Questions & Answers about Rumah tua itu kecil.
Why is there no word meaning is in this sentence?
Indonesian usually does not use a separate verb like is / am / are before adjectives and nouns.
Structure here:
- Rumah tua itu = that old house / the old house (subject)
- kecil = small (predicate adjective)
So Rumah tua itu kecil literally feels like: That old house small.
The idea “is” is understood from the word order: subject + adjective.
You can sometimes use adalah between the subject and a noun phrase (e.g. Dia adalah dokter = He is a doctor), but you don’t normally use adalah before a simple adjective like kecil.
What does itu mean here, and why is it after rumah tua instead of before?
Itu is a demonstrative. Its core meaning is that, but in many contexts it works like English the (showing a specific thing already known in the context).
In Indonesian, ini and itu usually come after the noun phrase:
- rumah itu = that house / the house
- buku ini = this book
In our sentence:
- rumah tua = old house
- rumah tua itu = that old house / the old house
So itu comes after the whole noun phrase rumah tua, not before it.