Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Kami sepakat membuat grup kecil untuk belajar di perpustakaan. - We agree to create a small group to study in the library.

In the sentence, kami is used because the speaker is talking about a group that does not include the person being spoken to. If the listener were also part of the study group, you would say kita sepakat… instead.

Is sepakat a verb or an adjective here, and do I need untuk after it?

Sepakat functions like a stative verb meaning “to agree” (similar to “setuju”). You can say either:

Kami sepakat membuat grup kecil…
Kami sepakat untuk membuat grup kecil…

Both are correct and common. Adding untuk is slightly more explicit/formal, but leaving it out is very natural in speech.

What’s the difference between sepakat and setuju? Could I say kami setuju instead?

Both sepakat and setuju mean “to agree” and are often interchangeable.

sepakat can feel a bit more about reaching a common decision/consensus.
setuju is the broader, everyday “agree”.

You could say Kami setuju membuat grup kecil…, and it would sound normal and correct.

Why is it membuat grup kecil and not membuat kecil grup?

In Indonesian, the normal order is noun + adjective, so:

grup kecil = “small group”
grup besar = “big group”

Putting the adjective before the noun (kecil grup) is wrong in standard Indonesian. So you always say grup kecil, rumah besar, buku baru, etc.

Could I use kelompok instead of grup? What’s the difference?

Yes, you can say kelompok kecil instead of grup kecil.

grup (from English “group”) is common in casual and modern contexts (chat groups, work groups, etc.).
kelompok is a native Indonesian word and often used in academic, organizational, or formal settings.

In this sentence, both grup kecil and kelompok kecil are natural.

Why is there no word for “to” before belajar? In English we say “to study”.

Indonesian doesn’t need a special marker like “to” before verbs in most cases. The phrase untuk belajar already means “to study / for studying” as a purpose.

So grup kecil untuk belajar is literally “a small group for studying” and that’s how “to study” is expressed here—untuk + verb.

What exactly does untuk do in untuk belajar di perpustakaan?

Untuk marks purpose or function, similar to “for” or “in order to” in English.
So:

grup kecil untuk belajar = “a small group for studying”
Without untuk, belajar would more likely be read as a separate verb clause.

Here, untuk clearly links belajar di perpustakaan as the purpose of forming the small group.

How do I know this sentence is past tense (“agreed”) when there is no tense marker?

Indonesian verbs don’t change form for tense. Time is understood from context or from time words like kemarin (yesterday), tadi (earlier), nanti (later), etc.

Here, sepakat by itself can mean “agree / agreed / will agree” depending on context. If you want to make it clearly past, you could add something like:

Kemarin kami sepakat… = “Yesterday we agreed…”

Why is it di perpustakaan and not something like ke perpustakaan?

di = “at / in / on” (location)
ke = “to” (movement towards a place)

In this sentence, belajar di perpustakaan describes where the studying happens (at the library), not movement toward it. If you wanted to emphasize going there, you might say pergi ke perpustakaan untuk belajar (“go to the library to study”).

What does perpustakaan literally mean? It looks quite long.

Perpustakaan comes from pustaka (an old word for “books, writings”) with the prefix per- and suffix -an, which often form place nouns. So literally, perpustakaan is something like “place of books”, which naturally means “library.”

You’ll see per-…-an in other place-related words too, like perkantoran (office area), perumahan (housing complex).

Could I drop kami and just say Sepakat membuat grup kecil…?

Yes, you can drop the subject if it’s clear from context, especially in informal conversation or writing:

(Kami) sepakat membuat grup kecil…

However, including kami keeps it clear who agreed, which is useful if there are multiple possible groups or people in the context.

Is belajar here more like “to study” or “to learn”? Does it matter in Indonesian?

Belajar covers both “study” and “learn”, depending on context.
In a school or library context, belajar usually implies studying academic material. So in this sentence, belajar di perpustakaan is naturally understood as “study at the library” rather than learning in a more general, informal sense.

Would the meaning change if I moved di perpustakaan earlier, like Kami sepakat di perpustakaan membuat grup kecil…?

That word order is unusual and can sound awkward or confusing. The natural structure is:

Kami sepakat [membuat grup kecil] [untuk belajar di perpustakaan].

Di perpustakaan clearly belongs with belajar (where the studying happens), so it’s best kept together at the end: untuk belajar di perpustakaan.