Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Setelah panen selesai, mereka mengadakan makan bersama di rumah nenek. - After the harvest is finished, they hold a meal together at Grandma’s house.

setelah – very common in both spoken and written Indonesian.
sesudah – also common, slightly more formal or bookish in some contexts, but still everyday.

In practice, for learners, you can treat setelah and sesudah as interchangeable in this kind of sentence.

In setelah panen selesai, why is it panen selesai, not selesai panen or panen sudah selesai? Are those other options wrong?

Panen selesai is a full clause:

panen = the harvest (subject)
selesai = finished (predicate adjective)

So setelah panen selesai literally = after (the) harvest (is) finished.

Other variants:

panen sudah selesai – also correct and very natural
- Adds sudah (already), so: after the harvest has already finished.
- Slightly more explicit that the event is completed.
selesai panen, mereka mengadakan… – also correct, but the structure changes:
- Here selesai acts like after finishing, and panen is more like its object.
- Literally: After finishing the harvest, they held a communal meal…
- You usually drop setelah if you use this pattern:
  - Selesai panen, mereka mengadakan makan bersama…

So:

Setelah panen selesai, … = focus on the state: the harvest is finished.
Selesai panen, … = focus on the action: after (they) finish harvesting.

All of them are grammatical; the original is a very standard, neutral choice.

Is panen a noun or a verb in this sentence?

Here, panen functions as a noun:

panen = the harvest (an event / period)
panen selesai = the harvest is finished

But Indonesian words like panen are flexible:

As a verb:
- Mereka panen padi. = They harvest rice.
With an explicit verb form:
- memanen = to harvest (something)
  - Mereka memanen padi.

So in the sentence:

Setelah panen selesai, …
panen = the harvest (season/event), not to harvest.

What does mengadakan mean exactly, and why use it instead of just makan bersama?

Mengadakan literally comes from ada (to exist) + -kan (causative) + meng-, so it means to make something exist, and in practice:

mengadakan = to hold / to organize / to put on (an event)

It’s used with activities that feel like events:

mengadakan rapat = to hold a meeting
mengadakan pesta = to hold a party
mengadakan upacara = to hold a ceremony

In this sentence:

mereka mengadakan makan bersama
= they held/organized a communal meal / a shared meal event

If you remove mengadakan:

Mereka makan bersama di rumah nenek.
= They ate together at Grandma’s house.

Difference in nuance:

mereka makan bersama – simply describes what they did (they ate together).
mereka mengadakan makan bersama – emphasizes that it was a planned / special event, not just casually eating together.

In mengadakan makan bersama, is makan acting like a verb or a noun?

Grammatically, makan here behaves like a noun phrase meaning a meal / an act of eating:

mengadakan makan bersama
= to hold a communal meal (literally: to hold an eat-together)

Indonesian often turns verbs into noun-like words without changing their form:

makan = to eat / eating / a meal
mandi = to bathe / bathing / a bath
berkumpul = to gather / a gathering (in some contexts)

Because mengadakan needs an object that is an event/activity, makan bersama is understood as:

(acara) makan bersama = (an event of) eating together

So here makan is not “they eat” but “a meal / eating” as a thing they organize.

What is the difference between makan bersama, makan bersama-sama, and makan bareng?

All three express eating together, but differ in tone and emphasis:

makan bersama
- Neutral, slightly formal or standard.
- Fine in narration, writing, or polite speech.
- Used in the sentence: mengadakan makan bersama.
makan bersama-sama
- Adds -sama again for emphasis.
- Feels like all together / all of us together.
- Slightly more emphatic, sometimes a bit more “bookish” or didactic.
makan bareng
- bareng is informal/colloquial, common in everyday speech.
- Very natural among friends: Ayo makan bareng! = Let’s eat together!
- Avoid in formal writing or speeches.

So:

In a narrative sentence like this, makan bersama is the best, neutral choice.
With friends in casual conversation, makan bareng is very common.

Why is it di rumah nenek and not ke rumah nenek?

Because di and ke express different things:

di = in / at / on (location)
ke = to / towards (movement / direction)

In this sentence:

di rumah nenek = at Grandma’s house
→ describes where the meal took place.

If you said:

mereka pergi ke rumah nenek = they went to Grandma’s house
→ describes movement towards the house.

So:

Use di for where something happens.
Use ke for where someone/something is going.

How would I say “at my grandmother’s house” explicitly? Why isn’t my shown in di rumah nenek?

The sentence:

di rumah nenek
just says at Grandma’s house without specifying whose grandmother.

To say at my grandmother’s house explicitly, you can add a possessive:

di rumah nenek saya = at my grandmother’s house
di rumah nenekku (informal, -ku attached to nenek)

Why the original doesn’t show my:

Indonesian often leaves possession implicit if it’s obvious from context.
In a story where the speaker’s family is clear, di rumah nenek is usually understood as “at (our) grandma’s house”.

So grammatically, di rumah nenek saya is more explicit; di rumah nenek is more natural when the relationship is already clear from context.

Should nenek be capitalized here (as Nenek)?

In the sentence:

… di rumah nenek.

nenek is written with a lowercase n, and that’s appropriate if it means “grandmother” in general (a common noun).

Capitalization rules for family terms in Indonesian:

Lowercase when used as a common noun:
- Rumah nenek saya di desa. = My grandmother’s house is in the village.
Uppercase when used like a name / title (a proper noun):
- Saya pergi ke rumah Nenek. = I went to Grandma’s house.
  (Here Nenek functions like her name.)

So both are possible in different contexts:

di rumah nenek – at (my/the) grandmother’s house (common noun).
di rumah Nenek – at Grandma’s house (treating Nenek as her “name”).

The given sentence is fine as written; capitalization depends on the writer’s intent and style.

Where is the past tense in this sentence? How do we know it means “after the harvest was finished”?

Indonesian does not mark tense with verb endings like English does. Instead it uses:

Time words: kemarin (yesterday), tadi (earlier), besok (tomorrow), etc.
Context and connectors like setelah (after), sebelum (before).

In:

Setelah panen selesai, mereka mengadakan makan bersama di rumah nenek.

We know the sequence of time from setelah:

First: panen selesai (the harvest finishes / is finished)
Then: mereka mengadakan makan bersama (they hold the meal)

In English, you’re forced to choose was finished / had finished, but in Indonesian there’s no tense change; selesai and mengadakan themselves are tenseless. Past time is understood from setelah and the story context.

If you wanted to make it explicitly past, you could add a time adverb:

Kemarin, setelah panen selesai, mereka mengadakan makan bersama…
= Yesterday, after the harvest was finished, they held a communal meal…

Why is the subject mereka and not kami? What’s the difference?

Both mean they/we, but:

mereka = they (3rd person plural)
kami = we (excluding the listener)
kita = we (including the listener)

In the sentence:

mereka mengadakan makan bersama…
= they held a communal meal…

So the speaker is talking about a group, not as part of it.

If the speaker was part of that group and the listener was not, they would use kami:

Setelah panen selesai, kami mengadakan makan bersama di rumah nenek.
= After the harvest was finished, we held a communal meal at Grandma’s house (not including you).

If the speaker included the listener:

Setelah panen selesai, kita mengadakan makan bersama di rumah nenek.
= After the harvest is finished, we’ll have a communal meal at Grandma’s house (you included).

So mereka is correct if the group is “they,” not “we.”

Can I make this passive, like diadakan makan bersama di rumah nenek? How would that change the meaning?

Yes, you can use a passive form:

Setelah panen selesai, diadakan makan bersama di rumah nenek.

Here:

diadakan = passive of mengadakan (to be held).
Subject (who holds the event) is not stated, so the focus is on the event itself.

Nuance:

mereka mengadakan makan bersama…
→ Focus on who held the communal meal (they did it).
diadakan makan bersama…
→ Focus on the event happening, not on the organizers.
→ Suitable in announcements or formal reports, where the agent is unimportant.

Both are grammatical; the original active form is more typical in narrative when you care who “they” are.