Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Guru meminta kami menilai risiko dan manfaat sebelum memilih topik proyek kelompok. - The teacher asks us to evaluate the risks and benefits before choosing a group project topic.

Both are correct. Without untuk is slightly more compact and very natural in both spoken and written Indonesian, especially with common verbs like meminta, menyuruh, mengajak, etc.

Why is kami used instead of kita?

Indonesian distinguishes between two “we” pronouns:

kami = we (excluding the listener)
kita = we (including the listener)

In this sentence, the guru (teacher) is talking to a group of students and is not including themself in that group of students who have to evaluate the risks and benefits. So kami is appropriate:

Guru meminta kami …
→ The teacher asked us (students), not “us including the teacher”.

If you said Guru meminta kita …, it would sound like the teacher is part of the group doing the evaluating, which is usually not the intended meaning here.

What exactly does menilai mean here, and how is it different from other verbs like mengevaluasi or mempertimbangkan?

Menilai comes from nilai (“value”) and literally means “to give a value to”, “to assess”, “to judge”, or “to evaluate”.

In this context:

menilai risiko dan manfaat = to assess / evaluate the risks and benefits.

Related verbs:

mengevaluasi = to evaluate
– Often sounds more formal/technical, used in academic or business contexts.
– You could say mengevaluasi risiko dan manfaat, and it would still sound natural.
mempertimbangkan = to consider
– Focuses more on thinking carefully about something, not necessarily giving a rating or judgment.
– mempertimbangkan risiko dan manfaat = to consider the risks and benefits.

Menilai here implies a bit more of “weighing and judging” rather than just casually thinking about them.

Why aren’t risiko and manfaat pluralized? In English we say “risks and benefits”.

Indonesian usually does not mark plural nouns unless it’s needed for clarity or emphasis. Number is normally understood from context.

So:

risiko dan manfaat can mean “risk and benefit” or “risks and benefits”, depending on context.
If you really want to emphasize plurality, you could say:
- risiko-risiko dan manfaat-manfaat
  but in normal usage that sounds heavy and unnecessary.

In most real sentences, risiko dan manfaat is the natural way to say “risks and benefits”.

How does sebelum memilih work? Why isn’t it sebelum kami memilih?

Sebelum means “before” and can be followed by either:

a full clause with an explicit subject:
- sebelum kami memilih topik …
or just a verb phrase, with the subject understood from context:
- sebelum memilih topik …

In this sentence, the subject of memilih is clearly the same as the subject of menilai, namely kami. So Indonesian often omits the repeated subject:

Guru meminta kami menilai risiko dan manfaat sebelum memilih topik proyek kelompok.
→ understood as before *we choose the group project topic*.

Both sebelum memilih and sebelum kami memilih are grammatically correct; the version without kami is just more concise.

So who is actually doing the action of memilih (“choosing”)? It’s not mentioned.

The implied subject of memilih is kami.

The structure is:

Guru meminta [kami menilai risiko dan manfaat sebelum memilih topik proyek kelompok].

Within that big bracket, kami is the logical subject of both:

menilai (to evaluate)
memilih (to choose)

Indonesian often omits repeated subjects in subordinate clauses when they are clearly understood from context, just like here.

Why is the phrase topik proyek kelompok in that order? Why not proyek topik kelompok or something else?

In Indonesian noun phrases, the main noun usually comes first, and the words after it narrow down or describe that noun.

Here:

topik = topic (main noun)
proyek = project
kelompok = group

So topik proyek kelompok is like saying:

[topik] [proyek kelompok]
= the topic of the group project

The order is: general → more specific:

topik (topic)
proyek (project – telling us what the topic is about)
kelompok (group – specifying the type of project)

Options that change the order like proyek topik kelompok don’t follow normal Indonesian noun phrase patterns and sound incorrect here.

Could I say topik untuk proyek kelompok instead of topik proyek kelompok? Is there a difference?

Yes, you can say:

topik proyek kelompok
topik untuk proyek kelompok

Both are grammatical and natural.

Nuance:

topik proyek kelompok
– Slightly more compact; often used in written or academic contexts.
– Feels like a tighter noun phrase: “group project topic”.
topik untuk proyek kelompok
– More explicit: “a topic for the group project”.
– Very natural in everyday speech.

In most contexts, they are interchangeable, and both would be understood the same way.

There’s no word for “our” in topik proyek kelompok. Should it be topik proyek kelompok kami to mean “our group project topic”?

You can say topik proyek kelompok kami (“our group project topic”) if you want to explicitly show possession.

However, Indonesian often leaves out possessive pronouns when the owner is obvious from context. Since the sentence already has kami, it’s clear that the topic belongs to that group:

Guru meminta kami menilai risiko dan manfaat sebelum memilih topik proyek kelompok.

In a classroom context, it’s understood as “before choosing (our) group project topic”. Adding kami is optional, for emphasis or clarity, not required.

Why is it just guru and not guru saya (“my teacher”)? In English we usually say “The teacher” or “my teacher”.

In Indonesian, guru by itself can often mean:

“the teacher” (a specific one, known from context), or
“teacher(s)” in general, depending on the situation.

If the context is a student talking about their teacher at school, guru naturally implies “(my) teacher” without needing saya:

Guru meminta kami …
→ The teacher asked us … (understood as their teacher).

You would say guru saya (“my teacher”) if you need to explicitly distinguish your teacher from someone else’s, or when introducing the person for the first time, e.g.:

Ini guru saya. – This is my teacher.

What level of formality does this sentence have? Is it more written or spoken style?

The sentence:

Guru meminta kami menilai risiko dan manfaat sebelum memilih topik proyek kelompok.

is in neutral–formal Indonesian. Features:

Full, standard verbs (meminta, menilai, memilih).
No slang or shortened forms.
Suitable for written assignments, textbooks, and formal speech.

In a more casual spoken context, someone might say something like:

Bu guru minta kami nilai dulu risiko dan manfaatnya sebelum milih topik proyek kelompok.

You see informal touches like Bu guru, nilai (without the full menilai), and milih (instead of memilih).

Is the spelling risiko standard? I’ve also seen resiko.

The standard spelling according to modern Indonesian orthography and official dictionaries (like KBBI) is:

risiko

The variant resiko is common in informal writing and speech, but is considered nonstandard.

So in a sentence like this, especially in educational or formal contexts, risiko is the correct form:

menilai risiko dan manfaat …