Dokter memeriksa pasien di rumah sakit.

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Breakdown of Dokter memeriksa pasien di rumah sakit.

• rumah sakit: the hospital
• dokter: the doctor
• pasien: the patient

Questions & Answers about Dokter memeriksa pasien di rumah sakit.

Where is “the” or “a” in this sentence? How do articles work in Indonesian?

Indonesian does not use articles like “a/an” or “the.”
So dokter can mean a doctor or the doctor, and pasien can mean a patient or the patient, depending on context.

To make it clearer, speakers can add words like:

• seorang dokter = a (single) doctor
• dokter itu = that/the doctor (already known in the context)
• pasien itu = that/the patient

But in many everyday sentences, you just say dokter and pasien, and context supplies whether it’s a or the.

Does “Dokter memeriksa pasien di rumah sakit” mean present, past, or future?

By itself it is tense-neutral. It can mean:

• The doctor examines the patient at the hospital. (general/habitual)
• The doctor is examining the patient at the hospital. (right now)
• The doctor examined the patient at the hospital. (past)

To make time clearer, Indonesians usually add time words:

• Kemarin dokter memeriksa pasien di rumah sakit. = Yesterday the doctor examined the patient at the hospital.
• Besok dokter akan memeriksa pasien di rumah sakit. = Tomorrow the doctor will examine the patient at the hospital.
  (Here akan marks future.)