Questions & Answers about Apa yang kamu lakukan sekarang?
In this sentence, yang works like a linker that turns apa (“what”) into “what it is that…”.
- Apa yang kamu lakukan? literally: “What is it that you do?”
- The structure is: apa + yang + clause
→ apa yang [kamu lakukan]
Without yang, Apa kamu lakukan sekarang? sounds ungrammatical or very odd in standard Indonesian.
So, for “What are you doing now?” you normally say:
- Apa yang kamu lakukan sekarang? (standard)
- Or use other patterns like Kamu sedang apa sekarang? (see below), but not Apa kamu lakukan sekarang?
Yes, you can drop sekarang.
- Apa yang kamu lakukan? = “What are you doing?” / “What do you do?”
The exact time is understood from context. - Apa yang kamu lakukan sekarang? = explicitly “What are you doing now?”
Because Indonesian verbs don’t mark tense, sekarang (“now”) is one of the clues that you mean right now / at this moment.
Without it, the sentence can refer to:
- right now, or
- a more general time (e.g., “What do you do?” in the sense of “What are you up to these days?”), depending on context.
Indonesian does not change the verb form for tense or aspect.
Instead, it uses time words and aspect markers:
- sekarang = now
- sedang / lagi = (in) the middle of doing something, “currently doing”
So:
- Apa yang kamu lakukan sekarang?
→ understood as “What are you doing now?” because of sekarang. - Apa yang sedang kamu lakukan sekarang?
→ more clearly “What are you doing right now (at this moment)?”
(sedang explicitly marks ongoing action.)
Both are acceptable; adding sedang just emphasizes the “in progress” feeling, like English -ing.
Both mean “you”, but they differ in politeness and tone:
- kamu: informal, used with
- friends
- peers
- people your age or younger (depending on relationship)
- Anda: polite and neutral, used with
- strangers
- in customer service
- in writing (brochures, instructions, etc.)
- formally with people you want to be respectful to
So you could also say:
- Apa yang Anda lakukan sekarang?
→ Politer: “What are you doing now, sir/ma’am?”
Use kamu with people you’re close to and Anda in more formal or distant situations.
The structure itself is neutral in formality, but the pronoun kamu makes it lean informal / casual.
- With kamu:
Apa yang kamu lakukan sekarang? → casual, everyday speech. - With Anda:
Apa yang Anda lakukan sekarang? → more formal/polite.
In very casual spoken Indonesian, people often use other patterns instead (see next question), but your sentence is completely correct and natural.
Yes. In casual conversation, you will often hear:
- Kamu lagi apa sekarang?
- Lagi ngapain? (very casual/slangy)
- Kamu lagi ngapain sekarang?
Here:
- lagi ≈ “in the middle of” / “currently”
- ngapain is a colloquial form of mengapa / apa yang (sedang) kamu lakukan; roughly “doing what”.
So, in speech, if you’re talking to a friend, Lagi ngapain? is probably the most common.
The base verb is melakukan = “to do, to carry out”.
In the pattern Apa yang kamu lakukan?, the me- prefix drops because of the object-question structure. This is a common grammar pattern in Indonesian:
- Statement:
Kamu melakukan apa? → “You do what?” - Question with apa yang:
Apa yang kamu lakukan? → “What (is it that) you do?”
So:
- melakukan is the full verb in a neutral sentence.
- lakukan appears when moved after the subject in this kind of question or in commands:
- Lakukan sekarang! = “Do it now!”
- Apa yang sedang kamu lakukan sekarang? → Correct. Very natural.
- Apa yang kamu sedang lakukan sekarang? → Sounds odd / unnatural.
The usual word order with sedang is:
- sedang + subject + verb
- Apa yang sedang kamu lakukan sekarang?
- Saya sedang makan. = “I am eating.”
Putting sedang after kamu (kamu sedang lakukan) is not the standard pattern in this question structure.
Yes, but some positions are more natural than others:
Most natural:
- Apa yang kamu lakukan sekarang?
- Sekarang kamu sedang apa? (different structure, also natural)
Also possible but more marked/emphatic:
- Sekarang, apa yang kamu lakukan?
(emphasizes “Now, what are you doing?”—e.g., contrasting with what you did earlier)
Avoid putting sekarang between yang and kamu, like:
- ✗ Apa yang sekarang kamu lakukan?
This is grammatically possible but sounds stiff and literary in modern Indonesian.
You can drop kamu, but the meaning changes:
- Apa yang kamu lakukan sekarang?
→ “What are you doing now?” - Apa yang dilakukan sekarang?
→ “What is being done now?” / “What should be done now?” (passive/impersonal)
Without kamu, the sentence no longer clearly refers to you; it becomes more general or passive. If you specifically want to ask you, you should keep kamu or replace it with another appropriate subject (e.g., Anda, mereka, etc.).
The sentence can be broken down as:
- Apa = what
- yang = (linker, like “that/which”)
- kamu = you
- lakukan = do
- sekarang = now
Literal structure:
Apa yang [kamu lakukan] sekarang?
= “What is it that [you do] now?”
Compare with English “What are you doing now?”:
- English: WH-word + auxiliary + subject + verb-ing + time
- Indonesian: WH-word + yang + subject + verb (bare form) + time word
No auxiliary (are), no -ing form; instead, you have yang and a time word like sekarang.
Both can translate as “What are you doing now?”, but the feel is slightly different:
Apa yang kamu lakukan sekarang?
- More neutral, a bit more “complete” and slightly bookish.
- Very clear and safe in most situations.
Kamu sedang apa sekarang?
- Feels more casual and conversational.
- Focuses more on the activity in progress (because of sedang).
With friends, Kamu sedang apa sekarang? (or Kamu lagi apa sekarang?) feels very natural in speech.
In a textbook, exercise, or careful speech, Apa yang kamu lakukan sekarang? is perfectly standard.