Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Sekolah di mana saya mengajar mengadakan simulasi pemilu untuk murid kelas sembilan. - The school where I teach holds an election simulation for ninth-grade students.

Di mana literally means “in/at where”, but in sentences like this it acts as a relative word that links “sekolah” (school) to the clause “saya mengajar” (I teach).

So:

Sekolah di mana saya mengajar
≈ The school where I teach

It introduces extra information that describes the noun sekolah. In English we use “where”; in Indonesian you can use di mana for this function, especially in written or more formal language.

Other natural alternatives:

Sekolah tempat saya mengajar – very natural, especially in speech
Sekolah yang saya ajar – grammatically possible, but sounds less natural here and also shifts the nuance (more like “the school that I teach (at)”).

Is “Sekolah di mana saya mengajar mengadakan …” missing a comma? Why no pause before “mengadakan”?

No comma is needed in Indonesian here.

The structure is:

Subject (S): Sekolah di mana saya mengajar
Verb (V): mengadakan
Object (O): simulasi pemilu
Prepositional phrase (PP): untuk murid kelas sembilan

So the whole subject is “Sekolah di mana saya mengajar”, and “mengadakan” is the main verb. Indonesian typically does not mark the end of a relative clause (like “where I teach”) with a comma the way English sometimes does.

English structure:

The school where I teach, *(,) held an election simulation…* (comma optional)

Indonesian:

Sekolah di mana saya mengajar mengadakan… (no comma)

Why is it “mengajar” and not just “ajar”?

Ajar is the base/root word.
Mengajar is the active verb form meaning “to teach”.

In standard Indonesian, you usually use the meN- form for active verbs:

mengajar – to teach
belajar – to study (different verb, with be- prefix)

Using just ajar as a verb (saya ajar) is not standard; saya mengajar is the correct form for “I teach”.

So:

Saya mengajar di sekolah ini. – I teach at this school. ✅
Saya ajar di sekolah ini. – sounds off / non-standard. ❌

What is the role of “mengadakan” here, and how is it different from “adakan” or “membuat”?

Mengadakan is the main verb and means “to hold / to organize / to conduct” an event or activity.

Sekolah … mengadakan simulasi pemilu
= The school … held an election simulation.

Differences:

mengadakan
- Formal-neutral
- Used for events, meetings, simulations, training, etc.
- Very natural here.
adakan
- The root form of mengadakan
- Usually appears in imperatives or set phrases:
  - Adakan rapat besok. – Hold a meeting tomorrow.
- Here, using just adakan instead of mengadakan as the finite verb is not standard.
membuat simulasi pemilu – literally to make an election simulation
- Grammatically possible, but sounds less natural in this context.
- mengadakan simulasi is the usual collocation.

What does “pemilu” stand for, and how formal is this word?

Pemilu is an acronym:

pemilihan umum → pemilu
= general election

Usage:

Very common and standard in news, everyday speech, and writing.
You might see it written PEMILU (all caps) in headlines, but pemilu (lowercase) is also common in running text.
In this sentence, simulasi pemilu means “an election simulation”, referring specifically to a simulation of general elections (votes for parliament / president etc.), not just any classroom vote.

Why is it “untuk murid kelas sembilan” and not something like “kepada murid kelas sembilan” or “bagi murid kelas sembilan”?

Untuk here marks the intended recipients/target of the activity:

untuk murid kelas sembilan
= for ninth-grade students

Nuance of the options:

untuk
- “for” in the sense of intended for / designed for
- Very natural here: the simulation is for them.
kepada
- Often “to” in the sense of giving/telling to someone.
- Common with verbs like memberi (give), mengirim (send), berbicara (speak):
  - Memberi tugas kepada murid. – give homework to students.
- Sounds odd if you say “mengadakan simulasi kepada murid”. Not used that way.
bagi
- Also “for”, often slightly more formal or abstract (benefit, impact).
- Simulasi pemilu ini penting bagi murid. – This election simulation is important for students.
- You could say bagi here, but untuk is more straightforward and common.

So untuk is the most natural choice with mengadakan in this sentence.

How should I understand “murid kelas sembilan”? Is “murid” singular or plural here?

Literally:

murid – student / pupil
kelas sembilan – ninth grade / grade 9 / class nine

So murid kelas sembilan = ninth‑grade students.

Key points:

Indonesian usually does not mark plural on nouns.
- murid can mean “student” or “students” depending on context.
Here, because the school is holding a simulation for a whole group, we naturally understand it as plural: for (the) ninth‑grade students.
If you really want to emphasize plurality, you can say:
- murid-murid kelas sembilan – but it’s not necessary.

So the sentence is correctly understood as “… for ninth-grade students”, not just one student.

What’s the difference between “kelas sembilan”, “kelas 9”, and “kelas kesembilan”?

All are related but used a bit differently:

kelas sembilan
- Very common in speech and writing.
- Means “ninth grade / grade 9”.
- Used to classify students: murid kelas sembilan.
kelas 9
- Same meaning, uses the numeral instead of the word.
- Common in informal writing, school documents, schedules, etc.
- Spoken, people might still say kelas sembilan even if it’s written kelas 9.
kelas kesembilan
- Uses the ordinal form (ke-
  - sembilan) = “the ninth”.
- More often used when counting order:
  - Ini pelajaran yang kesembilan. – This is the ninth lesson.
- You could say kelas yang kesembilan, but for school grades people normally say kelas sembilan/kelas 9, not kelas kesembilan.

In this sentence, kelas sembilan is the most natural.

Could we say “Sekolah tempat saya mengajar …” instead of “Sekolah di mana saya mengajar …”? Is there any difference?

Yes, and many native speakers would even find “Sekolah tempat saya mengajar …” more natural in everyday Indonesian.

Comparison:

Sekolah di mana saya mengajar…
- More formal / written
- Feels a bit “bookish” or influenced by English “where”.
Sekolah tempat saya mengajar…
- Very natural and common in speech and neutral writing
- Literally: the school (the place) where I teach.

Grammatically, both are acceptable. In conversation, you will likely hear tempat more often than di mana in this kind of relative clause after sekolah.

Why is there no word like “that” or “which” (as in “the school that I teach at”)?

Indonesian relative clauses don’t always need a direct equivalent of English “that / which / who”, and when they do, they often use yang, di mana, or a noun like tempat instead.

Here, the “link” is di mana, which already plays the role of “where”:

Sekolah di mana saya mengajar
= “The school where I teach”
(No extra “that” needed.)

If we rephrase without di mana, we might use yang:

Sekolah yang saya ajar – The school that I teach (at).
(Here yang functions similarly to “that/which”.)

So Indonesian doesn’t need a separate “that” in addition to di mana; di mana already fulfills that linking function.

How do we know whether this sentence is in the past or the present? Does “mengadakan” show tense?

Indonesian verbs like mengadakan do not change form for tense. Tense is usually understood from context or added time words.

The sentence by itself can mean:

The school where I teach holds an election simulation… (habitual / present)
The school where I teach held an election simulation… (past)
The school where I teach is holding an election simulation… (present progressive)

To make the tense explicit, you add adverbs:

kemarin – yesterday
- Sekolah di mana saya mengajar kemarin mengadakan simulasi pemilu.
setiap tahun – every year
- Sekolah di mana saya mengajar setiap tahun mengadakan simulasi pemilu.

But the verb form mengadakan itself stays the same.

Why is the formal pronoun “saya” used instead of “aku” here?

Saya and aku both mean “I”, but differ in formality and context:

saya
- More formal / neutral
- Safe for almost all situations: writing, speaking politely, talking to strangers, in the workplace.
aku
- More informal / intimate
- Used with friends, family, or in casual speech.

In a sentence about school activities that sounds somewhat formal/neutral (and could be from a report, article, or teacher’s description), saya is the natural choice.

You could say:

Sekolah di mana aku mengajar…

but it would sound more casual and personal, like in a diary or a conversation with close friends.