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Guru musik kami memainkan piano sambil mengajar kami bernyanyi.

Guru musik kami memainkan piano sambil mengajar kami bernyanyi.
Our music teacher plays the piano while teaching us to sing.
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Questions & Answers about Guru musik kami memainkan piano sambil mengajar kami bernyanyi.

Why is it guru musik kami and not kami guru musik if it means our music teacher?

In Indonesian, the basic pattern for possessive noun phrases is:

  • [thing owned] + [owner]

So you say:

  • guru kami = our teacher
  • rumah saya = my house
  • teman mereka = their friend

Here, guru musik kami literally means teacher of music of us → our music teacher.

If you said kami guru musik, it would be understood as something like we are music teachers (a separate subject kami and predicate guru musik) rather than a single noun phrase meaning our music teacher.

What is the role of musik in guru musik kami? Is it like an adjective?

Musik is a noun, but in Indonesian a noun can modify another noun directly, without any extra word.

  • guru musik = music teacher
  • toko buku = book shop
  • sekolah bahasa = language school

So guru musik is teacher (of) music, i.e. music teacher. Then kami adds possession: guru musik kami = our music teacher.

It’s not an adjective grammatically, but it fills a similar descriptive role.

What is the difference between kami and kita, and why is kami used here?

Both kami and kita mean we / us, but:

  • kami = we/us excluding the listener
  • kita = we/us including the listener

Guru musik kami implies our music teacher, but not yours (the speaker’s group, excluding the person being spoken to).

If the speaker wanted to include the listener (e.g. classmates talking to each other about their shared teacher), they could say:

  • Guru musik kita = our (all of us, including you) music teacher.

The choice depends on who is included in the group.

Why is it memainkan piano instead of just main piano or bermain piano?

Root: main = to play (a game, an instrument, etc.)

Common forms:

  1. main piano (colloquial)

    • Very common in speech: Dia main piano. = He/She plays the piano.

  2. bermain piano

    • More formal/neutral: Dia bermain piano.

  3. memainkan piano

    • Uses me-…-kan, which makes main clearly transitive (taking a direct object).
    • Literally “to play (something)” → to play the piano.

In this sentence, memainkan piano is a standard, slightly more explicit way to say plays the piano, treating piano clearly as the object of memainkan. You could also say:

  • Guru musik kami bermain piano sambil …

in most contexts without changing the basic meaning.

What exactly does sambil mean, and how is it used?

Sambil means while / as / at the same time as, indicating two actions done simultaneously by the same subject.

Pattern:

  • [Subject] [Action 1] sambil [Action 2]

In the sentence:

  • Guru musik kami memainkan piano sambil mengajar kami bernyanyi.

The subject guru musik kami is doing both actions:

  1. memainkan piano – plays the piano
  2. mengajar kami bernyanyi – teaches us to sing

So it means the teacher is playing the piano while teaching us to sing.

If you use sambil, both actions share the same subject.

Why is it mengajar kami bernyanyi and not mengajar bernyanyi kami?

Mengajar is a transitive verb that normally follows this order:

  • mengajar + object (person) + thing being taught

So:

  • Dia mengajar kami matematika. = He/She teaches us mathematics.
  • Dia mengajar anak-anak membaca. = He/She teaches the children to read.

In the sentence:

  • mengajar = to teach
  • kami = us (object: the people being taught)
  • bernyanyi = to sing (what is being taught)

So mengajar kami bernyanyi = to teach us to sing.

Putting kami after bernyanyi (mengajar bernyanyi kami) would sound wrong/unnatural, because Indonesian typically keeps the object (person) right after the verb in this pattern.

Do we need untuk in mengajar kami bernyanyi? Can we say mengajar kami untuk bernyanyi?

Both are possible:

  • mengajar kami bernyanyi
  • mengajar kami untuk bernyanyi

The version without untuk is very natural and common when you have mengajar + person + verb:

  • Dia mengajar anak-anak membaca.
  • Dia mengajar saya menulis.

Adding untuk is also grammatically correct and can feel a bit more explicit:

  • Dia mengajar anak-anak untuk membaca.

In everyday speech, mengajar kami bernyanyi is slightly smoother and more idiomatic.

What is the difference between mengajar and belajar?

Both come from the root ajar (teach/learn):

  • mengajar = to teach (what the teacher does)

    • Dia mengajar kami bernyanyi. = He/She teaches us to sing.

  • belajar = to learn / to study (what the student does)

    • Kami belajar bernyanyi. = We learn to sing.

So in this sentence, the subject is the teacher, so we use mengajar, not belajar.

What does the me- prefix in mengajar and memainkan do?

The me- prefix (with variants mem-, men-, meng-, meny-, me-) usually forms an active verb from a root.

  • ajar → mengajar = to teach
  • main → memain
    • -kan → memainkan = to play (something)
  • baca → membaca = to read

In many cases, me- + root creates a transitive or active verb that can take an object. In this sentence:

  • mengajar kami (object: kami)
  • memainkan piano (object: piano)
What does the ber- prefix in bernyanyi mean?

The ber- prefix often creates intransitive verbs (no direct object), often related to doing or being in a certain state.

  • nyanyi (root) → bernyanyi = to sing
  • jalan → berjalan = to walk
  • lari → berlari = to run

So bernyanyi is simply to sing, without directly taking an object. In the sentence, it’s the activity being taught:

  • mengajar kami bernyanyi = teach us to sing.