Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Setelah dari kebun binatang, kami pergi ke museum sains yang punya laboratorium kecil. - After the zoo, we go to a science museum that has a small laboratory.

Setelah pergi ke kebun binatang, kami… – “After going to the zoo, we…”, focusing on the act of going.
Setelah dari kebun binatang, kami… – “After (coming) from the zoo, we…”, focusing on the time after you’ve been there and are leaving.

Setelah kebun binatang by itself sounds incomplete or odd; Indonesian usually needs a preposition or verb there, like setelah dari kebun binatang, setelah mengunjungi kebun binatang, etc.

What is the difference between setelah and sesudah? Can I use sesudah here?

Setelah and sesudah are near‑synonyms and both mean “after”.

Setelah is slightly more common in everyday speech.
Sesudah can sound a bit more formal or literary in some contexts, but it’s still very normal in spoken language.

In this sentence, you can replace setelah with sesudah with no real change in meaning:

Sesudah dari kebun binatang, kami pergi ke museum sains yang punya laboratorium kecil.

Both are correct.

Why do we use pergi ke together? Could I say only pergi museum sains or only ke museum sains?

In standard Indonesian, pergi (“to go”) usually takes ke (“to”) before the destination:

pergi ke museum sains – “go to the science museum”

You normally cannot say:

✗ pergi museum sains (missing the preposition ke)

In informal spoken Indonesian, people sometimes drop pergi and just say:

Kami ke museum sains – literally “We to the science museum”

This is understood as “We went to the science museum”, but it’s more colloquial. The safest and most standard form for learners is pergi ke.

Why is kami used instead of kita?

Both kami and kita translate as “we”, but:

kami = we excluding the listener
kita = we including the listener

So kami is used because the speaker is talking about a group that does not include the person being spoken to. If the listener had gone to the zoo and museum together with the speaker, it would be:

Setelah dari kebun binatang, kita pergi ke museum sains…

Is museum sains good Indonesian, or should it be museum ilmu pengetahuan?

Both are understandable, but:

sains is a common loanword from English science and is widely accepted.
ilmu pengetahuan is the more “pure Indonesian” phrase for science and is a bit more formal.

In real usage, museum sains is very natural (and is the kind of name you’d actually see on a building). Museum ilmu pengetahuan is also correct, but sounds more formal and less like a typical proper name.

What does yang do in museum sains yang punya laboratorium kecil?

Yang introduces a relative clause, similar to “that/which” in English.

museum sains – “the science museum”
yang punya laboratorium kecil – “that has a small laboratory”

So:

museum sains yang punya laboratorium kecil
= “the science museum that has a small laboratory”

Structure:
Noun phrase + yang + clause describing that noun

This is a very common pattern in Indonesian.

Why is punya used here instead of something like memiliki or ada laboratorium kecil?

Punya is an informal, very common verb meaning “to have / to own”.

yang punya laboratorium kecil – “that has a small laboratory”

Alternatives:

yang memiliki laboratorium kecil – more formal / written style
yang ada laboratorium kecilnya – colloquial, literally “where there is a small laboratory (in it)”

In this sentence:

punya gives a neutral, conversational tone.
memiliki would make it sound more formal:
…museum sains yang memiliki laboratorium kecil.

Both are correct; it’s mainly a difference in formality.

Why is it laboratorium kecil, not kecil laboratorium? How do adjectives work in Indonesian?

In Indonesian, adjectives usually come after the noun:

laboratorium kecil – “small laboratory”
kebun binatang besar – “big zoo”
rumah baru – “new house”

Putting the adjective before the noun (like kecil laboratorium) is wrong in standard Indonesian and sounds unnatural.

So the normal order is:

[Noun] + [Adjective]
laboratorium + kecil

Do I need something like satu or sebuah to mean “a small laboratory”, or is laboratorium kecil enough?

Laboratorium kecil by itself can mean:

“a small laboratory”
“the small laboratory”
“small laboratories” (depending on context)

Indonesian does not force you to mark “a” or “the”.

If you want to emphasize “one” lab, you can say:

satu laboratorium kecil – “one small laboratory”
sebuah laboratorium kecil – also “one small laboratory” (with the classifier sebuah)

But they’re not required. In most contexts, laboratorium kecil is completely natural for “a small laboratory”.

Is the comma after kebun binatang required?

The comma here separates a time clause from the main clause:

Setelah dari kebun binatang, → subordinate clause (“After (we were) from the zoo,”)
kami pergi ke museum sains… → main clause

When a clause introduced by setelah/sesudah/ketika comes first, it is standard (and clearer) to use a comma before the main clause. In everyday informal writing people sometimes drop it, but:

Setelah dari kebun binatang, kami pergi… – is the recommended punctuation.

Does kebun binatang literally mean “animal garden”? Is that the normal word for “zoo”?

Yes:

kebun – garden
binatang – animal

So kebun binatang literally is “animal garden”. Despite the literal meaning, it’s the standard, everyday word for “zoo” in Indonesian.

There are more technical expressions like taman zoologi, but kebun binatang is what people normally say.

How do we know this is past tense? There’s no word like “went” with a tense ending.

Indonesian verbs do not change form for tense (past/present/future). Pergi just means “go / went / will go”; context tells you the time.

Here, setelah (“after”) strongly suggests a sequence of past events:

First: going to / being at the zoo
Then: going to the science museum

If you wanted to emphasize that it’s in the past, you could optionally add a time word like kemarin (yesterday):

Kemarin, setelah dari kebun binatang, kami pergi ke museum sains…

But it’s not grammatically required.

Could I say Setelah dari kebun binatang, kami ke museum sains… instead of kami pergi ke museum sains?

Yes, in informal spoken Indonesian you often hear:

Kami ke museum sains = “We went to the science museum”

Here, ke museum sains functions almost like a verb phrase meaning “went to the science museum”, even though pergi is omitted.

For:

Learners
Writing
More formal contexts

it’s safer to use the full form:

kami pergi ke museum sains

But kami ke museum sains is natural in casual conversation.

Is the overall sentence formal, informal, or neutral? Could I use it in a formal essay?

The sentence is neutral to informal because of:

setelah dari – common in everyday speech; more formal would be setelah mengunjungi / setelah berkunjung ke.
punya – informal compared to memiliki.

For a more formal written style, you might say:

Setelah mengunjungi kebun binatang, kami mengunjungi museum sains yang memiliki sebuah laboratorium kecil.

Your original sentence is perfect for conversation, storytelling, or informal writing, but you might adjust verbs like punya in a formal essay.