Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Menurut dosen kami, informasi tentang lapangan kerja sangat penting bagi mahasiswa. - According to our lecturer, information about the job market is very important for university students.

Menurut dosen kami = According to our lecturer
It normally comes at the beginning of the sentence, before the clause that contains the opinion or information:
- Menurut saya, ini terlalu mahal. = According to me / In my opinion, this is too expensive.

You can also place it mid‑sentence, but putting menurut … at the start is the most natural and common pattern.

What’s the nuance of dosen? Is it just “teacher”?

Dosen specifically means lecturer / professor / university-level teacher.

It is not used for school teachers (elementary, middle, high school). For them, you use guru.

So:

dosen = a teacher at a university or college
guru = a teacher at school (K–12)

In this sentence, dosen kami means our lecturer (at university), not just any kind of teacher.

Why is it kami and not kita in dosen kami?

Both kami and kita mean “we / us / our”, but:

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

Here, dosen kami means our lecturer (the lecturer of us—the speaker and their group), without necessarily including the person being spoken to.

If the speaker wanted to include the listener as part of the group, they could say dosen kita (our lecturer, yours and mine).

So kami emphasizes that this lecturer belongs to the speaker’s group, not automatically to the listener’s group.

Is informasi singular or plural? How would I say “pieces of information”?

In Indonesian, informasi is not marked for singular or plural; it just means information in general.

Context tells you whether it’s “information” or “pieces of information”:

informasi tentang lapangan kerja
→ information / job information / information about job opportunities

If you really want to stress “several pieces of information”, you can say:

beberapa informasi = several pieces of information
berbagai informasi = various information
banyak informasi = a lot of information

But usually informasi alone is enough.

What does tentang mean, and how is it different from mengenai?

Tentang means “about / regarding / on (the topic of)”.

informasi tentang lapangan kerja
= information about jobs / job opportunities

Mengenai has almost the same meaning (“about, regarding”) and often can be swapped:

informasi mengenai lapangan kerja
= information about jobs

Differences:

tentang is more neutral and very common in everyday speech and writing.
mengenai can sound slightly more formal or bookish, but is also very common.

In most contexts, you can use either without changing the meaning noticeably.

What does lapangan kerja literally mean, and why not just say pekerjaan?

Literally:

lapangan = field
kerja = work

So lapangan kerja literally means “field of work”, but idiomatically it means “job market / employment sector / job opportunities”.

Differences:

pekerjaan = job, work, occupation (more about a specific job or work in general)
lapangan kerja = the job market or available jobs / opportunities

In this sentence, informasi tentang lapangan kerja suggests information about job opportunities / job market information, which is broader than just “information about a particular job”.

In sangat penting, why does sangat come before penting? Could I say penting sekali instead?

Sangat is an adverb meaning “very”, and it normally comes before an adjective:

sangat penting = very important
sangat besar = very big
sangat bagus = very good

You can also say penting sekali, which also means “very important”:

penting sekali = very important

Nuance:

sangat penting sounds neutral and slightly more formal; often used in writing.
penting sekali is also natural and common in both speech and writing; sometimes feels a bit more emphatic in spoken language.

Both are correct; here sangat penting is perfectly natural.

Why is there no adalah in informasi … sangat penting? Can I say informasi … adalah sangat penting?

In Indonesian, the linking verb (“to be”) is often omitted when you connect a noun with an adjective.

Correct pattern:

Informasi tentang lapangan kerja sangat penting.
→ “Information about jobs is very important.”

You should not say:

✗ informasi … adalah sangat penting

Adalah is used mostly to link a noun to another noun or noun phrase, not to an adjective:

Dia adalah dosen. = He/She is a lecturer.
Ini adalah masalah besar. (some speakers would still drop adalah here)

But with adjectives like penting, you usually drop adalah:

Ini penting. (not Ini adalah penting.)

So the sentence is correct as written: informasi … sangat penting.

What does bagi mean here, and how is it different from untuk?

Bagi and untuk can both translate as “for”, but there are nuances.

In this sentence:

sangat penting bagi mahasiswa
= very important for students

Bagi here emphasizes “in relation to / from the perspective of / as it concerns” students. It’s a bit more formal and often used in writing, especially when talking about importance, effects, or relevance:

Pendidikan sangat penting bagi anak-anak.
Education is very important for children.

Untuk is more general and common in everyday speech, and often has the sense of purpose or destination:

Ini untuk kamu. = This is for you.
Belajar itu penting untuk masa depanmu. = Studying is important for your future.

In many sentences like this, bagi and untuk can be swapped without a big change in meaning:

sangat penting bagi mahasiswa
sangat penting untuk mahasiswa

Both are acceptable, but bagi sounds slightly more formal/academic here.

Does mahasiswa mean any “student”? Could it be school students too?

Mahasiswa specifically means university/college student (tertiary-level).

It does not refer to school students (elementary, middle, high school). For those you would say:

siswa or murid = pupil / school student

So mahasiswa = undergraduate/graduate students at a university, which fits with the mention of dosen (lecturer).

What is the grammatical subject of the sentence?

The grammatical subject is:

informasi tentang lapangan kerja
= information about job opportunities

The structure is:

Menurut dosen kami, (prepositional phrase giving the source: according to our lecturer, not the subject)
informasi tentang lapangan kerja (subject)
sangat penting (predicate: “is very important”)
bagi mahasiswa (prepositional phrase: “for students”)

So the core sentence, without the extra phrases, is:

Informasi tentang lapangan kerja sangat penting.
= Job-market information is very important.

Is the comma after Menurut dosen kami required? Could I leave it out?

In Indonesian, punctuation is a bit more flexible than in English, but:

The comma after Menurut dosen kami is recommended because it separates the introductory phrase from the main clause, making the sentence clearer.

You could sometimes see it without the comma in informal writing:

Menurut dosen kami informasi tentang lapangan kerja sangat penting bagi mahasiswa.

It’s still understandable, but with the comma is clearer and more standard, especially in formal or academic contexts.