Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Kebun binatang di mana kami melihat panda juga punya museum kecil tentang hewan langka. - The zoo where we saw the panda also has a small museum about rare animals.

Kebun binatang literally means “animal garden” (kebun = garden, binatang = animal), but in modern Indonesian it is simply the standard word for “zoo.”

You almost always say kebun binatang, not just binatang, when you mean a zoo. Using only binatang would just mean “animals,” not the place.

Why is it kebun binatang di mana kami melihat panda instead of something with yang? Does di mana here mean “where”?

Yes, in this sentence di mana plays the role of “where” in English and introduces a relative clause:

Kebun binatang di mana kami melihat panda
→ The zoo *where we saw the panda…*

Other common (and often more formal/natural) options are:

Kebun binatang tempat kami melihat panda…
Kebun binatang yang kami kunjungi untuk melihat panda…

Using di mana after a place noun is common in speech and everyday writing, but some style guides prefer tempat or yang in formal texts. In normal conversation, di mana here is fine and widely used.

Why is there no comma before di mana in Indonesian, like we might have before “where” in English?

Indonesian punctuation rules are looser about commas before relative clauses. A comma can be used, but often it is just omitted:

Kebun binatang di mana kami melihat panda… (very common)
Kebun binatang, di mana kami melihat panda, … (possible but feels more “heavy” and is less usual in simple sentences)

In most everyday writing and speech, you simply don’t need a comma before di mana here.

What is the nuance of kami here, and could you also use kita?

Kami means “we (not including you, the listener)”.
Kita means “we (including you, the listener)”.

So in this sentence, kami implies:

The speaker and some other people went to the zoo,
but the listener was not part of that group.

If the person you are talking to was also there, you would normally use kita:

Kebun binatang di mana kita melihat panda…
→ The zoo where we (you and I) saw the panda…

Why is it just melihat panda and not melihat seekor panda? Do we need a classifier for animals?

Indonesian does not require an article like a/the, and classifiers like seekor are optional, especially when:

the exact number doesn’t matter, or
it’s already clear from context.

So:

melihat panda = “saw (a/the) panda,” number not specified
melihat seekor panda = “saw one panda” (more specific, emphasizes “one animal”)

Both are grammatically correct. The version without seekor is more neutral and common in everyday sentences unless you really want to stress the number.

What does punya mean here, and how is it different from memiliki or mempunyai?

In this sentence, punya means “to have” / “to own”:

…juga punya museum kecil…
→ “also has a small museum…”

Nuance and register:

punya – very common, informal/neutral, used constantly in speech.
mempunyai – more formal than punya, still quite common in writing.
memiliki – quite formal, often used in official or written contexts.

You could also say:

…juga mempunyai museum kecil…
…juga memiliki museum kecil…

Grammatically all are fine; punya is the most casual and conversational.

Where should juga go in the sentence, and what exactly does it modify?

In …kami melihat panda juga punya museum kecil…, the juga is placed before the verb punya:

juga punya = “also has”

So juga modifies the whole predicate “has a small museum”, telling us this is an additional fact about the zoo (on top of it being the place where we saw the panda).

Other positions like “Kebun binatang juga di mana kami melihat panda punya…” would sound wrong or very unnatural. The standard, natural placement here is exactly as in the sentence:

Kebun binatang [di mana kami melihat panda] juga punya [museum kecil…]

Why is it museum kecil and not kecil museum? Does the adjective always come after the noun?

Yes. In Indonesian, descriptive adjectives usually come after the noun:

museum kecil = “small museum”
hewan langka = “rare animal(s)”
rumah besar = “big house”

Putting the adjective before the noun (kecil museum) is ungrammatical in standard Indonesian. The normal order is noun + adjective.

What does tentang mean here, and could I use mengenai or soal instead?

Tentang means “about / regarding”:

museum kecil tentang hewan langka
→ “a small museum about rare animals”

You can often replace tentang with:

mengenai – a bit more formal, especially in writing
soal – more informal/colloquial, like “about / on the topic of”

So, these are all possible:

museum kecil tentang hewan langka
museum kecil mengenai hewan langka (more formal)
museum kecil soal hewan langka (casual)

The core meaning stays the same: the museum’s topic is rare animals.

Does hewan langka mean “a rare animal” or “rare animals”? How do we know if it’s singular or plural?

Indonesian nouns are usually not marked for number. So hewan langka can mean:

“a rare animal”
“rare animals”
even “rare fauna” in a general sense

The sentence tentang hewan langka is best understood as “about rare animals”, because a museum is usually about a category, not just one single animal.

If you really want to mark plural, you can repeat the noun:

hewan-hewan langka = “rare animals (plural, more explicit)”

But the base form hewan langka is already natural and usually enough.

What’s the difference between hewan and binatang? They both seem to mean “animal.”

Both hewan and binatang mean “animal.”

Typical nuances:

hewan – a bit more formal / scientific, common in school, books, documentaries
- e.g. hewan langka (rare animals), hewan liar (wild animals)
binatang – more everyday, sometimes used in insults (like calling someone an “animal”)

In this sentence, kebun binatang is a fixed phrase for “zoo,” but tentang hewan langka feels slightly more formal/scientific, which fits a museum context. So you naturally get both words in one sentence.

Could we say juga memiliki sebuah museum kecil instead of juga punya museum kecil? When do we use sebuah?

Yes, you can say:

Kebun binatang … juga memiliki sebuah museum kecil tentang hewan langka.

Here:

sebuah is a classifier meaning roughly “one (unit of) / a” for general objects.
Adding sebuah makes the “one small museum” idea a bit more explicit.

However, Indonesian often omits such classifiers when the number isn’t important, especially with common nouns like museum.

So:

punya museum kecil (no classifier) – very natural, neutral
memiliki sebuah museum kecil – more formal, and slightly emphasizes “one museum”

Both are correct; the original sentence sounds casual–neutral and perfectly natural without sebuah.