Ibu mengirim pesan, “Jangan lupa foto binatang lucu di kebun binatang besok,” dan saya tertawa.

In Indonesian, ibu literally means mother, but it is also a polite form of address for an older woman, like “ma’am” or “Mrs.”

• When you write Ibu with a capital I, it usually means “Mother / Mom” (your own mother or someone’s specific mother), and it functions almost like a name or title.
• Lowercase ibu is the common noun “a mother” or the general polite address “ma’am, Mrs.”

In this sentence, Ibu mengirim pesan…, it most naturally means “(My) mom sent a message…”, because:

• there is no name after it (like Ibu Sari), and
• it’s the subject of a personal story, followed by saya tertawa.

So: Ibu = Mom here.

Mengirim pesan literally means “to send a message”.

• mengirim = to send
• pesan = message

The base pattern is:
[Subject] + mengirim + [thing sent]

So Ibu mengirim pesan is already a complete clause: “Mom sent a message.”

If you want to add the recipient, you usually use kepada:

• Ibu mengirim pesan kepada saya.
  → Mom sent a message to me.

You don’t normally say mengirim saya pesan (like English “send me a message”). That sounds ungrammatical or very awkward in standard Indonesian. Instead:

• mengirim pesan kepada saya
• mengirimi saya pesan (with mengirimi, a benefactive form, a bit more formal/literary)

The sentence here is fine and natural as it is: Ibu mengirim pesan…

Here foto is used as a verb meaning “to take photos / to photograph”.

Indonesian often turns nouns into verbs without any extra marker, especially for everyday actions. So:

• foto (noun) = a photo
• foto (verb) = to take photos

Equivalent, slightly more formal verbs are:

• memfoto = to photograph
• memotret = to photograph

All of these would be possible:

• Jangan lupa foto binatang lucu.
• Jangan lupa memfoto binatang lucu.
• Jangan lupa memotret binatang lucu.

The version with plain foto is very common in casual speech and writing.

Yes, that’s basically it.

• jangan = don’t (used for negative commands / prohibitions)
• lupa = forget

So Jangan lupa … = “Don’t forget (to) …”

Structure:

• Jangan
  • [verb] → Don’t [verb]
• Jangan lupa
  • [action] → Don’t forget to [do the action].

In the sentence:

• Jangan lupa foto binatang lucu di kebun binatang besok
  = Don’t forget to take photos of cute animals at the zoo tomorrow.

Indonesian doesn’t need a special word like English “to” in this structure.

The pattern is simply:

• Jangan lupa + [verb phrase]

So:

• Jangan lupa foto binatang lucu
  literally: Don’t forget [take photos of cute animals].

There is no infinitive marker like “to” in Indonesian. The bare verb (foto) directly follows lupa.

Other examples:

• Jangan lupa makan. → Don’t forget to eat.
• Jangan lupa belajar. → Don’t forget to study.

Grammatically, it attaches to the nearest phrase, but the meaning is clear from context.

The phrase is:

• foto binatang lucu di kebun binatang

Natural reading:

• binatang lucu di kebun binatang = the cute animals at the zoo

So di kebun binatang is describing where the cute animals are. The whole instruction is “take photos of the cute animals at the zoo”.

If you wanted to emphasize that the photographing must happen at the zoo (rather than which animals), you would normally still say it the same way, and context would tell. Spoken intonation and context do most of the disambiguation.

di and ke have different functions:

• di = at / in / on (location)
• ke = to (direction / movement)

In this sentence, the zoo is the location of the animals (and of the photos), not the destination of movement in that clause. The clause inside the quotes is about what to do there, not about going there.

• di kebun binatang = at the zoo
• ke kebun binatang = to the zoo

Example contrast:

• Besok kita pergi ke kebun binatang.
  Tomorrow we’re going to the zoo.

• Jangan lupa foto binatang lucu di kebun binatang besok.
  Don’t forget to take photos of the cute animals at the zoo tomorrow.

Besok means tomorrow, and time expressions in Indonesian are quite flexible in position. All of these are grammatical:

• Besok jangan lupa foto binatang lucu di kebun binatang.
• Jangan lupa besok foto binatang lucu di kebun binatang.
• Jangan lupa foto binatang lucu di kebun binatang besok. ✅ (your example)

Placing besok at the end is very common and sounds natural. It often feels like adding “tomorrow” as an afterthought or emphasis on when to do it.

So word order is flexible; the meaning doesn’t change, only the rhythm/emphasis.

Lucu can mean both “cute” and “funny”, depending on context.

• For animals, babies, objects: cute, adorable
  • binatang lucu = cute animals
• For jokes, behavior, stories, people: funny
  • Cerita itu lucu. = That story is funny.

In binatang lucu, most people will understand “cute animals”, especially together with the context of taking photos at the zoo.

Both mean “animal”, but there is a slight difference in feel:

• binatang
  • Very common in everyday speech.
  • Can sometimes sound a bit more emotional or colloquial.
• hewan
  • Feels a bit more formal or scientific.
  • Often used in school, textbooks, or more technical contexts.

In casual speech about zoo animals, binatang is perfectly natural:
binatang lucu di kebun binatang sounds friendly and informal.

In Indonesian, subject pronouns like saya are optional when the subject is clear from context, but including them can add clarity or emphasis.

• dan saya tertawa = “and I laughed” (explicit subject)
• dan tertawa = “and (I) laughed” (subject implied from context)

Both can be grammatically correct, but dan saya tertawa:

• sounds more complete and natural as a written sentence, and
• makes it 100% clear that I am the one who laughed.

In a longer narrative, once the subject is very clear, you might see the subject dropped sometimes, but beginner-friendly and neutral Indonesian tends to keep saya.

Indonesian verbs do not change form for tense (past/present/future). Tense is usually understood from:

1. Time words (yesterday, tomorrow, earlier, later)
2. Context and sequence

In your sentence:

• The story is about something that happened (Mom sent a message, then I laughed).
• The series of events and the word besok (tomorrow, inside the quoted message) tell us that saya tertawa refers to a reaction at that moment in the past.

So saya tertawa can mean:

• I laugh
• I am laughing
• I laughed

The English translation chooses “I laughed” because of the context and narration style, not because Indonesian changed the verb form.

Traditional Indonesian style (following official spelling rules, EYD/PUEBI) often prefers a colon before direct speech:

• Ibu mengirim pesan: “Jangan lupa foto binatang lucu di kebun binatang besok,” dan saya tertawa.

However, in practice, especially in informal writing (chats, blogs, social media), people often use a comma instead of a colon, similar to English:

• Ibu mengirim pesan, “Jangan lupa foto binatang lucu di kebun binatang besok,” dan saya tertawa.

Both are commonly seen. For formal writing (school essays, official documents), the colon is safer. For everyday usage, the comma is widely accepted.

The comma after the closing quote before dan is also normal, because the sentence continues after the quoted speech.