Breakdown of Kalau kamu mengantuk, tidurlah lebih awal malam ini.
Questions & Answers about Kalau kamu mengantuk, tidurlah lebih awal malam ini.
All three can mean “if” and would work in this sentence:
- Kalau kamu mengantuk, tidurlah lebih awal malam ini.
- Jika kamu mengantuk, tidurlah lebih awal malam ini.
- Bila kamu mengantuk, tidurlah lebih awal malam ini.
Differences in feel:
- kalau – very common in everyday, spoken Indonesian; informal–neutral.
- jika – a bit more formal, common in writing, instructions, official texts.
- bila – slightly literary or formal, also used in songs, writing.
For normal conversation, kalau is the most natural choice.
In this sentence it clearly means “if” (conditional).
In casual Indonesian, kalau can sometimes have a “when/whenever” meaning, especially when the condition is something that regularly happens:
- Kalau hujan, jalanan macet.
= When(ever) it rains, the roads are jammed.
So:
- Conditional “if”: Kalau kamu mengantuk, tidurlah…
- Habitual “when/whenever”: Kalau aku stress, aku jalan-jalan.
Context usually decides whether you read it as “if” or “when”.
Mengantuk behaves like a stative verb/adjective meaning “to feel sleepy / be sleepy”.
You can say:
- Saya mengantuk. = I’m sleepy / I feel sleepy.
- Kamu mengantuk. = You’re sleepy.
In casual speech, people often shorten it to ngantuk:
- Aku ngantuk. (very colloquial)
Related words:
- kantuk = the noun “sleepiness/drowsiness” (more formal, less common in daily speech).
- mengantuk = “to be/feel sleepy”.
- ngantuk = informal colloquial form.
So in Kalau kamu mengantuk…, it’s like saying “If you’re sleepy…”.
The -lah particle here is used to make a soft, polite command or suggestion.
Tidur lebih awal malam ini.
→ A straightforward command: “Sleep earlier tonight.”Tidurlah lebih awal malam ini.
→ Softer, more encouraging: “Do go to bed earlier tonight / You should sleep earlier tonight.”
Functions of -lah in this context:
- Softens an imperative (“do X”).
- Adds a feeling of gentleness, persuasion, or friendly advice.
You can drop -lah without making the sentence ungrammatical; it just sounds a bit more direct.
Yes, that sentence is completely correct:
- Kalau kamu mengantuk, tidur lebih awal malam ini.
Nuance:
- With tidurlah: softer, like gentle advice or suggestion.
- With tidur: more direct, like a plain instruction or reminder.
Neither is rude by itself; tone of voice and context matter more. -lah just adds a touch of softness.
- lebih = more
- awal = early
So lebih awal literally means “earlier” (in time).
lebih awal vs lebih cepat:
lebih awal = earlier in time, compared to some usual time.
- Tidurlah lebih awal malam ini.
→ Go to bed earlier than you usually do tonight.
- Tidurlah lebih awal malam ini.
lebih cepat = faster / quicker, or earlier in the sense of sooner, but often linked to speed.
- Lari lebih cepat. = Run faster.
- Selesaikan tugasmu lebih cepat. = Finish your task more quickly / sooner.
You can say Tidurlah lebih cepat malam ini, and people will understand, but lebih awal sounds more natural when talking about the time you go to bed.
Both orders are possible:
- Tidurlah lebih awal malam ini.
- Tidurlah malam ini lebih awal.
Difference:
- lebih awal malam ini is more common and sounds smoother.
- malam ini lebih awal is grammatically fine but slightly marked, as if you’re stressing “tonight”.
In practice, Indonesians usually put the time expression (malam ini, besok, nanti, tadi pagi, etc.) near the end, and place lebih awal right after the verb:
- Pulanglah lebih awal besok.
- Datanglah lebih awal hari Senin.
Yes, kamu is informal–neutral “you”, commonly used:
- To friends
- To people your age
- To younger people
Alternatives:
- Anda – polite/formal “you” (used in customer service, formal writing, speaking to strangers politely).
→ Kalau Anda mengantuk, tidurlah lebih awal malam ini. - kau / engkau – very literary or regional; not common in modern casual speech except in some dialects or religious/literary texts.
- kalian – plural “you (all)”.
→ Kalau kalian mengantuk, tidurlah lebih awal malam ini.
So choice of kamu / Anda / kalian depends on formality and how many people you’re addressing.
Yes, that’s natural:
- Kalau mengantuk, tidurlah lebih awal malam ini.
Omitting the subject is common when it’s clear from context who you mean. It then feels like general advice, similar to:
- “If you’re sleepy, go to bed earlier tonight.”
- “If (one is) sleepy, (one should) sleep earlier tonight.”
In conversation, the listener will usually understand it’s directed at them.
Current sentence (Tidurlah lebih awal malam ini) is a soft command/suggestion.
To make it stronger / more insistent:
- Kamu harus tidur lebih awal malam ini.
= You must sleep earlier tonight. - Pokoknya tidur lebih awal malam ini.
= Just sleep earlier tonight, period. (quite strong, informal) - Drop kalau and just order:
Tidur lebih awal malam ini!
To make it weaker / more tentative:
- Mungkin kamu bisa tidur lebih awal malam ini.
= Maybe you can go to bed earlier tonight. - Coba tidur lebih awal malam ini.
= Try to sleep earlier tonight. - Sebaiknya kamu tidur lebih awal malam ini.
= It’s better if you sleep earlier tonight. (polite advice)
Indonesian doesn’t use verb tenses like English am / was / will be.
Time is usually shown by time expressions, like:
- malam ini = tonight
- kemarin = yesterday
- besok = tomorrow
- tadi pagi = this morning
In this sentence:
- malam ini explicitly marks the time → “tonight”.
- mengantuk has no tense by itself; context gives the time (now, later, etc.).
- kalau kamu mengantuk, tidurlah… is understood as a general conditional: “If (at some point) you feel sleepy, then (at that time) sleep earlier tonight.”
So we know it’s about tonight only because of malam ini, not because of any verb change.