Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang turnamen bulan lalu. - Our campus futsal team almost won the tournament last month.

Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang turnamen bulan lalu.

Our campus futsal team almost won the tournament last month.

Breakdown of Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang turnamen bulan lalu.

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Questions & Answers about Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang turnamen bulan lalu.

In Indonesian there is no word like was or did here. How do we know this sentence is talking about the past?

Indonesian verbs do not change form for tense. The verb menang (to win) looks the same in past, present, and future.

We know this sentence refers to the past because of the time expression bulan lalu (last month). Time adverbs like:

kemarin (yesterday)
tadi malam (last night)
tahun lalu (last year)

are what tell you when something happened. The verb itself stays in its basic form.

So:

Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang turnamen bulan lalu.
= Our campus futsal team almost won the tournament last month.

If you changed bulan lalu to besok (tomorrow), the same verb form would suddenly refer to the future:

Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang turnamen besok.
(strange logically, but grammatically: will almost win tomorrow).

What exactly does kami mean here, and why not kita?

Both kami and kita can be translated as we / our, but:

kami = we / our (excluding the person you're talking to)
kita = we / our (including the person you're talking to)

In kampus kami, it literally means our campus (but not yours), or at least, the speaker is not explicitly including the listener in that group.

So this sentence suggests:

The team belongs to the speaker’s campus.
The listener is probably not from that same campus (or the speaker simply chooses not to include them).

If the listener is also from the same campus, you can say:

Tim futsal kampus kita hampir menang turnamen bulan lalu.
= Our campus futsal team (yours and mine) almost won the tournament last month.

So the choice kami vs kita is about who is inside the “we” group.

How is the long phrase tim futsal kampus kami structured? What belongs to what?

The phrase is a stack of nouns and a pronoun that all modify each other. In simpler English, it means:

Our campus futsal team

Breakdown:

tim = team (main noun)
futsal = futsal (tells you what kind of team)
kampus kami = our campus (tells you whose team / where it’s from)

Structure in order:

tim (head noun)
futsal (type of team)
kampus (which institution)
kami (who owns that institution)

You can think of it like:

[tim futsal] [kampus kami]
= the futsal team of our campus

Alternative, slightly more explicit forms:

tim futsal dari kampus kami
tim futsal milik kampus kami

But the original tim futsal kampus kami is very natural and compact.

Why is the pronoun after the noun in kampus kami? Why not kami kampus?

Indonesian possessive pronouns normally follow the noun they possess:

rumah saya = my house
teman kamu = your friend
orang tua mereka = their parents
kampus kami = our campus

Putting the pronoun before the noun (like kami kampus) is ungrammatical for possession.

So:

✅ kampus kami = our campus
❌ kami kampus (incorrect)

If you want we as the subject instead, then it appears before the verb:

Kami kuliah di kampus itu. = We study at that campus.

Does hampir menang mean they actually won or that they lost?

Hampir means almost, in the sense of it was close, but did not happen.

So:

hampir menang = almost won (→ they did not win)
hampir jatuh = almost fell (but didn’t)
hampir terlambat = almost late (but arrived on time)

In this sentence, Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang… strongly implies:

The team did not win.
They were close to winning; maybe they lost by a small margin.

If they actually did win but it was close, you’d say something like:

Tim futsal kampus kami hampir kalah, tapi akhirnya menang.
= Our campus futsal team almost lost, but in the end they won.

Could I replace hampir with nyaris here? What’s the difference?

Yes, you generally can:

Tim futsal kampus kami nyaris menang turnamen bulan lalu.

nyaris is very close in meaning to hampir = almost, and in many contexts they’re interchangeable.

Nuance:

hampir is more neutral and slightly more common in everyday speech and writing.
nyaris can sound a bit more dramatic or literary, but it is also used in normal conversation.

In this sentence, both sound natural, with no big change in meaning.

Is menang turnamen correct without any preposition like di or dalam?

Yes, menang turnamen is acceptable and understandable. It literally means:

menang turnamen = to win the tournament

However, you will also often hear:

menang di turnamen bulan lalu
menang dalam turnamen bulan lalu

Rough nuances:

menang turnamen – focuses on winning the tournament itself as an object.
menang di/dalam turnamen – focuses on winning in the context of that tournament.

All of these are possible:

Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang turnamen bulan lalu.
Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang di turnamen bulan lalu.
Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang dalam turnamen bulan lalu.

To be very clear that they became champions, Indonesian often uses menjuarai:

Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menjuarai turnamen bulan lalu.
= They almost became the champions of the tournament.

Why is bulan lalu at the end? Could it go somewhere else?

Yes, bulan lalu (last month) is quite flexible in position. In the original:

Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang turnamen bulan lalu.

Here bulan lalu is closest to turnamen, so it naturally reads as:

the tournament last month.

Alternative positions:

Bulan lalu, tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang turnamen.
- Emphasis on when this happened: Last month, ...
Tim futsal kampus kami bulan lalu hampir menang turnamen.
- Possible, but less natural; can sound a bit clumsy.
Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang turnamen itu bulan lalu.
- Adds itu to specify that tournament last month.

The most common and natural choices here are:

Tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang turnamen bulan lalu.
Bulan lalu, tim futsal kampus kami hampir menang turnamen.

Is kampus informal? Could I say universitas instead?

Both are fine, but they’re used slightly differently:

kampus = the physical campus / college environment
universitas = the university as an institution, more formal

In everyday Indonesian, people very often say kampus:

Di kampus kami ada tim futsal yang kuat.
Aku pulang ke kampus dulu.

Your sentence with universitas:

Tim futsal universitas kami hampir menang turnamen bulan lalu.

This is still correct, but sounds a bit more formal or written. In casual speech, kampus fits very well.

What’s the difference between tim futsal kampus kami and tim futsal kami di kampus?

They suggest slightly different things.

tim futsal kampus kami
- Means our campus’s futsal team.
- The team belongs to the campus (it’s the official campus team).
tim futsal kami di kampus
- Literally: our futsal team at campus.
- Focus is more like: our futsal team, which is located/plays at the campus.
- It doesn’t necessarily emphasize that it’s the official team of the campus.

So:

If you want to stress that it’s the official campus team, keep tim futsal kampus kami.
If you’re talking more loosely about our team that happens to be on campus, you might say tim futsal kami di kampus.

How does tim futsal work grammatically? Why doesn’t Indonesian say something like futsal tim?

In Indonesian, the general pattern is:

Head noun comes first.
Modifying noun (showing type, category, or material) comes after.

So:

tim futsal = futsal team
guru matematika = math teacher
buku sejarah = history book
sepatu bola = soccer shoes

In English, we often put the modifier first (soccer team, math teacher). In Indonesian, it’s the other way around:

English: futsal team
Indonesian: tim futsal

So tim futsal literally feels like “team (of) futsal”.