Perahu kecil mereka ditarik ke tepi sungai dangkal di belakang rumah.

Their small boat is pulled to the edge of the shallow river behind the house.

Breakdown of Perahu kecil mereka ditarik ke tepi sungai dangkal di belakang rumah.

• rumah: the house
• ke: to
• kecil: small
• mereka: their
• sungai: the river
• di belakang: behind
• perahu: the boat
• dangkal: shallow
• ditarik: to be pulled
• tepi: the edge

Questions & Answers about Perahu kecil mereka ditarik ke tepi sungai dangkal di belakang rumah.

Why does the sentence say “Perahu kecil mereka” instead of something like “mereka perahu kecil” for “their small boat”?

In Indonesian, possessive pronouns like saya, kamu, mereka usually come after the noun phrase they possess:

• perahu kecil mereka = their small boat
  
  • perahu = boat
  • kecil = small
  • mereka = they / their

The order is: NOUN + ADJECTIVE(S) + POSSESSIVE PRONOUN.

So:

• buku merah saya = my red book
• rumah besar mereka = their big house

Putting the pronoun first (mereka perahu kecil) is ungrammatical in this meaning.
Perahu mereka kecil would instead mean “Their boat is small” (a full sentence, not a noun phrase).

Why do the adjectives come after the noun, as in “perahu kecil” and “sungai dangkal”, instead of before like in English?

Indonesian usually puts descriptive adjectives after the noun:

• perahu kecil = small boat
• sungai dangkal = shallow river
• rumah besar = big house
• baju baru = new clothes

So the basic pattern is NOUN + ADJECTIVE, the opposite of English.
Saying kecil perahu or dangkal sungai is wrong in standard Indonesian when you just want “small boat / shallow river”.

What exactly does “ditarik” mean, and why is the passive voice used here?

ditarik is the passive form of tarik (to pull):

• tarik = pull
• menarik = (someone) pulls
• ditarik = is/was pulled

In this sentence:

• Perahu kecil mereka ditarik ...
  = Their small boat was pulled ...

Indonesian uses passive a lot when:

1. You want to focus on the object (here: the boat), or
2. The doer is unknown, unimportant, or obvious from context.

The sentence doesn’t say who did the pulling; it just tells what happened to the boat. That’s natural in Indonesian.

How would you say “They pulled their small boat to the shallow river bank behind the house” in active voice?

A natural active version is:

• Mereka menarik perahu kecil mereka ke tepi sungai dangkal di belakang rumah.

Breakdown:

• Mereka = they (subject / doer)
• menarik = pulled (active verb)
• perahu kecil mereka = their small boat (object)
• ke tepi sungai dangkal = to the shallow river bank
• di belakang rumah = behind the house

So passive:

• Perahu kecil mereka ditarik ... (their boat was pulled …)

Active:

• Mereka menarik perahu kecil mereka ... (they pulled their boat …)

What is the difference between “ke” and “di” in “ke tepi sungai” and “di belakang rumah”?

• ke = to / toward (movement, direction)
• di = at / in / on (location, no movement implied)

In the sentence:

• ditarik ke tepi sungai dangkal
  = was pulled to the bank of the shallow river (movement toward a place)

• di belakang rumah
  = behind the house (location where the river/bank is)

So:

• ke answers “to where?”
• di answers “where (at)?”

In “ke tepi sungai dangkal”, does “dangkal” describe the river or the river bank?

The phrase structure is:

• tepi [sungai dangkal]
  = the bank of a shallow river

So dangkal (shallow) describes sungai (river), not tepi (bank).

Meaning:

• tepi sungai dangkal ≈ “the bank of a shallow river”

If you wanted to clearly say “the shallow river bank”, you might say:

• tepi sungai yang dangkal
  or
• tepi yang dangkal di sungai itu

But by default sungai dangkal = shallow river.

Does “di belakang rumah” belong to the river, the river bank, or the boat? What is it modifying?

Grammatically, “di belakang rumah” most naturally attaches to the location phrase just before it, i.e. to “tepi sungai dangkal”:

• (Perahu kecil mereka) ditarik ke [tepi sungai dangkal di belakang rumah].

So the most natural reading is:

• Their small boat was pulled to the bank of a shallow river that is behind the house.

In context it’s understood that the river / its bank is behind the house; the boat is there because it’s pulled to that place.

Could this sentence also mean “their small boats were pulled…” in the plural, or is it clearly singular?

Indonesian nouns usually don’t mark singular/plural unless there is a special marker or context:

• perahu can mean boat or boats.

So Perahu kecil mereka ditarik ... could be:

• Their small boat was pulled ...
  or
• Their small boats were pulled ...

You only know from context. If the speaker wants to make plural very clear, they might say:

• perahu-perahu kecil mereka (their small boats)
• semua perahu kecil mereka (all their small boats)

Why is it “di belakang rumah” and not something like “rumah belakang”?

belakang rumah is a noun phrase meaning “the back (area) of the house”.

• belakang = back / rear
• rumah = house

To say something is located there, you add the preposition di:

• di belakang rumah = at the back of the house / behind the house

rumah belakang would be understood as “the back house” (a house that is at the back, e.g., a rear building), not “behind the house”. So for behind the house, you need di belakang rumah.

How do we know this sentence is in the past, like “was pulled”, if there’s no tense marking in Indonesian?

Indonesian verbs usually don’t change form for tense.
ditarik can mean:

• is pulled
• was pulled
• will be pulled

The exact time comes from context or time words:

• tadi (earlier), kemarin (yesterday), sudah (already)
• nanti (later), akan (will), etc.

So:

• Perahu kecil mereka ditarik ke tepi sungai dangkal di belakang rumah.
  could be translated depending on context as:
  • Their small boat was pulled...
  • Their small boat is being pulled...
  • Their small boat will be pulled...

In many translations, English speakers choose past (“was pulled”) because it sounds natural in a narrative, but Indonesian itself doesn’t force a specific tense here.