Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor.

Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor means “We (but not you) receive guidance from the mentor.”
The speaker is talking about their own group and not including the person they’re talking to.

If the listener is part of the group getting guidance, you would say:

Kita menerima bimbingan dari mentor.
= We (you and I / all of us here) receive guidance from the mentor.

So kami vs kita is about whether the listener is included, not about formality or number.

Does menerima mean “to receive” or “to accept”? Is there a nuance here?

Menerima can mean both to receive and to accept, depending on context.

In Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor, it is most naturally understood as:

We receive guidance from the mentor
or
We accepted guidance from the mentor (if the context is past / one-time)

Key points:

If something is simply given/comes to you: menerima uang, menerima email → receive money, receive an email.
If there is a choice to agree or not, menerima can lean toward accept:
Kami akhirnya menerima tawaran itu = We finally accepted the offer.

With bimbingan, both senses are possible, but many English speakers will simply translate it as receive guidance.

Is bimbingan a noun or a verb? How is it related to membimbing?

Bimbingan is a noun meaning guidance or mentoring.

It comes from the verb membimbing (to guide, to mentor). The pattern is:

membimbing = to guide
bimbingan = guidance

So in Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor:

menerima (verb) = receive
bimbingan (noun) = guidance

You could express a similar idea with the verb:

Mentor membimbing kami.
= The mentor guides us.

Or passive:

Kami dibimbing oleh mentor.
= We are guided by the mentor.

The original sentence uses a noun phrase: receive guidance rather than are guided.

Why is dari used instead of oleh? What’s the difference between dari mentor and oleh mentor?

Both dari and oleh can appear with people, but they play different roles:

dari = from (source/origin)
- bimbingan dari mentor = guidance from the mentor (the mentor is the source of the guidance)
oleh = by (agent in a passive construction)
- Kami dibimbing oleh mentor. = We are guided by the mentor.

In your sentence, bimbingan is the object (a thing), and dari mentor tells you where that thing comes from:

Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor.
= We receive guidance from the mentor.

If you changed it to a passive verb construction, then oleh becomes natural:

Kami dibimbing oleh mentor.
= We are guided by the mentor.

So: noun + dari (guidance from X) vs. passive verb + oleh (guided by X).

Can the word order change? For example, is Dari mentor, kami menerima bimbingan correct?

Yes, the word order in Indonesian is relatively flexible, especially for adverbial phrases like dari mentor.

All of these are grammatically acceptable:

Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor.
Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor itu. (if you specify that mentor)
Dari mentor, kami menerima bimbingan. (a bit more formal/emphatic)
Dari mentor itu, kami menerima bimbingan.

Putting dari mentor at the front adds emphasis on from the mentor as the source, and sounds more like written or formal style, or like you are contrasting:

Dari mentor, kami menerima bimbingan; dari teman, kami menerima dukungan.
From the mentor, we receive guidance; from friends, we receive support.

How do I know if this sentence is in the past, present, or future? There’s no tense marker.

Indonesian verbs do not change form for tense. Menerima stays the same for past, present, and future. The time is understood from context or from time words.

Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor could mean:

We receive guidance from the mentor (habitually, general fact)
We are receiving guidance from the mentor (now, ongoing)
We received guidance from the mentor (past, if context is past)

To be more explicit:

Kemarin kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor.
Yesterday we received guidance from the mentor.
Sekarang kami sedang menerima bimbingan dari mentor.
Right now we are receiving guidance from the mentor.
Besok kami akan menerima bimbingan dari mentor.
Tomorrow we will receive guidance from the mentor.

Time words (kemarin, besok, sekarang, etc.) and particles like sedang (ongoing) and akan (future) give the tense/aspect information.

Is mentor really an Indonesian word or just English inserted into Indonesian?

Mentor is a loanword from English, but it is now widely used and understood in Indonesian, especially in academic, business, training, and professional contexts.

So mentor in Indonesian:

is pronounced with Indonesian phonetics (often like men-tor).
behaves like a regular noun: para mentor, seorang mentor, mentor saya, etc.

You could also see more native words depending on context:

pembimbing = supervisor, guide (common in schools/universities)
- Kami menerima bimbingan dari pembimbing.
pelatih = coach (sports, some skills)
guru = teacher

But mentor is natural modern Indonesian, especially when talking about mentoring programs, startups, leadership courses, etc.

Can this sentence be made more explicitly polite or formal?

It is already neutral and acceptable, but you can make it a bit more formal or specific:

Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor kami.
We receive guidance from our mentor.
Kami menerima bimbingan dari para mentor.
We receive guidance from the mentors (plural, more formal).
Kami telah menerima bimbingan dari mentor.
We have received guidance from the mentor.
(telah adds a completed/past feeling, often used in formal writing.)

In very formal documents you might see:

Kami telah menerima bimbingan dan arahan dari para mentor.

The base sentence is fine in both spoken and written Indonesian; these are just more formal or elaborated versions.

How do I make mentor explicitly plural, like “mentors”?

Indonesian usually doesn’t mark plural if it’s obvious from context, but you have options if you want to be explicit:

para mentor (common and formal)
- Kami menerima bimbingan dari para mentor.
  We receive guidance from the mentors.
mentor-mentor (reduplication; more general/informal)
- Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor-mentor kami.
  We receive guidance from our mentors.

Para + human noun is very typical in formal or semi-formal language when emphasizing “all the X”:

para siswa (the students)
para guru (the teachers)
para mentor (the mentors)

Can kami be dropped, like just Menerima bimbingan dari mentor?

In standard Indonesian, a complete sentence usually has a subject. Dropping kami would make it feel incomplete in writing or careful speech.

However, in informal spoken Indonesian, subjects are sometimes omitted when obvious from context, especially in responses:

A: Siapa yang menerima bimbingan dari mentor?
Who receives guidance from the mentor?
B: Kami. / Kami yang menerima. / (informally just) Menerima bimbingan dari mentor.

That last one is colloquial and context-dependent. As a learner, it’s safer to keep the subject:

Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor.

Could I say bimbingan mentor instead of bimbingan dari mentor? Is there a difference?

Yes, both are possible but slightly different in feel:

bimbingan dari mentor
= guidance from the mentor (explicitly shows source with a preposition)
- Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor.
bimbingan mentor
= the mentor’s guidance / guidance of the mentor
- Kami menerima bimbingan mentor.

Bimbingan mentor is a noun phrase where mentor directly modifies bimbingan, similar to teacher training, student handbook.

Bimbingan dari mentor is a bit more explicit and neutral. As a learner, bimbingan dari mentor is very safe and clear; bimbingan mentor sounds slightly more compact and is more common in titles or headings:

Program Bimbingan Mentor (Mentor Guidance Program)

Is there any article like “a” or “the” before mentor in Indonesian? How would I say “from a mentor” vs “from the mentor”?

Indonesian has no direct equivalents of a/an or the. Mentor by itself is neutral and can be translated as a mentor or the mentor depending on context.

If you want to be more explicit:

dari seorang mentor = from a mentor (one mentor, not specified)
- Kami menerima bimbingan dari seorang mentor.
dari mentor itu = from that mentor / from the mentor (specific)
- Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor itu.
dari mentor kami = from our mentor
- Kami menerima bimbingan dari mentor kami.

So articles are usually expressed through words like seorang, itu, ini, or possessives like kami, saya, mereka, etc.