Guru kami hafal nama semua murid.

the teacher

Breakdown of Guru kami hafal nama semua murid.

• semua: all
• murid: the student
• kami: our

Questions & Answers about Guru kami hafal nama semua murid.

Why is it guru kami and not kami guru? How do possessives work here?

In Indonesian, possessive pronouns like kami usually come after the noun they modify.

• guru kami = our teacher (literally: teacher our)
• rumah saya = my house (literally: house my)

Putting kami before guru (→ kami guru) would sound wrong in standard Indonesian; it’s not how possession is expressed.

So the pattern is:

• noun + pronoun → guru kami, buku mereka, teman saya

What’s the difference between kami and kita?

Both mean “we / us”, but they differ in inclusiveness:

• kami = we (not including you) → exclusive
• kita = we (including you) → inclusive

In Guru kami hafal nama semua murid, kami means “we” but excludes the person being spoken to. So the teacher belongs to the speaker’s group, not to the listener’s group.

If the teacher was shared by both speaker and listener, you might say:

• Guru kita hafal nama semua murid.
  “Our (yours and mine) teacher knows all the students’ names.”

What exactly does hafal mean? How is it different from ingat, tahu, or kenal?