Minggu lalu saya berlibur di Bandung.

I

Breakdown of Minggu lalu saya berlibur di Bandung.

• di: in
• berlibur: to go on vacation
• Bandung: Bandung

Questions & Answers about Minggu lalu saya berlibur di Bandung.

What does Minggu lalu literally mean, and is it the same as last week?

Literally, Minggu lalu means week past or the past week. In normal use, it corresponds to English last week.

So:

• Minggu lalu saya berlibur di Bandung.
  = Last week I was on vacation in Bandung.

Could Minggu here also mean Sunday instead of week?

In Indonesian, Minggu can mean:

1. Sunday (the day of the week) – usually capitalized.
2. week – usually written minggu (lowercase) when it’s not at the start of a sentence.

In this sentence, Minggu is at the beginning, so it must be capitalized anyway, which makes it look like the day Sunday.

However, the phrase Minggu lalu is very commonly understood as last week, not last Sunday, especially if no date or other time word is given.

If you really wanted to say last Sunday, you would usually clarify with hari:

• Hari Minggu lalu saya berlibur di Bandung.
  = Last Sunday I was on vacation in Bandung.

So in the original sentence, context makes Minggu lalu almost always understood as last week.

Why is there no past tense marker like did or in ?