Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Di kelas debat, kami diajari berpikir kritis tentang berita yang kami baca. - In debate class, we are taught to think critically about the news we read.

Di kelas debat, kami diajari berpikir kritis tentang berita yang kami baca.

In debate class, we are taught to think critically about the news we read.

Breakdown of Di kelas debat, kami diajari berpikir kritis tentang berita yang kami baca.

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Questions & Answers about Di kelas debat, kami diajari berpikir kritis tentang berita yang kami baca.

Why does the sentence start with Di kelas debat instead of just Kelas debat?

In Indonesian, you normally need a preposition before a place.

Di kelas debat = In the debate class / In debate class
Here di is a preposition meaning “at / in,” and kelas debat is the location.

If you say just Kelas debat, kami diajari…, it sounds like “The debate class, we were taught…” where kelas debat is more like a topic or subject, not a clear location phrase. It’s grammatically possible but less natural and needs a specific context (for example, as a title or in very literary style).

So Di kelas debat is the normal way to say “In debate class…” at the start of a sentence.

What’s the difference between di kelas debat, dalam kelas debat, and pada kelas debat?

All three contain a preposition, but they’re not used the same way in everyday Indonesian.

di kelas debat
- Most natural, neutral choice.
- Means “in/at debate class” (location in time/space).
- Used in normal spoken and written Indonesian.
dalam kelas debat
- Literally “inside the debate class.”
- Sounds more formal or emphasizes “within the (framework of the) debate class.”
- More common in written, formal contexts:
  - Dalam kelas debat, siswa dilatih berpikir kritis.
    “Within the debate class, students are trained to think critically.”
pada kelas debat
- Technically possible but sounds awkward or overly formal here.
- pada is usually used with:
  - times: pada hari Senin (on Monday)
  - abstract things: pada kesempatan ini (on this occasion)
- With kelas, speakers almost always say di kelas, not pada kelas.

In this sentence, di kelas debat is the most natural and idiomatic.

Why is it kelas debat and not something like kelas berdebat?

Kelas debat is a common Indonesian pattern: noun + noun where the second noun describes the type of class.

kelas debat = debate class
kelas matematika = math class
kelas bahasa Inggris = English class

If you say kelas berdebat, it sounds like “class (for) doing the activity of debating” and feels unusual as a standard name. Indonesians name classes using a noun:

debat (debate) → kelas debat
musik (music) → kelas musik

So kelas debat is the natural way to express “debate class.”

Why is kami used instead of kita for “we”?

Indonesian has two main words for “we”:

kami = we (NOT including the person you are speaking to)
kita = we (INCLUDING the person you are speaking to)

In this sentence:

Di kelas debat, kami diajari…
→ It implies “we (the people in that debate class) were taught…”, and the listener may or may not be part of that group. Often, the listener is not part of that class, so kami fits.

If you used kita:

Di kelas debat, kita diajari…
→ It would mean “we (including you) were taught…”, suggesting the listener was also in that debate class.

Since we usually describe our own class to someone not in that class, kami is the natural choice.

How is past tense shown here? There’s no word like “was/were.”

Indonesian verbs usually don’t change for tense. Time is understood from:

context, or
time words like sudah (already), akan (will), tadi (earlier), besok (tomorrow), etc.

In Di kelas debat, kami diajari berpikir kritis…, it could mean:

“In debate class, we are taught to think critically…”
“In debate class, we were taught to think critically…”

To make the past explicit, you could add a time marker:

Dulu di kelas debat, kami diajari…
“In the past / Back then in debate class, we were taught…”

But it’s very common in Indonesian to leave tense implicit like in the original sentence.

What exactly does diajari mean, and what’s the active form?

Diajari is a passive verb, from the root ajar (“to teach/learn”).

Active forms:

mengajar = to teach (a subject)
- Guru mengajar debat. – “The teacher teaches debate.”
mengajari = to teach someone something
- Guru mengajari kami berpikir kritis.
  “The teacher teaches us to think critically.”

Passive form of mengajari:

Kami diajari (oleh guru) berpikir kritis.
→ “We were taught (by the teacher) to think critically.”

So:

mengajari = to teach someone
diajari = to be taught (something)

In the sentence, the “teacher” is understood and omitted:

Di kelas debat, kami diajari berpikir kritis…
= “In debate class, we are/were taught to think critically…” (by the teacher/instructor).

What’s the difference between diajar, diajari, and diajarkan?

All come from ajar (“to teach”), but usage differs:

diajar
- Short, more colloquial.
- Often used instead of diajari or diajarkan in speech.
- Kami diajar berpikir kritis. (informal)
  “We were taught to think critically.”
diajari (passive of mengajari)
- Emphasis on the person being taught.
- Pattern: [person] diajari [something]
- Kami diajari berpikir kritis.
  “We are/were taught to think critically.”
diajarkan (passive of mengajarkan)
- Emphasis more on the material/skill being taught.
- Pattern: [something] diajarkan (kepada [person])
- Berpikir kritis diajarkan kepada kami.
  “Critical thinking is/was taught to us.”

In real life, many speakers also say:

Kami diajarkan berpikir kritis.

even if prescriptively some grammars prefer Kami diajari berpikir kritis. Both are widely used and understood. In your sentence, diajari is natural and correct.

Should there be an untuk before berpikir, like diajari untuk berpikir kritis?

Both forms are acceptable:

Kami diajari berpikir kritis…
Kami diajari untuk berpikir kritis…

Adding untuk:

makes the structure feel a bit more explicit/formal, like “taught to think critically”.
But in Indonesian, untuk is very often dropped in this pattern.

You’ll commonly see both in real usage. Omitting untuk here is completely natural.

Why is it berpikir and not pikir or memikirkan?

All come from the root pikir (“think”), but they function differently:

berpikir
- intransitive: “to think” (general mental activity)
- Kami diajari berpikir kritis.
  “We are taught to think critically.”
memikirkan
- transitive: “to think about / to think over (something)”
- Kami memikirkan masalah itu.
  “We think about that problem.”
pikir (bare root)
- Often appears in set phrases:
  - pikir panjang – to think carefully (idiomatically: to reconsider)
  - as a noun: cara pikir – way of thinking

In this sentence, the idea is “to think (in general) in a critical way,” so the correct form is berpikir, not memikirkan.

Is kritis here an adjective (“critical”) or an adverb (“critically”)? Should it be secara kritis?

Kritis is an adjective, but Indonesian often uses adjectives directly after verbs, where English would use an adverb:

berpikir kritis = “to think critically”
berbicara pelan = “to speak softly/slowly”
berlari cepat = “to run fast”

You can say:

berpikir secara kritis

and it’s grammatically correct, slightly more formal/emphatic. But everyday Indonesian strongly prefers:

berpikir kritis

So in this sentence, berpikir kritis is the most natural way to say “think critically.”

What does tentang mean here, and how is it different from mengenai?

Tentang is a preposition meaning “about / regarding / concerning.”

berpikir kritis tentang berita…
= “to think critically about the news…”

Mengenai has almost the same meaning (“about, regarding”) but is:

often a bit more formal
very common in writing, official language

You could say:

berpikir kritis mengenai berita yang kami baca

and it would be correct, just slightly more formal. In everyday speech and neutral writing, tentang is very common and perfectly natural.

Why is berita singular? Shouldn’t it be “news items” or “articles”? How do you show plural here?

Indonesian usually doesn’t mark plural on nouns unless it’s important to do so.

berita can mean:
- “news” (uncountable)
- or “news items / news stories / articles” (countable, plural)

Plurality is understood from context. In English, we might translate:

berita yang kami baca as
- “the news that we read”
- or “the news articles that we read”

If you really want to emphasize “many news items,” you can add a word:

banyak berita yang kami baca – many news items we read
berita-berita yang kami baca – the news items we read (reduplication often marks plural)

But in most cases, just berita is enough, as in this sentence.

What is yang doing in berita yang kami baca, and why is it baca and not membaca?

Yang introduces a relative clause (like “that/which” in English) describing a noun.

Base sentence:

Kami membaca berita. – We read news.

To say “the news that we read,” you:

Move berita to be the head noun.
Turn the rest into a relative clause with yang.
In this structure, the meN- prefix (membaca) drops to the bare root baca.

Result:

berita yang kami baca
literally: “the news that we read”

So:

yang = “that / which / who” (relative marker)
baca (not membaca) is normal in this object-relative pattern:
- buku yang saya baca – the book that I read
- film yang mereka tonton – the movie that they watch

Saying berita yang kami membaca is ungrammatical; after yang, in this kind of relative clause, you use the bare verb (no meN-) when the actor (kami) appears before the verb.