Questions & Answers about Pekerjaan saya di kantor cukup mudah.
What is the difference between pekerjaan and kerja?
Both come from the same root kerja (work), but:
- kerja on its own is more like “work / to work” in a general sense, and can be a noun or part of a verb:
- Saya kerja di kantor. = I work at an office. (informal)
- pekerjaan is a noun formed with pe- … -an, meaning “job / occupation / task”:
- Pekerjaan saya di kantor… = My job at the office…
So in this sentence, pekerjaan is more natural than kerja because you’re talking about your job as a thing that you have, not the activity of working in general.
Why is it pekerjaan saya instead of saya pekerjaan?
In Indonesian, possession is usually shown by putting the possessed noun first, followed by the possessor (often a pronoun):
- pekerjaan saya = my job
- rumah saya = my house
- teman saya = my friend
So the pattern is:
[thing] + [owner]
Saying saya pekerjaan would sound wrong in Indonesian; it would be like saying “I job” in English. The pronoun saya cannot stand in front of the noun to mean “my” the way my does in English.
Can I say pekerjaanku instead of ?