Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Kami sepakat pulang bareng setelah rapat. - We agree to go home together after the meeting.

A stative verb (very common in usage):
- Kami sepakat pulang bareng.
  → We agree(d) to go home together.
An adjective-like word meaning “in agreement”:
- Kami sudah sepakat.
  → We are already in agreement.

There is no conjugation like in English (agree / agreed). Context and time words (sudah, akan, tadi, nanti) show whether it’s past, present, or future.

You can think of sepakat as “agree / be in agreement,” depending on the sentence, but you don’t change its form.

Could I use setuju instead of sepakat? Is there a difference?

Yes, you could say:

Kami setuju pulang bareng setelah rapat.

Similarities:

Both sepakat and setuju can mean “to agree.”

Nuances:

sepakat often implies a joint decision, more like “we have reached an agreement / consensus.”
setuju is more like “agree (with something)” or “approve.”

Examples:

Saya setuju dengan ide itu.
I agree with that idea. (natural with setuju, sounds odd with sepakat)
Akhirnya kami sepakat tentang rencana itu.
In the end we reached an agreement about that plan.

In your sentence, sepakat sounds very natural and slightly emphasizes the idea of making an agreement together.

Why isn’t there “untuk” before pulang? Is Kami sepakat pulang… grammatically correct?

Yes, Kami sepakat pulang bareng setelah rapat is grammatically correct.

With sepakat + verb, you can often choose either:

sepakat + verb
- Kami sepakat pulang bareng.
sepakat untuk + verb
- Kami sepakat untuk pulang bareng.

Both mean “We agreed to go home together.”

With or without “untuk”:

Without “untuk”: a bit more informal / conversational.
With “untuk”: slightly more formal or explicit, common in written or formal speech.

Meaning-wise, there is no big difference in this sentence.

What does pulang mean exactly, and how is it different from pergi or balik?

pulang = to go back home / return (to one’s home base)
- Saya mau pulang. → I want to go home.
pergi = to go (away), to leave (to some other place)
- Saya mau pergi. → I want to go (leave).
balik = to return (more general; depending on region, can overlap with pulang)
- Saya mau balik ke kantor. → I want to go back to the office.

In Kami sepakat pulang bareng, pulang specifically implies “go (back) home,” not just “go somewhere.”

What does bareng mean? Is it formal?

bareng is an informal / colloquial word meaning “together”, especially in the sense of doing something at the same time or with each other.

In more neutral or formal Indonesian, you’d use:

bersama
bersama-sama

So you could say:

Kami sepakat pulang bersama setelah rapat. (neutral / formal)
Kami sepakat pulang bersama-sama setelah rapat. (emphasizes “all together”)
Kami sepakat pulang bareng setelah rapat. (casual / everyday speech)

All mean roughly “We agreed to go home together after the meeting,” but bareng has a more relaxed, conversational feel.

Is the word order pulang bareng fixed? Can I say bareng pulang?

In this context, pulang bareng is the natural and standard order.

✅ Kami sepakat pulang bareng.
❌ Kami sepakat bareng pulang. (sounds odd / ungrammatical)

Why?

Here, pulang is the main verb.
bareng functions like an adverb describing how they go home: go home together.
In Indonesian, this kind of adverb commonly comes after the verb:
- makan bareng = eat together
- jalan bareng = walk / hang out together
- pulang bareng = go home together

So: Verb + bareng is the usual pattern.

Does this sentence refer to the past, present, or future? There’s no tense marking.

Indonesian verbs don’t change form for tense, so sepakat alone doesn’t tell you when the action happens. Context decides.

Kami sepakat pulang bareng setelah rapat can mean:

We agreed (earlier) to go home together after the meeting. (past agreement)
We are agreeing now that we will go home together after the meeting. (present → future action)

You can add time/aspect markers to be explicit:

Kami tadi sepakat pulang bareng setelah rapat.
We earlier agreed to go home together after the meeting.
Kami sudah sepakat akan pulang bareng setelah rapat.
We have already agreed that we will go home together after the meeting.
Nanti setelah rapat, kami sepakat akan pulang bareng.
Later, after the meeting, we agree/plan that we’ll go home together.

But in everyday speech, people often leave those out and rely on context.

What does setelah mean, and how is it different from sesudah or habis?

setelah means “after” (in time).

setelah rapat = after the meeting

Other options:

sesudah rapat – essentially the same as setelah rapat, slightly more formal in some styles, but both are standard and interchangeable.
habis rapat or sehabis rapat – more colloquial / conversational
- Habis rapat, kami pulang bareng.
  After the meeting, we go home together.

So you could also say:

Kami sepakat pulang bareng sesudah rapat. (perfectly fine)
Kami sepakat pulang bareng habis rapat. (more informal)

Can I drop kami and just say Sepakat pulang bareng setelah rapat?

You can, but it’s more limited and depends strongly on context.

Sepakat pulang bareng setelah rapat.

This might appear:

As a note / bullet point in writing (e.g., meeting minutes).
In speech if the subject is very clear from context, and you’re summarizing a joint decision.

However, in normal full sentences, especially for learners, it’s better to include the subject:

Kami sepakat pulang bareng setelah rapat.

Dropping kami can sound like you’re just listing a decision item, not speaking in a full sentence.

Why doesn’t rapat have an article like “the”? Why not rapat itu?

Indonesian generally doesn’t use articles like “a” / “the”. Whether something is definite or indefinite is usually understood from context.

setelah rapat can mean “after the meeting” if both speaker and listener know which meeting is meant.

You could say:

setelah rapat itu = after that meeting (refers to a specific one you just mentioned)
setelah rapat tadi = after the earlier meeting
setelah rapat besok = after tomorrow’s meeting

But if it’s obvious which meeting you’re talking about (for example, the one that is planned or just happened), setelah rapat alone is natural and enough.

Is this sentence formal, informal, or neutral overall?

Mixed, but leaning casual because of bareng.

Kami – neutral.
sepakat – neutral, suitable for both spoken and written language.
pulang – neutral.
bareng – informal / colloquial.
setelah rapat – neutral.

For a more formal version, you could say:

Kami sepakat untuk pulang bersama setelah rapat.
Kami sepakat untuk pulang bersama-sama setelah rapat.

For very casual speech among friends:

Kita sepakat pulang bareng abis rapat.
(using kita if the listener is included + abis instead of setelah)

Is there a form bersepakat? If so, why don’t we use it here?

Yes, bersepakat exists, but it’s:

Less common in everyday conversation.
More likely in formal / literary contexts.

Example:

Mereka bersepakat untuk bekerja sama.
They agreed to cooperate.

In normal spoken Indonesian, people almost always just use sepakat:

Mereka sepakat untuk bekerja sama.

In your sentence, Kami sepakat pulang bareng setelah rapat is the natural, everyday choice. Using bersepakat here would sound more formal or old-fashioned:

Kami bersepakat untuk pulang bersama setelah rapat. (grammatically okay, but marked as formal/literary in tone).