Wasit memberi kartu kuning ketika pemain mendorong lawan terlalu keras.

The referee gives a yellow card when a player pushes an opponent too hard.

Breakdown of Wasit memberi kartu kuning ketika pemain mendorong lawan terlalu keras.

• sebuah: a
• ketika: when
• terlalu: too
• mendorong: to push
• sebuah: an
• memberi: to give
• kartu: the card
• pemain: the player
• kuning: yellow
• keras: hard
• wasit: the referee
• lawan: the opponent

Questions & Answers about Wasit memberi kartu kuning ketika pemain mendorong lawan terlalu keras.

Why is memberi used instead of beri or memberikan? What’s the difference?

The base verb is beri (to give). In actual sentences you will almost always see one of the prefixed forms:

• memberi
• memberikan

memberi and memberikan are very close in meaning and often interchangeable. In many everyday contexts:

• Wasit memberi kartu kuning
• Wasit memberikan kartu kuning

are both acceptable and both mean The referee gave a yellow card.

Subtle points:

• memberikan often emphasizes the thing given and can feel a bit more formal or complete.
• memberi can feel slightly shorter, more neutral.

You almost never use bare beri in a normal sentence like this; it sounds incomplete or very informal/imperative, e.g. Beri aku itu! (Give me that!)

Why isn’t there any past tense marker like sudah? How do we know this happened in the past?

Indonesian usually does not mark tense grammatically. Time is understood from:

• Context
• Time words (e.g. kemarin, tadi, besok)
• The situation (like a match report, a story, etc.)

So:

• Wasit memberi kartu kuning ketika pemain mendorong lawan terlalu keras.

can be understood as The referee gave a yellow card when the player pushed the opponent too hard simply from context.

If you want to make the past more explicit, you can add tadi or kemarin etc.:

• Tadi wasit memberi kartu kuning… – Earlier/the previous period, the referee gave a yellow card…
• Kemarin wasit memberi kartu kuning… – Yesterday the referee gave a yellow card…

Why is it kartu kuning and not kuning kartu? What is the rule for adjective position?

In Indonesian, adjectives usually come after the noun.

• kartu = card
• kuning = yellow
• kartu kuning = yellow card

So the pattern is:

• noun + adjective

Examples:

• rumah besar – big house
• baju merah – red shirt
• mobil baru – new car

Putting the adjective before the noun (kuning kartu) is wrong in standard Indonesian.

Is kartu kuning a fixed football term like “yellow card” in English?

Yes. In sports (especially football/soccer):

• kartu kuning = yellow card
• kartu merah = red card

They are standard terms. Just like in English, people will immediately think of the referee’s cards in a match when they hear these phrases.

Also, kuning here is not capitalized; colors are written in lower case in Indonesian.

What is the function of ketika here? Can I replace it with saat or waktu?

ketika is a conjunction meaning when (for a specific time or moment).

In this sentence it introduces the time clause:

• ketika pemain mendorong lawan terlalu keras = when the player pushed the opponent too hard

You can often replace ketika with saat or waktu:

• Wasit memberi kartu kuning saat pemain mendorong lawan terlalu keras.
• Wasit memberi kartu kuning waktu pemain mendorong lawan terlalu keras.

Differences:

• ketika – neutral, quite standard.
• saat – very common, maybe slightly more formal/literary in some uses.
• waktu – everyday speech, very common in conversation.

All three are acceptable here.

Why is it pemain mendorong lawan with no word like “the” or “an”? Where are the articles?

Indonesian has no articles like a, an, the.

• pemain = player / the player / a player
• lawan = opponent / the opponent / an opponent

Which English article you choose depends on context, not on extra words in Indonesian.

If you really want to make it more specific, you can add:

• seorang pemain – a player (one player)
• pemain itu – that player / the player
• lawannya – his/her opponent
• lawan itu – that opponent / the opponent

For example:

• Wasit memberi kartu kuning ketika seorang pemain mendorong lawannya terlalu keras.
  – The referee gave a yellow card when a player pushed his opponent too hard.

Why is there no yang before mendorong? Could it be pemain yang mendorong lawan?

Here, pemain mendorong lawan is a normal subject + verb + object clause inside the ketika clause:

• ketika
  • pemain (subject)
    • mendorong (verb)
      • lawan (object)

So yang is not needed.

You use yang to form relative clauses or to describe a noun:

• pemain yang mendorong lawan terlalu keras
  = the player who pushed the opponent too hard

That phrase could be used as part of a larger noun phrase:

• Wasit memberi kartu kuning kepada pemain yang mendorong lawan terlalu keras.
  – The referee gave a yellow card to the player who pushed the opponent too hard.

So:

• Without yang: it’s a full when-clause with its own subject and verb.
• With yang: you are describing which player.

What does mendorong literally mean, and can it take a direct object like this?

mendorong means to push.

It is a transitive verb, so it naturally takes a direct object without a preposition:

• mendorong pintu – push the door
• mendorong mobil – push the car
• mendorong lawan – push the opponent

So pemain mendorong lawan = the player pushed the opponent, and this structure is completely normal in Indonesian.

What does lawan mean exactly? Is it only “opponent” in sports?

lawan means:

• opponent, rival (in sports, games, competitions)
• more generally, enemy or the other side in a conflict or debate

In this sentence, because the context is a referee and a yellow card, lawan is clearly the opposing player / the opponent in a sports match.

Examples:

• lawan main – opponent (in a game)
• lawan bicara – the person you’re talking to (literally, talk-opponent)
• musuh – more clearly enemy, often stronger/hostile than lawan

How should I understand terlalu keras here? Does keras always mean “hard”?

keras has several related meanings, including:

• hard / solid – roti keras (hard bread)
• loud – musik keras (loud music)
• harsh / severe / forceful – hukuman keras (harsh punishment), pukulan keras (a hard hit)

With terlalu (too / excessively):

• terlalu keras = too hard, too forcefully, too harsh

In the context of pushing someone in football, terlalu keras means the push was too strong / too rough, against the rules.

Where does terlalu normally go in a sentence? Before or after the adjective?

terlalu comes before the adjective or adverb it modifies:

• terlalu keras – too hard
• terlalu cepat – too fast
• terlalu mahal – too expensive
• terlalu sering – too often

You don’t say keras terlalu; the correct order is always terlalu + adjective/adverb.

Could this sentence be made passive, and would that sound natural?

Yes, you can make it passive. One natural version:

• Kartu kuning diberikan wasit ketika pemain mendorong lawan terlalu keras.
  – A yellow card was given by the referee when the player pushed the opponent too hard.

Or:

• Pemain diberi kartu kuning oleh wasit ketika ia mendorong lawan terlalu keras.
  – The player was given a yellow card by the referee when he pushed the opponent too hard.

Both are grammatically correct. The original active sentence, however, is very natural and straightforward in sports descriptions.

Why isn’t there a pronoun like dia (he/she) for the player? Is it normal to omit it?

Yes, it’s normal.

In ketika pemain mendorong lawan terlalu keras, pemain itself is the subject: the player pushed the opponent.

You would only use dia if you replaced pemain with a pronoun:

• ketika dia mendorong lawan terlalu keras – when he/she pushed the opponent too hard

But in the original sentence, naming the role (pemain, the player) is clearer in the match context, so there is no need for dia.

Is there any difference between Wasit memberi kartu kuning ketika… and Ketika pemain mendorong lawan terlalu keras, wasit memberi kartu kuning?

Both are correct; the difference is just emphasis and style.

Original:

• Wasit memberi kartu kuning ketika pemain mendorong lawan terlalu keras.
  – Main clause first (what the referee did), then the time clause.

Reordered:

• Ketika pemain mendorong lawan terlalu keras, wasit memberi kartu kuning.
  – Time clause first, then the main action.

In Indonesian, putting the ketika clause first can add a bit of narrative feel or emphasis on the condition/time, but grammatically both orders are fine and mean the same thing.