Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Dia diam saja selama rapat. - He/She stays silent during the meeting.

Literally, diam means to be silent / to be quiet / to stay still.
In Dia diam saja selama rapat, the best translation is He/She just stayed quiet during the meeting or He/She remained silent during the meeting.

So diam here functions like the verb to remain (silent) in English, even though it looks like an adjective meaning quiet.

What does saja add to the meaning? Could we just say Dia diam selama rapat?

Yes, you can say Dia diam selama rapat, and it is correct. It means He/She was quiet during the meeting.

Adding saja softens and nuances the meaning:

Dia diam selama rapat.
→ He/She was quiet during the meeting. (neutral description)
Dia diam saja selama rapat.
→ He/She just kept quiet during the meeting. / He/She only stayed quiet during the meeting.
There is a nuance that:
- he/she didn’t participate,
- he/she didn’t do anything else (e.g., didn’t speak up, didn’t contribute).

So saja here is similar to just, only, or merely and often carries a slight feeling of passivity or non-participation.

How do we know this sentence is in the past (was quiet) if there is no past tense marker?

Indonesian usually does not mark tense with verb changes. Instead, context or time words show whether it is past, present, or future.

Dia diam saja selama rapat by itself is time-neutral:

It can mean:
- He/She was quiet during the meeting (past),
- He/She is quiet during the meeting (if you are narrating live),
- Even He/She will be quiet during the meeting in the right context.

To make the past clearer, Indonesians often add time adverbs:

Tadi dia diam saja selama rapat.
→ Earlier, he/she just stayed quiet during the meeting.
Kemarin dia diam saja selama rapat.
→ Yesterday he/she just stayed quiet during the meeting.

So the basic sentence is neutral; context or extra words give it a past meaning.

Does dia mean he or she? How do you show the gender if you need to?

Dia can mean he or she; it is gender-neutral.

To clarify gender, people usually use context, names, or add a clarifying word:

Dia laki-laki itu diam saja selama rapat.
→ That man just stayed quiet during the meeting.
Dia perempuan itu diam saja selama rapat.
→ That woman just stayed quiet during the meeting.

Or they just use a name or title:

Budi diam saja selama rapat.
Ibu Sari diam saja selama rapat.

There are no separate basic pronouns like he/she in Indonesian; dia covers both.

What is the difference between selama and ketika in this kind of sentence? Could we say ketika rapat instead of selama rapat?

Both can appear in similar contexts, but they are not identical:

selama = for the duration of / during (the whole period of)
Focuses on the length of time.
ketika = when / at the time (that)
Focuses on the time point or the event, not specifically its duration.

In this sentence:

Dia diam saja selama rapat.
→ He/She stayed quiet for the whole meeting (emphasis: entire duration).

If you say:

Dia diam saja ketika rapat.
→ He/She was quiet when (we) were in a meeting / at the time of the meeting.
It still makes sense, but it doesn’t emphasize “throughout the whole meeting” as strongly as selama does.

For “during a time period,” selama is usually the most natural choice.

Why is there no preposition before rapat? In English we say during the meeting, so why not selama di rapat?

In Indonesian, selama already plays the role of during and doesn’t need another preposition like di before a time event word.

So:

selama rapat = during (the) meeting
not selama di rapat (this sounds unnatural for time).

You would use di with a place, for example:

di rapat could work if rapat is interpreted as the meeting room / the event as a location, but more natural would be:
- di ruang rapat = in the meeting room
- di kantor = at the office

For time-span expressions, selama + noun phrase (time/event) is normal and doesn’t take di.

Are there other natural ways to express the same idea in Indonesian?

Yes, several alternatives convey nearly the same idea with slightly different nuances:

Dia tidak bicara sama sekali selama rapat.
→ He/She did not speak at all during the meeting.
(Very explicit about not speaking.)
Dia hanya diam selama rapat.
→ He/She only stayed quiet during the meeting.
(Similar to diam saja, a bit more explicit because of hanya.)
Dia tetap diam selama rapat.
→ He/She remained quiet during the meeting.
(Emphasizes continuity despite some expectation to speak.)
Selama rapat, dia diam saja.
→ During the meeting, he/she just stayed quiet.
(Same words, different word order; still natural.)

All of these are grammatical; the original version is simply the most compact and neutral.

Can we move saja to other positions, like Dia saja diam selama rapat or Dia diam selama rapat saja? Do these mean the same thing?

Moving saja changes the focus:

Dia diam saja selama rapat.
→ Focus: the action: he/she just stayed quiet (did nothing else).
Dia saja diam selama rapat.
- Literally: Only he/she was quiet during the meeting.
- Focus: the subject. This suggests other people were not quiet, but he/she was.
Dia diam selama rapat saja.
- Can mean: He/She was quiet only during the meeting (implying at other times, maybe not quiet).
- Focus: the time span.

So saja is flexible, but its position affects what is being limited: the person (dia), the action (diam), or the time (selama rapat).

How is this sentence pronounced, especially dia and rapat?

Pronunciation (rough guide):

Dia: /ˈdi.a/
- Two syllables: di‑a (not “dya”).
- Both vowels are clear; stress usually on the first syllable: DI‑a.
diam: /ˈdi.am/ or /ˈdyam/ (depending on accent; both are heard).
- Often effectively two syllables di‑am, but can sound a bit blended.
saja: /ˈsa.dʒa/
- sa‑ja, with j as in judge.
selama: /səˈla.ma/
- se‑la‑ma, stress on la.
rapat: /ˈra.pat/
- ra‑pat, with t at the end pronounced clearly (not like English “rap-out”).

Overall rhythm: DI‑a DI‑am SA‑ja sə‑LA‑ma RA‑pat, with fairly even stress, maybe slightly stronger on content words (diam, rapat).

Is diam ever used as a transitive verb, like to silence someone?

The plain form diam in this sentence is intransitive (no object): it just describes someone being quiet.

To express to silence someone, Indonesian normally uses a different form:

mendiamkan = to make someone quiet / to silence
- Guru itu mendiamkan murid-murid yang ribut.
  → The teacher silenced the noisy students.

So:

dia diam → he/she is (stays) quiet.
dia mendiamkan orang itu → he/she silenced that person.

In Dia diam saja selama rapat, diam clearly has no object, so it is the intransitive, stative meaning.

Does rapat need any classifier or article, like a meeting / the meeting in English?

Indonesian does not require articles like a or the, and it doesn’t need classifiers for rapat here.

selama rapat can mean:
- during the meeting (usually the one both speakers know about),
- or during a meeting (if it hasn’t been specified before).

If you want to be more specific, you can add a determiner or modifier:

selama rapat itu = during that meeting
selama rapat kemarin = during yesterday’s meeting
selama rapat mingguan = during the weekly meeting

But the bare rapat is perfectly natural and does not need anything else to be grammatical.

What is the most natural English translation of Dia diam saja selama rapat?

Common, natural translations include:

He just stayed quiet during the meeting.
She just kept silent during the meeting.
He didn’t say anything during the meeting.
She just sat there silently during the meeting. (a bit freer)

All of these capture the idea that throughout the meeting, the person remained silent and did not participate verbally, which is exactly what Dia diam saja selama rapat suggests.