Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Desa di mana paman saya tinggal penuh dengan petani padi. - The village where my uncle lives is full of rice farmers.

In English we say “The village where my uncle lives is full of rice farmers.” Why doesn’t the Indonesian sentence use a word for “is” like “adalah”?

In Indonesian, you usually don’t use a linking verb (“to be”) before adjectives.

penuh = “full” (an adjective)
The pattern is simply:
[subject] + [adjective]
→ Desa … penuh … = “The village … is full …”

You would not normally say:

✗ Desa di mana paman saya tinggal adalah penuh dengan petani padi.

“adalah” is mostly used:

before nouns / noun phrases, not adjectives
- Dia adalah guru. = “He/She is a teacher.”
or in more formal / written definitions.

So the sentence is correct without any word for “is”. The adjective alone (penuh) acts as the predicate.

What exactly does “di mana” do in this sentence? Is it just the question word “where”?

Here, “di mana” functions as a relative marker, similar to “where” in “the village where my uncle lives”.

Literally: desa di mana paman saya tinggal
→ “the village where my uncle lives”

Breakdown:

desa = village
di = at/in/on (location preposition)
mana = which / what / which one (also used in “where?” = di mana?)
So di mana together = “where / in which (place)”

In questions:

Paman Anda tinggal di mana? = “Where does your uncle live?”

In relative clauses (your sentence):

Desa di mana paman saya tinggal …
= “The village where my uncle lives …”

So it’s related to the question word “where”, but here it’s used inside a longer noun phrase to describe “desa”.

Could I say “Desa yang paman saya tinggal” instead of “Desa di mana paman saya tinggal”?

No, “Desa yang paman saya tinggal” is ungrammatical and sounds incomplete.

To make a relative clause after yang, you’d need to keep the preposition “di” with its verb or “place” word:

Grammatical options:

Desa yang menjadi tempat paman saya tinggal …
(literally: “The village that becomes the place my uncle lives …”)
Desa tempat paman saya tinggal …
(“The village where my uncle lives …”, very natural)
Desa di mana paman saya tinggal …
(your original sentence, also natural)

Ungrammatical:

✗ Desa yang paman saya tinggal …
→ “The village that my uncle lives …” (missing a preposition like “in”)

Think of it like English:
You can’t say “The village that my uncle lives”; you need “lives in”.
In Indonesian you must also handle the “di” correctly, either with di mana, tempat, or menjadi tempat, etc.

Is “desa di mana paman saya tinggal” word order similar to English “the village where my uncle lives”? Why does the verb “tinggal” go at the end?

Yes, the overall structure is very similar to English:

Desa = the village (head noun)
di mana paman saya tinggal = where my uncle lives (relative clause)

Word order inside that clause:

paman saya = my uncle (subject)
tinggal = lives (verb)

So the inner clause is literally:

paman saya tinggal = “my uncle lives”

And the whole phrase:

desa [di mana paman saya tinggal]
= “the village [where my uncle lives]”

Putting tinggal at the end is just the normal Subject–Verb order in Indonesian:
paman saya (subject) + tinggal (verb).

Could I say “Desa tempat paman saya tinggal …” instead of “Desa di mana paman saya tinggal …”? Is there any difference?

Yes, you can, and it’s very natural:

Desa tempat paman saya tinggal penuh dengan petani padi.

Difference in feel:

di mana = literally “where / in which”, a bit more neutral / slightly formal.
tempat = “place”, so desa tempat paman saya tinggal =
“the village that is the place where my uncle lives”, very common in speech and writing.

Meaning-wise, they’re practically the same here.
All of these are acceptable:

Desa di mana paman saya tinggal …
Desa tempat paman saya tinggal …
Desa yang menjadi tempat paman saya tinggal … (more formal/long-winded)

What does “penuh dengan” mean exactly? Could I just say “penuh petani padi”?

“penuh dengan” literally means “full with / full of”.

penuh = full
dengan = with

So:

penuh dengan petani padi = “full of rice farmers”

About dropping “dengan”:

In careful / standard Indonesian, you normally keep dengan:
- penuh dengan orang
- penuh dengan sampah
- penuh dengan mobil
Without dengan (e.g., penuh petani padi) can sometimes sound clipped or non‑standard, though you might hear it colloquially.

For a learner, it’s safest to treat:

“penuh dengan + noun” as a fixed pattern for “full of + noun”.

How do I know that “petani padi” means “rice farmers” and not something like “farmer rice”?

Indonesian uses modifier-after-head order for nouns:

petani = farmer
padi = rice (the plant / in the field)

When you put them together:

petani padi = “farmers (of) rice” → rice farmers

Pattern:

[general noun] + [specific noun]
= “X of Y / Y‑type X”
- petani kopi = coffee farmers
- guru matematika = math teacher(s)
- toko buku = bookshop (store of books)

So petani is the main noun, padi tells you what they farm.

Indonesian has “padi, beras, nasi”. Here it’s “petani padi”. Why not “petani beras” or “petani nasi”?

These three words refer to different stages of rice:

padi = rice as a plant in the field / unhusked grain on the stalk
beras = rice as raw, hulled grain, ready to be cooked
nasi = cooked rice (ready to eat)

Farmers grow the plant, so:

petani padi = farmers who grow rice plants = rice farmers
✗ petani beras = sounds odd (no one “farms” already-processed grain)
✗ petani nasi = incorrect; nasi is cooked rice.

So padi is the right choice in this context.

Why is it “paman saya” and not something like “saya paman” for “my uncle”?

In Indonesian, possessive pronouns usually come after the noun:

paman saya = my uncle
rumah saya = my house
teman saya = my friend

Pattern:

[noun] + [possessive pronoun]

So:

paman = uncle
saya = I / me, and also “my” when put after a noun
paman saya = literally “uncle I” → “my uncle”

Putting the pronoun before the noun (e.g., saya paman) does not mean “my uncle”; it would be interpreted as a clause like:

Saya paman. = “I am an uncle.”

How does Indonesian show that there are many farmers? There is no plural like “farmers” vs “farmer”.

Indonesian usually doesn’t mark plural with word endings. The word:

petani can mean “farmer” or “farmers”, depending on context.

Here, “penuh dengan petani padi” naturally implies many rice farmers, because:

Something that is full of X almost always means more than one X.

If you want to make the plurality extra clear, you can add words like:

banyak petani padi = many rice farmers
para petani padi = (the) rice farmers (group, somewhat formal)

So you could also say:

Desa di mana paman saya tinggal penuh dengan banyak petani padi.
(a bit redundant stylistically, but grammatical)

Normally, context + penuh is enough to show it’s plural.

What does “tinggal” mean here, and how is it different from “hidup” or “berada”?

In this sentence:

tinggal = to live / reside (where someone lives)

So:

paman saya tinggal (there) = my uncle lives (there)

Common contrasts:

tinggal
- live / reside (address, place)
- Saya tinggal di Jakarta. = I live in Jakarta.
hidup
- live (be alive, have life / existence)
- Dia masih hidup. = He/She is still alive.
berada
- be (located) somewhere, often more formal
- Dia berada di kantor. = He/She is at the office.

So in “desa di mana paman saya tinggal”, only tinggal is natural, because you mean “lives (resides)”, not “is alive” or just “is located”.

Is there any difference in meaning or register between “desa” and “kampung” for “village”?

Both can translate as “village”, but they carry different nuances:

desa
- more formal / administrative term
- used in government, maps, official contexts
- neutral tone
kampung
- more colloquial
- can mean “village”, but also “neighborhood / hometown area”
- can imply a more traditional or rural feel; sometimes (depending on context) can sound a bit less “modern”

In your sentence, desa is perfectly standard and neutral:

Desa di mana paman saya tinggal …

You could say kampung in casual speech:

Kampung tempat paman saya tinggal penuh dengan petani padi.

But desa is a bit safer and more neutral, especially in textbooks or formal writing.

Is this sentence formal, informal, or neutral? Would it sound okay in everyday conversation?

The sentence is fairly neutral and works in both:

Everyday conversation
Written / semi-formal contexts

Features:

desa, penuh dengan, petani padi → standard, neutral vocabulary
di mana as a relative marker → slightly bookish compared to tempat, but still very normal

In very casual speech, someone might say, for example:

Kampung tempat paman saya tinggal itu banyak petani padinya.

But your original:

Desa di mana paman saya tinggal penuh dengan petani padi.

is perfectly acceptable in spoken and written Indonesian.