Breakdown of Pejalan kaki harus berhati-hati ketika trotoar rusak atau dipakai parkir motor.
Questions & Answers about Pejalan kaki harus berhati-hati ketika trotoar rusak atau dipakai parkir motor.
Pejalan kaki is a compound noun:
- pe- + jalan + kaki
- jalan = to walk
- kaki = foot
- pe- (noun-forming prefix, often “person who does X”)
So it literally means “foot-walker”, i.e. someone who walks on foot → pedestrian.
Indonesian doesn’t mark singular/plural on nouns, so pejalan kaki can mean:
- a pedestrian
- pedestrians
If you really want to emphasize “many pedestrians”, you can say:
- para pejalan kaki = (all / the) pedestrians (more formal)
Harus expresses obligation/necessity, closest to “must” in English.
- Pejalan kaki harus berhati-hati…
→ Pedestrians must / have to be careful…
Rough comparison:
- harus = must, have to (strong obligation)
- mesti = must, have to (colloquial, similar to harus)
- sebaiknya = should, it’s better if… (advice, softer)
- perlu = need to (focus on need rather than duty, but can overlap)
So the sentence is not just giving friendly advice; it states what pedestrians are required to do.
Berhati-hati is built like this:
- ber- + hati + hati (repeated)
- hati = heart (in everyday language)
- ber- often means “to have / to possess / to be in a state of”
Base pattern:
- berhati = to have a heart / to be “hearted” (not really used alone in this sense)
- berhati-hati = to be careful, to be cautious
The reduplication (hati-hati) changes the meaning from the literal “having a heart” to the idiomatic meaning “careful, cautious”.
So:
- Berhati-hati! = Be careful!
- Saya harus berhati-hati. = I must be careful.
The verb berhati-hati is always with reduplication; you don’t say berhati to mean “careful”.
All three can introduce a time clause and often translate as “when”:
- ketika – neutral, common in both spoken and written Indonesian
- saat – literally “moment”, very common too, maybe slightly more colloquial in many contexts
- waktu – literally “time”, also used like “when”
In this sentence:
- Pejalan kaki harus berhati-hati ketika trotoar rusak atau dipakai parkir motor.
You could also say:
- … saat trotoar rusak atau dipakai parkir motor.
- … waktu trotoar rusak atau dipakai parkir motor.
All are acceptable and natural. Ketika is a safe, neutral choice here.
Trotoar means “sidewalk / pavement (BrE)”, the raised path for pedestrians next to a street.
It’s a loanword from a European language (via Dutch), ultimately related to French trottoir.
Synonyms/related words:
- trotoar = sidewalk (most common, especially in cities)
- jalan setapak = footpath, small path (not always urban sidewalk)
- jalur pejalan kaki = pedestrian lane/route (more descriptive/formal)
So in this sentence trotoar is the physical sidewalk that can be damaged or used for parking.
Rusak can function as both:
- Adjective: damaged, broken, out of order
- Stative verb: to be in a damaged/broken state
In trotoar rusak:
- It’s like “the sidewalk is damaged” / “a damaged sidewalk”.
There is no separate “to be” verb (is/are) in Indonesian, so:
- trotoar rusak = the sidewalk is damaged
- mobil saya rusak = my car is broken / my car broke down
So here rusak describes the condition/state of the sidewalk.
Base verb: pakai = to use, to wear.
With di-:
- di- + pakai → dipakai = “to be used” (passive voice)
So:
- dipakai parkir motor = is used (for) parking motorbikes
Structure:
- trotoar (subject)
- dipakai (passive verb: is used)
- parkir motor (what it’s used for: to park motorcycles)
The passive form dipakai focuses on the object (trotoar, the sidewalk) rather than on who is doing the using (drivers, shop owners, etc.).
Both are acceptable:
- dipakai parkir motor (as in your sentence)
- dipakai untuk parkir motor
The underlying idea is the same: used for parking motorcycles.
- untuk = for / in order to
- In colloquial and even quite standard Indonesian, untuk is often dropped after verbs like dipakai, digunakan, dipakai buat when the function is clear.
Nuance:
- dipakai parkir motor – a bit more compact, common in speech
- dipakai untuk parkir motor – slightly more explicit/formal
Neither is wrong; the original is perfectly natural.
Parkir can be:
- a verb: to park
- a noun: parking (the activity or the place, depending on context)
In dipakai parkir motor, parkir functions like a verbal noun (“for parking”) or a bare verb (“to park”)—Indonesian is flexible here.
- parkir motor ≈ “park motorcycles” / “parking motorcycles”
Other related forms:
- memarkir motor = to park motorcycles (clear active verb)
- parkiran motor = a motorcycle parking area (noun, place)
- tempat parkir motor = place/area for parking motorcycles
So the sentence basically compresses dipakai untuk parkir motor into dipakai parkir motor.
In everyday Indonesian:
- motor almost always means “motorcycle / motorbike”.
- If you want to be very explicit, you can say sepeda motor, but most people shorten it to motor.
If you specifically mean an engine (the machine inside a car, fan, etc.), you’d usually clarify by context or say:
- mesin = engine, machine
So parkir motor in this context is clearly “parking motorcycles”, not “parking engines”.
Indonesian doesn’t use articles like “a/an” or “the”.
Specificity and generality are understood through context, word order, and sometimes additional markers:
Pejalan kaki harus berhati-hati…
→ Pedestrians must be careful… (general statement about pedestrians)ketika trotoar rusak atau dipakai parkir motor
→ can be understood as “when the sidewalk is damaged or used for parking motorbikes”
(typically referring to sidewalks in general, or to the local sidewalks everyone knows about)
To make it more specifically “the” in certain contexts, you might add:
- trotoar itu = that/that particular sidewalk
- trotoar di sini = the sidewalk here
But in general rules or warnings like this, bare nouns are normal and usually translated with “the” or plural “-s” in English, depending on what sounds natural.