Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami cukup baik. - Health facilities in our city are quite good.

fasilitas = facilities (directly from English facility/facilities)
kesehatan = health / healthiness (from the adjective sehat “healthy” + the noun-forming prefix ke– –an)

In practice, fasilitas kesehatan usually refers to physical places and infrastructure related to healthcare: clinics, hospitals, puskesmas, etc.

If you want to emphasise services rather than buildings, you’d often say pelayanan kesehatan (health/medical services) instead.

Why is there no word for “is/are” in Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami cukup baik? Should there be adalah somewhere?

Indonesian usually doesn’t use a separate verb “to be” (like “is/are”) before adjectives.

So:

Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami cukup baik.
= literally: “The health facilities in our city (are) quite good.”

You could add adalah in some noun–noun sentences, but it’s usually not used before adjectives like baik:

❌ Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami *adalah cukup baik.
This is grammatical but sounds a bit stiff, and *cukup
- adjective usually doesn’t take adalah.

The natural form is exactly as in the original sentence, without a separate “to be” verb.

What exactly does cukup baik mean? Is it “good enough,” “quite good,” or “very good”?

cukup basically means “enough / sufficiently”, and when used with an adjective it often shades into “quite / fairly / reasonably.”

So cukup baik can mean:

good enough (meets a certain standard, not lacking)
quite good / fairly good (positive, but not “excellent”)

The nuance depends on context and tone:

Neutral, descriptive:
Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami cukup baik.
→ “The health facilities in our city are quite good / reasonably good.”
If said with a slightly reluctant tone, it can feel like “they’re okay, not great, but passable.”

It almost never means “very good”; that would be sangat baik or baik sekali.

Why do we say di kota kami and not something like pada kota kami? What’s the function of di here?

di is the common preposition meaning “in / at / on” for physical locations:

di kota kami = in our city

pada is generally more formal and is used:

with abstract locations or targets (e.g. pada kesempatan ini “on this occasion”)
in formal writing or legal/administrative language

For a simple, everyday sentence about a physical place like a city, di is the natural choice:

di kota kami ✔
pada kota kami sounds very stiff or odd in normal speech.

What’s the difference between kami and kita, and why is kami used here?

Both mean “we / us”, but:

kami = we (not including the person you’re talking to)
kita = we (including the person you’re talking to)

So:

kota kami = our city, but not yours (the listener is an outsider to that group/city)
kota kita = our city, including you (speaker and listener share the city)

In Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami cukup baik, using kami implies the speaker is talking about their own city to someone who is not part of that city/community.

If the speaker and listener live in the same city, they would probably say:

Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kita cukup baik.

Why is the order fasilitas kesehatan and not kesehatan fasilitas? How does noun order work here?

In Indonesian, the main noun usually comes first, and the word after it modifies or specifies it (similar to “X of Y” in English).

fasilitas (main noun) = facilities
kesehatan (modifier) = of health / health-related

So fasilitas kesehatan is like saying “facilities of health” → health facilities.

Reversing it:

kesehatan fasilitas ❌ is not grammatical as a phrase.
To modify kesehatan with fasilitas, you’d typically need “dari” or a similar structure, but that would mean something different (and be awkward here).

So main noun + modifier is the normal pattern: fasilitas kesehatan, rumah sakit, kartu kredit, etc.

How do we know whether fasilitas is singular or plural here, since there’s no ‘-s’?

Indonesian usually doesn’t mark singular vs. plural with word endings like English -s.

fasilitas can mean “facility” or “facilities” depending on context.

In Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami cukup baik, context tells us we’re almost certainly talking about multiple health facilities (hospitals, clinics, etc.), so in natural English we translate it as “health facilities” (plural).

If you really want to emphasise plurality, you can:

repeat the noun: fasilitas-fasilitas kesehatan (formal / written, and often unnecessary)
or add a quantifier: banyak fasilitas kesehatan (“many health facilities”)

But usually the bare noun is enough; listeners infer number from context.

Why is the adjective baik at the end? Could we say cukup baik fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami instead?

Normal Indonesian word order for this type of sentence is:

Subject – (place phrase) – degree word – adjective

Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami cukup baik.
Subject = Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami
Degree word = cukup
Adjective = baik

The adjective baik comes after the subject phrase and after cukup.

Putting cukup baik before the noun phrase, like:

Cukup baik fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami.

is possible only in special, marked contexts, often as a kind of comment or evaluation in speech, and it sounds stylistic or poetic. For a straightforward, neutral sentence, you should keep the original order.

Is this sentence formal, informal, or neutral? Can I use it both in speech and writing?

Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami cukup baik. is neutral in style:

Suitable for spoken Indonesian (e.g. casual conversation, interviews)
Also fine for written Indonesian, including reports, articles, or presentations

To make it more formal, you might elaborate the context, but the core sentence itself is already acceptable in both spoken and written settings.

What’s the difference between fasilitas kesehatan and pelayanan kesehatan?

fasilitas kesehatan = health facilities, focusing on places and infrastructure
- hospitals, clinics, health centers, labs, etc.
pelayanan kesehatan = health services / medical services, focusing on what is done for patients
- consultations, treatments, nursing care, emergency response, etc.

So you could say:

Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami cukup baik, tetapi pelayanannya masih kurang.
“The health facilities in our city are quite good, but the services are still lacking.”

In the given sentence, fasilitas kesehatan suggests the physical side (buildings, equipment, availability of facilities).

Could we replace di kota kami with di kota ini or just leave it out? How would that change the meaning?

Yes, you can change or omit that phrase, with different nuances:

Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami cukup baik.
“The health facilities in our city are quite good.”
→ Emphasises “our” city (using kami).
Fasilitas kesehatan di kota ini cukup baik.
“The health facilities in this city are quite good.”
→ More impersonal; focuses on “this city” (where you currently are), without saying whose city it is.
Fasilitas kesehatan cukup baik.
“The health facilities are quite good.”
→ More general; context must tell the listener where you’re talking about.

The original version is a bit more specific and personal: our (not your) city.

Besides cukup, what other words can I use with baik to change the degree of meaning?

Some common degree words with baik:

sangat baik / baik sekali = very good / excellent
agak baik = somewhat good / a bit good (rare; more common with negative adjectives)
lumayan baik = fairly good, not bad
kurang baik = not so good / somewhat bad
cukup baik = quite good / good enough

Examples:

Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami sangat baik.
“The health facilities in our city are very good.”
Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami kurang baik.
“The health facilities in our city are not so good.”

Each degree word slightly shifts the evaluation.

If I want to emphasise that the facilities meet the minimum standard, not just “quite good,” how can I adjust the sentence?

To stress meeting a minimum standard, you can make that explicit:

Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami sudah cukup baik.
“The health facilities in our city are already good enough.”
Fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami memenuhi standar minimum.
“The health facilities in our city meet the minimum standard.”
Secara umum, fasilitas kesehatan di kota kami sudah memadai.
“In general, the health facilities in our city are adequate.”

Here, sudah cukup baik and memadai/ memenuhi standar minimum clearly convey “meets the needed level,” not just “quite good” in a vague way.