Breakdown of Teman saya belajar bahasa Jepang di perpustakaan.
teman
the friend
di
at
belajar
to study
perpustakaan
the library
Questions & Answers about Teman saya belajar bahasa Jepang di perpustakaan.
Why is it teman saya and not saya teman for my friend?
In Indonesian, possessives with nouns normally follow the pattern:
[Noun] + [Possessor]
So:
- teman saya = my friend
- rumah saya = my house
- mobil dia = his/her car
Putting saya first ( saya teman ) is not how possession is expressed. Saya teman on its own sounds incomplete or wrong; you’d need something like saya teman dia (I am his/her friend), where saya is the subject, teman is a predicate noun, and dia is the possessor.
Where is the subject in this sentence? There is no he/she or they.
The subject here is the noun phrase teman saya (my friend). Indonesian often doesn’t use separate subject pronouns when the subject is already expressed as a noun (or clear from context).
So the structure is:
- Teman saya (my friend) → subject
- belajar (studies / is studying) → verb
- bahasa Jepang (Japanese [language]) → object
- di perpustakaan (at the library) → place phrase
Why isn’t there any word for is / am / are in this sentence?