Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Malam ini saya mau curhat dengan teman dekat di ruang tamu. - Tonight I want to share my feelings with a close friend in the living room.

Putting ini before the word (ini malam) sounds unnatural or wrong in standard Indonesian. Native speakers almost always use [time word] + ini.

Does mau here mean “want to” or “going to / will”? What’s the nuance compared with akan or ingin?

In Malam ini saya mau curhat..., mau can mean both:

want to (expressing desire/intention)
going to (a near-future plan, quite certain and casual)

Nuances:

mau – very common, casual, used all the time in speech.
- Saya mau makan. = I want to eat / I’m going to eat.
akan – neutral future marker, more formal/written, less about desire.
- Malam ini saya akan curhat... = I will have a heart‑to‑heart tonight.
  (Sounds a bit more formal or “announced”.)
ingin – focuses more clearly on wanting.
- Malam ini saya ingin curhat... = Tonight I would like to have a heart‑to‑heart.

In casual conversation, mau is the most natural choice here.

What kind of word is curhat? Is it slang? Is it okay to use everywhere?

Curhat is informal slang, very common in everyday speech, especially among younger people.

It comes from curahan hati (literally “pouring out of the heart”).
Meaning: to vent, to share your feelings, to have a heart‑to‑heart talk.

Natural in: chats with friends, texts, social media, casual conversation.
Less appropriate in: formal writing, academic texts, official speeches.

In a formal context, you’d normally replace it with something like:

mencurahkan isi hati (to pour out one’s heart)
bercerita tentang perasaan saya (to talk about my feelings)
berkeluh kesah (to complain / share troubles)

So the sentence as given is clearly casual/colloquial.

How do you use curhat with another person? Why is it curhat dengan teman dekat, not curhat teman dekat?

Curhat is used intransitively: you don’t take the person as a direct object.
Instead, you add a preposition:

Common patterns:

curhat dengan [orang] – to have a heart‑to‑heart with someone
curhat sama [orang] – same meaning; sama is more casual/colloquial
curhat ke [orang] – to vent to someone (direction)

So:

Saya mau curhat dengan teman dekat.
= I want to have a heart‑to‑heart with a close friend.

You normally would not say *curhat teman dekat to mean “vent to a close friend”. That sounds like “do curhat [about] the close friend” and is ungrammatical in the intended sense.

What’s the difference between dengan and sama here?

Both can work after curhat, but the register is different:

dengan – standard, neutral with
- Saya mau curhat dengan teman dekat. (OK in most contexts)
sama – very informal with / to in spoken Indonesian
- Saya mau curhat sama teman dekat. (Very casual, everyday speech)

In many casual conversations you’re more likely to hear sama, but dengan is perfectly natural and a bit more neutral or polite.

Does teman dekat mean “close friend” emotionally, or “friend who is near me physically”?

In normal usage, teman dekat almost always means close friend in the emotional sense: a friend you are intimate with/trust a lot.

Word order matters:

teman dekat
- noun (teman) + adjective (dekat)
- literally “close friend” (emotionally close)
dekat teman
- dekat here functions more like “near” (adverb/preposition)
- dekat teman saya could mean “near my friend” (in location), not “my close friend”.

So in this sentence, teman dekat = close friend, not physically nearby friend.

Why is there no saya after teman dekat? Could I say teman dekat saya?

You can say both; the nuance is slightly different.

teman dekat
- Could mean “a close friend (of mine)” from context,
- Or just “a close friend” in general (not specifying whose).
teman dekat saya
- Explicitly “my close friend”.

In real conversation, speakers often omit saya if it’s obvious they’re talking about their own close friend. If you want to be very clear, teman dekat saya is fine:

Malam ini saya mau curhat dengan teman dekat saya di ruang tamu.

Both are grammatically correct; context decides whether you need saya.

Why is it teman dekat, not dekat teman? Where do adjectives normally go in Indonesian?

In Indonesian, adjectives usually come after the noun:

teman dekat – close friend
rumah besar – big house
baju merah – red shirt

If dekat comes before a noun (e.g. dekat rumah), it works more like a preposition/adverb meaning “near”:

Saya tinggal dekat rumah sakit. = I live near the hospital.

So:

teman dekat = a friend who is close (adjective)
dekat teman = near a friend (location), not “a close friend”

Why is it di ruang tamu without “the” or “my”? How do articles work here?

Indonesian doesn’t have articles like a/an or the.
di ruang tamu can mean:

in the living room
in a living room

The exact meaning is inferred from context.

To be more specific, you can add information:

di ruang tamu rumah saya – in the living room of my house
di ruang tamu kami – in our living room
di ruang tamu kantor – in the office’s reception room

But di ruang tamu by itself is perfectly natural and usually understood as “in the (relevant) living room” given the situation.

Can the time phrase malam ini go at the end instead of at the beginning?

Yes. Both are correct:

Malam ini saya mau curhat dengan teman dekat di ruang tamu.
Saya mau curhat dengan teman dekat di ruang tamu malam ini.

Differences:

Putting malam ini at the beginning slightly emphasizes “tonight” as the topic/time frame.
Putting it at the end sounds very natural too, often like an “afterthought” on when it will happen.

Indonesian is quite flexible with placing time expressions; both positions are common.

Would aku sound more natural than saya here? What’s the difference?

Both are grammatically correct, but they differ in formality:

saya – more formal/polite, neutral; fine in most situations.
aku – informal, intimate; used with friends, family, close people.

Because the sentence is already quite casual (using curhat, teman dekat), many native speakers would naturally say:

Malam ini aku mau curhat dengan teman dekat di ruang tamu.

Use aku if you’re talking to someone you’re close to, and saya if you want to sound a bit more polite or you’re not very close to the listener.

If I wanted a more formal version of this sentence, how could I say it?

A more formal/neutral version would avoid slang like curhat and maybe use akan or ingin:

Examples:

Malam ini saya ingin mencurahkan isi hati kepada sahabat dekat saya di ruang tamu.
(Tonight I would like to pour out my heart to my close friend in the living room.)
Malam ini saya akan berbicara dari hati ke hati dengan sahabat dekat saya di ruang tamu.
(Tonight I will have a heart‑to‑heart talk with my close friend in the living room.)

These sound more suitable for writing, speeches, or polite/formal contexts.