Breakdown of Polisi membantu mengatur lalu lintas di depan sekolah.
Questions & Answers about Polisi membantu mengatur lalu lintas di depan sekolah.
In Indonesian, polisi can be either singular or plural, depending on the context. The base word doesn’t change form.
- Singular (one person): often understood from context, or made clearer as:
- seorang polisi = a police officer
- polisi itu = that / the police officer
- Plural (many police officers or the police as an institution): also context-dependent, or made clearer as:
- para polisi = the police officers
- para petugas polisi = the police officers
In your sentence, Polisi membantu… can naturally be understood as “The police help…” (as an institution or group) unless the context clearly talks about one specific officer.
Yes, you can say Polisi mengatur lalu lintas di depan sekolah, and it’s perfectly correct. The meaning is:
- Polisi mengatur lalu lintas di depan sekolah
= The police direct / regulate the traffic in front of the school.
When you say:
- Polisi membantu mengatur lalu lintas di depan sekolah
= The police help (to) direct the traffic in front of the school.
you add the idea that they are helping with the task, not necessarily doing it all themselves. Maybe there are others (teachers, traffic wardens, volunteers) also directing traffic, and the police are helping them.
So:
- membantu mengatur = to help (to) regulate/direct
- mengatur alone = to regulate / direct / arrange
Both are grammatical; the nuance of “help” disappears if you remove membantu.
Mengatur comes from the root atur, and it broadly means “to arrange, regulate, organize, or control”—the exact nuance depends on the object.
Common uses:
- mengatur lalu lintas = to direct / regulate traffic
- mengatur jadwal = to arrange / organize the schedule
- mengatur keuangan = to manage / organize finances
- mengatur tempat duduk = to arrange the seating
In the traffic context, the most natural English equivalents are “to direct traffic” or “to control traffic”, rather than “arrange traffic.”
Lalu lintas is a fixed expression meaning traffic (movement of vehicles, people, etc. on roads).
Individually:
- lalu: can mean “then / afterward” in other contexts, or relate to “passing by”
- lintas: relates to “cross, pass through”
When combined as lalu lintas, it’s an idiomatic phrase used as one unit:
- lalu lintas padat = heavy traffic
- macet lalu lintas or lalu lintas macet = traffic jam
- petugas lalu lintas = traffic officer
You almost never use just lalu or just lintas to mean “traffic.” You need the full phrase lalu lintas.
You can say Polisi membantu untuk mengatur lalu lintas di depan sekolah, and it is grammatically correct, but in this kind of sentence untuk is usually not necessary and often sounds more natural without it.
- Very natural: Polisi membantu mengatur lalu lintas…
- Also correct but a bit heavier: Polisi membantu untuk mengatur lalu lintas…
In everyday Indonesian, when one verb directly follows membantu, coba, suka, bisa, etc., you usually omit untuk:
- Saya membantu mengangkat barang. = I help carry the things.
- Not wrong, but less common: Saya membantu untuk mengangkat barang.
Di is a preposition meaning “at / in / on” (for location).
Depan means “front”.
- di depan = in front (of)
So:
- di depan sekolah = in front of the school
You can sometimes drop di in very informal spoken Indonesian, especially in short, casual phrases like depan rumah (“in front of the house”), but the standard and safest form—especially in writing or more formal speech—is with di:
- Standard: di depan sekolah
- Informal speech: depan sekolah (okay in casual contexts, but learn the full form first).
You cannot say di sekolah depan to mean “in front of the school.” That’s wrong for this meaning.
The natural pattern is:
- di + [positional noun] + [place]
Examples:
- di depan sekolah = in front of the school
- di belakang rumah = behind the house
- di atas meja = on the table
- di bawah kursi = under the chair
Di sekolah depan would be interpreted as something like “at the front school” (like “the school in front”), not “in front of the school.” So keep di depan sekolah.
Indonesian does not have articles like “a/an” and “the.” Nouns stand alone:
- polisi = police / a police officer / the police / the police officer
- sekolah = school / the school
If you want to be more specific, you use other words, not articles:
- seorang polisi = a police officer (literally “one person (of) police”)
- polisi itu = that police officer / the police officer
- sekolah itu = that school / the school
In the given sentence, Polisi membantu… can be translated depending on context as:
- The police help…
- A police officer helps…
Indonesian leaves it to context rather than marking it with articles.
Indonesian verbs generally don’t change form for tense. You add extra words if you need to show time more clearly.
For past:
- Tadi polisi membantu mengatur lalu lintas di depan sekolah.
= Earlier, the police helped direct the traffic in front of the school. - Kemarin polisi membantu mengatur lalu lintas di depan sekolah.
= Yesterday, the police helped direct the traffic in front of the school.
For future:
- Besok polisi akan membantu mengatur lalu lintas di depan sekolah.
= Tomorrow, the police will help direct the traffic in front of the school. - Nanti polisi akan membantu mengatur lalu lintas di depan sekolah.
= Later, the police will help direct the traffic in front of the school.
Without any time word, Polisi membantu mengatur lalu lintas di depan sekolah is often understood as a general/habitual or present situation, depending on context.
Mengatur is a general verb and can take many objects, not only lalu lintas.
Some common patterns:
- mengatur lalu lintas = direct / regulate traffic
- mengatur jadwal = arrange the schedule
- mengatur rencana = plan / arrange the plans
- mengatur gaji = adjust the salary
- mengatur strategi = plan the strategy
So mengatur lalu lintas is a common collocation (a natural word pair), but mengatur is not restricted to traffic.
No, that would sound unnatural or confusing.
In Indonesian, membantu needs an action or a person to “help.” You usually:
- help someone do something
- or help with some work/activity
So you say:
- Polisi membantu mengatur lalu lintas…
= The police help (to) direct the traffic… - Polisi membantu para siswa menyeberang jalan.
= The police help the students cross the road.
If you say Polisi membantu lalu lintas, it sounds like the police are “helping the traffic” (as if traffic is a person), and there’s no clear action. You need mengatur to show what they are doing with the traffic.
Yes. Indonesian word order is fairly flexible for place/time phrases. Both are natural:
- Polisi membantu mengatur lalu lintas di depan sekolah.
- Di depan sekolah, polisi membantu mengatur lalu lintas.
Putting di depan sekolah at the beginning just emphasizes the location. It’s similar to English:
- “The police help direct traffic in front of the school.”
- “In front of the school, the police help direct traffic.”
Both are correct; the second one highlights the place.