Saya pergi ke kebun binatang pertama kali hari ini.

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Breakdown of Saya pergi ke kebun binatang pertama kali hari ini.

• hari ini: today
• pergi: to go
• ke: to

Questions & Answers about Saya pergi ke kebun binatang pertama kali hari ini.

Why doesn’t the sentence use any past tense ending, even though the meaning is I went to the zoo for the first time today?

Indonesian verbs do not change form for tense. The verb pergi stays the same whether it’s past, present, or future.

Tense is shown by:

• Time words: hari ini (today), kemarin (yesterday), besok (tomorrow), tadi (earlier today), etc.
• Context and surrounding sentences.

So:

• Saya pergi ke kebun binatang hari ini.
  → Depending on context, it can mean:
  • I went to the zoo today (past), or
  • I’m going / I go to the zoo today (present/future plan).

If you really want to make it clearly past, you can add:

• tadi:
  Saya tadi pergi ke kebun binatang. = I went to the zoo earlier today.
• or use a past-time adverb like tadi pagi (this morning), tadi siang (earlier this afternoon), etc.

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Why do we say pergi ke? Could we just say Saya ke kebun binatang pertama kali hari ini?