Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Di bagian lain, ada panda dan beruang cokelat yang tidur di padang rumput buatan. - In another section, there are pandas and brown bears sleeping on an artificial grassland.

Di bagian lain, ada panda dan beruang cokelat yang tidur di padang rumput buatan.

In another section, there are pandas and brown bears sleeping on an artificial grassland.

Breakdown of Di bagian lain, ada panda dan beruang cokelat yang tidur di padang rumput buatan.

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Questions & Answers about Di bagian lain, ada panda dan beruang cokelat yang tidur di padang rumput buatan.

What does “Di bagian lain” literally mean, and how is it different from things like “di tempat lain” or “di bagian yang lain”?

Di bagian lain literally means “in another section/part” or “in a different section/part”.

di = in/at/on (location preposition)
bagian = part, section, area (often of a zoo, book, building, etc.)
lain = other, different, another

So di bagian lain is more like “in another section (of this place)”, not just “somewhere else”.

Comparison:

di bagian lain – “in another section/part (of the same thing/place)”
di bagian yang lain – almost the same, slightly more explicit/”complete” (literally “in the part that is other”); often used in more formal or careful speech.
di tempat lain – “in another place / somewhere else” (place in general, not specifically a “section” of something).

In a zoo context, di bagian lain feels natural because you’re talking about different sections of the zoo, not totally different places.

What is the function of “ada” here? Is it like “to be”, or like “to have”? And why don’t we see a subject?

In this sentence, ada is used in its existential sense: it means “there is/are”.

Di bagian lain, ada panda dan beruang cokelat…
“In another section, there are pandas and brown bears…”

Key points:

ada (existential) = “there is / there are”
- Ada air di botol. = There is water in the bottle.
ada (possessive, especially in Malay or some dialects) can act like “have”:
- Saya ada uang. (more common in Malay/Singaporean/Malaysian usage) = I have money.

In standard Indonesian, “have” is usually punya or mempunyai, so here ada is very clearly “there is/are”.

There’s no explicit subject because Indonesian often omits it in existential sentences. You can think of it as:

Ada [panda dan beruang cokelat] di bagian lain.
= “There exist [pandas and brown bears] in another section.”

You do not need a separate word for “there” (like English “there are”)—ada alone does that job.

How do we know if “panda dan beruang cokelat” is singular or plural, since there are no plural endings?

Indonesian usually does not mark plural with endings like -s. It depends on context.

panda dan beruang cokelat can be interpreted as:

“a panda and a brown bear”
“pandas and brown bears”
“pandas and a brown bear”
etc., depending on context.

If you want to make the plural explicit, you can:

Add a number:
- dua panda dan tiga beruang cokelat = two pandas and three brown bears
Use a quantifier:
- beberapa panda dan beberapa beruang cokelat = several/some pandas and some brown bears
Use para for groups of (usually people/animals, often a bit formal/literary):
- para panda dan para beruang cokelat = the pandas and the brown bears
Use reduplication (panda-panda), but with animal names this is less common and can sound childish or marked.

In your sentence, without extra context, a natural English translation would be “there are pandas and brown bears…”.

Does “cokelat” describe only the bears (beruang) or also the pandas?

In panda dan beruang cokelat, the most natural interpretation is:

panda = panda (no color specified)
beruang cokelat = brown bear

So only beruang is described by cokelat.

Why?

In Indonesian, adjectives normally come directly after the noun they modify.
beruang cokelat is a common collocation meaning “brown bear” (the species), not “a bear that happens to be brown”.

If you wanted both to be brown, you would make that clearer, for example:

panda cokelat dan beruang cokelat = brown pandas and brown bears
panda dan beruang yang cokelat (less common, somewhat odd because pandas are usually black-white)

So, by default, cokelat attaches to the closest noun (beruang).

What does “yang tidur” do in this sentence? Is “yang” like “which/that/who” in English?

Yes. yang here acts like a relative pronoun, similar to “that/which/who” in English, introducing a relative clause that describes the animals.

Structure:

panda dan beruang cokelat = the pandas and brown bears
yang tidur = that are sleeping / which are sleeping

Full phrase:

panda dan beruang cokelat yang tidur
= “the pandas and brown bears that are sleeping”

So yang:

Connects a noun (panda dan beruang cokelat)
To a description/relative clause (tidur = sleep)

Other examples:

Anak yang menangis itu adik saya.
= The child who is crying is my younger sibling.
Buku yang saya baca sangat menarik.
= The book that I’m reading is very interesting.

What’s the difference between “tidur” and “sedang tidur” here? Would “yang sedang tidur” be better?

tidur = sleep / to sleep / sleeping
sedang = marker for an action in progress, like “is/are ___ing”

So:

yang tidur = that sleep / that are sleeping (context decides)
yang sedang tidur = that are currently sleeping (more explicitly “in the middle of sleeping”)

Both are correct; the nuance:

yang tidur – more neutral, can refer to their general state now in context.
yang sedang tidur – emphasizes that the action is ongoing right now, like “that are currently sleeping”.

In a description of animals you see at that moment, both are natural. yang sedang tidur just feels slightly more descriptive/continuous.

What does “padang rumput buatan” literally mean, and how is it structured?

Breakdown:

padang = open field/expanse
rumput = grass
padang rumput = grassland, meadow
buatan = artificial, man-made (from verb buat = to make, + suffix -an)

So padang rumput buatan literally is:

padang (field) rumput (grass) buatan (artificial)
= an artificial grassland / man-made meadow

Structure:

padang rumput acts as a compound noun (a type of field: grassland).
buatan is an adjective modifying padang rumput, placed after the noun phrase, as Indonesian adjectives usually are.

Compare:

padang rumput alami = natural grassland
danau buatan = artificial lake
taman buatan manusia = man-made garden

What exactly does “buatan” mean grammatically? How is it formed from “buat”?

buatan is derived from the verb buat (to make) with the -an suffix:

buat = to make
buatan = something made; (here) artificial / man-made

In general, -an on a verb can form a noun or adjective that refers to:

a result of an action, or
something characterized by that action.

Examples:

hias (to decorate) → hiasan (decoration)
tulis (to write) → tulisan (writing, script)
buat (to make) → buatan (a made thing / made, artificial)

In padang rumput buatan, buatan functions as an adjective meaning “man-made / artificial”.

Why do we say “di padang rumput buatan” and not just “padang rumput buatan” without “di”?

di is a preposition of location, like “in / at / on” in English.

di padang rumput buatan = in the artificial grassland

Without di, padang rumput buatan is just a noun phrase (the artificial grassland), not a location phrase.

In your sentence:

…yang tidur di padang rumput buatan.
“…that are sleeping in an artificial grassland.”

You need di to show where they are sleeping. Otherwise it would be ungrammatical or incomplete in this context.

Could we rewrite the sentence without “ada” and “yang”, like:
“Di bagian lain, panda dan beruang cokelat tidur di padang rumput buatan.”?

Yes, that is grammatically correct, but the focus and feel change slightly.

Original:

Di bagian lain, ada panda dan beruang cokelat yang tidur di padang rumput buatan.
In another section, there are pandas and brown bears that are sleeping in an artificial grassland.

Rewritten:

Di bagian lain, panda dan beruang cokelat tidur di padang rumput buatan.
In another section, pandas and brown bears sleep / are sleeping in an artificial grassland.

Differences:

With ada, the sentence is more existential/descriptive: you’re saying what exists in that section.
Without ada, it feels more like a straightforward subject–verb statement: “Pandas and brown bears sleep…”
With yang tidur, you’re clearly modifying the animals.
Without yang, tidur is more clearly the main verb of the sentence.

Both are natural. The original version sounds more like a zoo-guide description: “In another section, there are X (which are doing Y).”

Is “panda” an Indonesian word borrowed from English, and do we need a classifier like “seekor” before it?

Yes, panda is a loanword (ultimately from Western languages; English also uses “panda”). Indonesian simply adopted panda as the animal’s name.

About classifiers:

Indonesian often uses classifiers for animals, especially ekor (tail):
- seekor panda = one panda (classifier for animals)
- beberapa ekor panda = several pandas

But you don’t have to use the classifier all the time. In neutral descriptions like yours, it’s fine to say:

ada panda dan beruang cokelat
= there are pandas and brown bears

If you want to be specific about number, then you’d typically add both a number and a classifier:

Di bagian lain, ada dua ekor panda dan tiga ekor beruang cokelat.
= In another section, there are two pandas and three brown bears.

I’ve seen both “cokelat” and “coklat”. Which one is correct, and how do you pronounce “cokelat”?

The official spelling in standard Indonesian is cokelat.

cokelat = brown; chocolate (color or the food)

coklat is a very common informal/alternative spelling, often seen in casual writing (messages, social media), but it’s not the standard taught in schools.

Pronunciation of cokelat:

co: like “cho” in “chocolate” (but shorter)
ke: like “kə” (schwa sound, as in “about”)
lat: like “lut” but with a as in “cut” or “father”, depending on accent (Indonesian a is more like “father”)

Roughly: cho-kə-lat (all syllables clear, no strong reduction like in fast English).