sound more descriptive or contrastive, often used when:
      • contrasting with another type of fog, or
      • adding extra emphasis on the fact that it is thick.

Example contrast:

  • Bukan kabut tipis, tapi kabut yang tebal menutupi jalan pagi ini.
    = Not thin fog, but the fog that is thick covered the road this morning.

In everyday neutral sentences, kabut tebal (without yang) is preferred.

Is there a passive version of this sentence, like “The road is covered by thick fog this morning”?

Yes. You can make a passive sentence using tertutup or a passive verb form:

  1. With tertutup (very natural):
  • Jalan tertutup kabut tebal pagi ini.
    • Literally: The road is closed/covered by thick fog this morning.
  1. With passive ditutupi:
  • Jalan ditutupi kabut tebal pagi ini.
    • More literally: The road is being covered / was covered by thick fog this morning.

Nuance:

  • tertutup often describes a resulting state: the road is in a covered/closed condition.
  • ditutupi emphasizes the action of being covered.

All three are acceptable, but for a state description, Jalan tertutup kabut tebal pagi ini is very natural.

Why is it pagi ini and not ini pagi? How do demonstratives like ini work with time expressions?

For time expressions like this morning, this year, this week, Indonesian generally uses:

[time word] + ini

Examples:

  • pagi ini = this morning
  • malam ini = tonight / this evening
  • tahun ini = this year
  • minggu ini = this week

So:

  • pagi ini (correct)
  • ini pagi (not natural for “this morning”)

ini comes after the noun to show “this”, similar to how ini follows ordinary nouns:

  • rumah ini = this house
  • buku ini = this book
  • pagi ini = this morning

You could add pada to be more formal:

  • pada pagi ini = on this morning (more formal/written style)

But in normal speech, pagi ini is enough and most natural.