Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah.

He/She likes the chemistry lesson at school.

Breakdown of Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah.

• suka: to like
• dia: he/she
• di: at
• sekolah: the school
• pelajaran: the lesson
• kimia: the chemistry

Questions & Answers about Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah.

Does dia mean “he” or “she”? How do Indonesians know which one it is?

Dia is a gender‑neutral third‑person singular pronoun. It can mean he, she, or even they (for one person, when gender is unknown or irrelevant).

Indonesians usually know the gender from:

• Context (earlier in the conversation, a name, or a photo)
• Or they don’t actually need to specify gender at all

If you really need to clarify, you’d usually:

• Use the person’s name: Andi suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah.
• Or add more information: Dia adalah seorang perempuan yang suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah. (She is a woman who likes chemistry class at school.)

There is no grammatical marking for gender in dia itself.

Can I drop dia like Spanish or Italian sometimes drop the subject pronoun?

Yes, often you can omit dia if the subject is already clear from context:

• Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah.
  → Suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah.

This is natural in:

• Informal speech (especially in conversations)
• Dialogues where it’s clear who you’re talking about

But you typically keep dia:

• In written sentences that stand alone (like examples in textbooks)
• When you first introduce someone in a story
• When there might be confusion about who the subject is

What’s the difference between suka and cinta? Could I say Dia cinta pelajaran kimia di sekolah?

Use suka for general likes/preferences; cinta is much stronger and usually about romantic love or very deep love.

• Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah.
  → He/She likes chemistry class at school. (normal, natural)
• Dia cinta pelajaran kimia di sekolah.
  → Sounds overly dramatic or odd, like “He/She loves chemistry class” in an intense, almost emotional way.

For “really likes”, it’s more natural to say:

• Dia sangat suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah. (He/She really likes chemistry class.)
• Dia suka sekali pelajaran kimia di sekolah.

So: in this sentence, suka is the correct, neutral choice.

Can suka be followed by a verb, or only by a noun like pelajaran kimia?

It can be followed by both nouns and verbs:

1. suka + noun (what you like)

   • Dia suka pelajaran kimia. (He/She likes chemistry class.)
   • Dia suka musik. (He/She likes music.)

2. suka + verb (liking to do something)

   • Dia suka belajar kimia. (He/She likes studying chemistry.)
   • Dia suka membaca. (He/She likes reading.)

So you could also say:

• Dia suka belajar kimia di sekolah.
  → He/She likes studying chemistry at school.
  This focuses more on the activity of studying rather than the school subject/class as an object.

What exactly does pelajaran kimia mean? Is it “chemistry” or “chemistry class” or “chemistry lesson”?

Pelajaran literally means lesson or subject; kimia is chemistry.
Pelajaran kimia is best understood as:

• Chemistry class / chemistry lessons (as a school subject)

Depending on context, it could be translated as:

• “chemistry”
• “chemistry class”
• “chemistry lessons”
• “the subject of chemistry”

Some nuances:

• kimia on its own = chemistry as a field/science
  
  • Dia belajar kimia di universitas. (He/She studies chemistry at university – the major/field.)
• pelajaran kimia = chemistry as a school subject/unit of study

What’s the difference between pelajaran and mata pelajaran?

Both relate to school subjects, but:

• pelajaran = lesson, teaching, or subject in a general sense
• mata pelajaran = more formal term for “school subject” (literally “subject item”)

You might see:

• Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah. (common, natural)
• Kimia adalah mata pelajaran favoritnya di sekolah. (slightly more formal: Chemistry is his/her favorite subject at school.)

In everyday speech, pelajaran is often enough.

Why is it di sekolah and not ke sekolah? What’s the difference?

di and ke are different prepositions:

• di = at / in / on (location)
  
  • Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah.
    → He/She likes chemistry class at school.
• ke = to (movement towards a place)
  
  • Dia pergi ke sekolah.
    → He/She goes to school.

So in your sentence, we’re talking about something at the location (school), not movement to the location, so di sekolah is correct.

Can I move di sekolah to somewhere else in the sentence?

Yes, Indonesian word order is flexible for adverbial phrases like di sekolah, as long as the meaning stays clear. All of these are possible:

• Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah.
• Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah itu. (if specifying “that school”)
• Di sekolah, dia suka pelajaran kimia. (At school, he/she likes chemistry class.)

However, something like:

• Dia di sekolah suka pelajaran kimia.

is not wrong, but sounds a bit unusual or marked in everyday speech. The most natural version for a neutral statement is the original: Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah.

How do we know if this sentence is present, past, or future tense?

Indonesian verbs, including suka, do not change form for tense.
Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah. could mean:

• He/She likes chemistry class at school. (present, general habit)
• He/She liked chemistry class at school. (past, if context is past)
• He/She will like chemistry class at school. (future, less common without context)

Tense is understood from context or from additional time words:

• Past: Dulu dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah. (He/She used to like…)
• Present: Sekarang dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah. (Now he/she likes…)
• Future: Nanti dia akan suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah. (Later he/she will like…)

There’s no “a” or “the” before pelajaran or sekolah. How do I know if it’s “the chemistry class” or “a chemistry class”?

Indonesian has no articles like a/an/the. Whether you translate it as a or the depends on context:

• Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah.
  Could be:
  • He/She likes chemistry class at school.
  • He/She likes the chemistry subject at school.

If you need to be more specific, you can add words:

• pelajaran kimia itu = that chemistry class / the chemistry class
• sebuah pelajaran kimia = a chemistry lesson (less common in casual speech; “sebuah” is a classifier)

Does Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah mean he/she likes chemistry only at school? What if I want to say he/she likes chemistry in general?

The phrase di sekolah focuses on the school context – it implies we’re talking about school subject/lessons, not chemistry as a general interest.

Compare:

• Dia suka pelajaran kimia di sekolah.
  → He/She likes chemistry as a school subject at school.
• Dia suka kimia.
  → He/She likes chemistry (the field, in general).
• Dia suka belajar kimia.
  → He/She likes studying chemistry (could be in school or elsewhere).

If you specifically want “in general”, you can drop di sekolah:

• Dia suka kimia.
• Dia sangat tertarik pada kimia. (He/She is very interested in chemistry.)

How do you pronounce dia, pelajaran, kimia, and sekolah? Where is the stress?

Approximate pronunciation (stressed syllable in bold):

• dia → DI‑a (like “DEE‑ah”, two syllables)
• pelajaran → pe‑LA‑ja‑ran (peh‑LAH‑jah‑ran)
• kimia → ki‑MI‑a (kee‑MEE‑ah)
• sekolah → se‑KO‑lah (suh‑KOH‑lah)

Indonesian stress is usually light and often falls on the second‑to‑last syllable, which fits these examples.