Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Berpikir kritis membantu kami tidak mudah percaya pada informasi palsu di media sosial. - Thinking critically helps us not easily believe false information on social media.

Berpikir kritis membantu kami tidak mudah percaya pada informasi palsu di media sosial.

Thinking critically helps us not easily believe false information on social media.

Breakdown of Berpikir kritis membantu kami tidak mudah percaya pada informasi palsu di media sosial.

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Questions & Answers about Berpikir kritis membantu kami tidak mudah percaya pada informasi palsu di media sosial.

What is the difference between berpikir and memikirkan? Why is it berpikir kritis here, not memikirkan secara kritis?

Both come from the root pikir (thought / to think), but they’re used differently:

berpikir = to think (general mental activity)
- ber-
  - pikir → “to be in a state of thinking”
- Often intransitive (doesn’t take a direct object)
- Examples:
  - Saya sedang berpikir. – I’m thinking.
  - Kita harus berpikir kritis. – We must think critically.
memikirkan = to think about / to consider (something)
- meN-
  - pikir + -kan → “to do the action of thinking to something”
- Transitive (takes a direct object)
- Examples:
  - Saya memikirkan masalah itu. – I’m thinking about that problem.
  - Dia masih memikirkan keputusan itu. – He/She is still thinking about that decision.

In Berpikir kritis membantu kami…, the idea is the general activity or skill of critical thinking, so berpikir is natural.
Memikirkan secara kritis would sound more like “to think about something critically” and would usually need an object after it.

Is berpikir kritis a verb phrase (“to think critically”) or more like a noun phrase (“critical thinking”)?

In Indonesian, berpikir kritis can function in both ways, depending on context:

As a verb phrase:
- Dia selalu berpikir kritis. – He/She always thinks critically.
As a noun-like phrase / activity (similar to “critical thinking”):
- Berpikir kritis penting untuk semua orang. – Critical thinking is important for everyone.
- In your sentence, Berpikir kritis membantu kami…, it’s functioning more like the activity/skill “critical thinking” that performs the action “helps”.

Indonesian is quite flexible here; you don’t need a special noun form like English -ing.

Why is it membantu kami tidak mudah percaya, without untuk (like membantu kami untuk tidak mudah percaya)? Is that okay?

Yes, it’s okay and very natural.

Indonesian often has this pattern:

membantu + (orang) + [verb phrase]

Examples:

Belajar bahasa asing membantu kita memahami budaya lain.
Learning foreign languages helps us understand other cultures.
Olahraga teratur membantu kamu tidur lebih nyenyak.
Regular exercise helps you sleep better.

Adding untuk is also grammatically correct:

… membantu kami untuk tidak mudah percaya …

But untuk is optional and often omitted in everyday speech and writing. Without untuk, the sentence is a bit simpler and more fluent.

How should I understand tidak mudah percaya? Why not tidak percaya dengan mudah?

tidak mudah percaya literally is:

tidak = not
mudah = easy / easily
percaya = to believe

So it means: “not easily believe”, i.e. “are not easily convinced / we don’t just believe things right away”.

Word order matters:

tidak mudah percaya
= “not easy to believe (something)” → we are not gullible.
tidak percaya dengan mudah
= “don’t believe with ease” – grammatically possible, but feels more awkward and less natural. Indonesian usually puts mudah directly before the verb it modifies (percaya), not after with dengan.

Common, natural patterns:

tidak mudah percaya – not easy to believe
gampang percaya (informal) – easily believe, gullible
(tidak gampang percaya = not easily believe)

Why is it percaya pada informasi palsu and not percaya dengan / percaya di / percaya ke informasi palsu?

The most common patterns with percaya are:

percaya pada …
percaya kepada …

Both roughly mean “to believe in / to trust”.

Usage tendencies:

percaya kepada is very common with people or God:
- percaya kepada Tuhan – believe in God
- percaya kepada dokter – trust the doctor
percaya pada is used with ideas, information, systems, etc.:
- percaya pada sains – believe in science
- percaya pada informasi palsu – believe in fake information

Alternatives:

percaya dengan – not standard in this meaning; sounds off.
percaya di / ke – wrong with percaya in this sense.

So here percaya pada informasi palsu is the natural and correct collocation.

Why is there no plural marker in informasi palsu? How do I say “fake informations” / “fake news”?

In Indonesian, nouns usually do not change form for plural. Context tells you if it’s singular or plural.

informasi palsu can mean:
- “fake information” (uncountable)
- or “fake pieces of information / fake informations” (plural idea)

If you really want to stress plurality, you can:

use a number or quantifier:
- banyak informasi palsu – a lot of fake information
- berbagai informasi palsu – various fake information
or sometimes reduplicate (more common with countable nouns), but here informasi-informasi palsu sounds very formal and a bit heavy.

For “fake news”, common translations:

berita palsu
or the established loan phrase hoaks (from “hoax”):
- hoaks di media sosial – hoaxes / fake news on social media

Why is it di media sosial, not pada media sosial or di sosial media?

di vs pada
- di is the usual preposition for location:
  - di rumah, di sekolah, di internet, di media sosial
- pada is more formal/abstract and less common here.
  Pada media sosial is not wrong, but it sounds more formal/official. Di media sosial is the everyday choice.
media sosial vs sosial media
The standard order is:
- media sosial (literally “social media”)
  Sosial media is a common colloquial slip influenced by English word order, but in good Indonesian it should be media sosial.

Why is kami used, not kita? What’s the difference in this sentence?

Both mean “we / us”, but:

kami = we (NOT including the person you talk to) – exclusive we
kita = we (INCLUDING the person you talk to) – inclusive we

In … membantu kami tidak mudah percaya …, using kami implies:

“us” as a group that does not necessarily include the listener/reader.
For example, a teacher talking about their own team, or a group describing their own experience.

If the speaker wants to include the listener (“all of us, including you”), they’d say:

Berpikir kritis membantu kita tidak mudah percaya pada informasi palsu di media sosial.

So:

kami → we (but not you)
kita → we (including you)

Could I say Berpikir kritis membuat kami tidak mudah percaya… instead of membantu kami? What’s the nuance difference?

Both are grammatical, but there’s a nuance:

membantu = helps
→ Critical thinking is something that supports, facilitates the result.
- Softer, suggests it contributes among other factors.
membuat = makes / causes
→ Critical thinking is presented as the direct cause of the result.
- Stronger, more causal: as if A directly produces B.

So:

Berpikir kritis membantu kami tidak mudah percaya…
= Critical thinking helps us not to easily believe…
Berpikir kritis membuat kami tidak mudah percaya…
= Critical thinking makes us not easily believe…

Both are natural, but membantu is slightly milder and more typical when talking about beneficial skills.

Could I move tidak and say Berpikir kritis membantu kami mudah tidak percaya? How does the meaning change?

That would sound odd and confusing in Indonesian.

tidak mudah percaya
= not easy to believe → we are not easily convinced / we’re not gullible.
mudah tidak percaya
= easy to not believe → we quickly disbelieve / we are quick to reject things.

So:

Berpikir kritis membantu kami tidak mudah percaya…
= helps us avoid being gullible.
Berpikir kritis membantu kami mudah tidak percaya…
would suggest that critical thinking makes us easily disbelieve things, maybe even too skeptical.
Plus, this phrasing is not natural; native speakers almost never say mudah tidak percaya.

The usual and natural form here is tidak mudah percaya.

Is berpikir kritis formal, or can it be used in casual conversation too? What would be more informal?

Berpikir kritis is neutral to slightly formal, but it’s very common in both spoken and written Indonesian, especially in education, media, and everyday educated conversation. It’s fine in normal speech.

More informal ways (depending on context):

pakai otak kritis – use your critical brain (very casual)
mikirlah, jangan langsung percaya – think, don’t just believe right away
jangan polos / jangan gampang percaya – don’t be naive / don’t be so easily convinced

But if you specifically mean the skill of critical thinking, berpikir kritis is the standard term.

Could the sentence start with Dengan berpikir kritis instead of Berpikir kritis? Does that change anything?

Yes, you can say:

Dengan berpikir kritis, kami tidak mudah percaya pada informasi palsu di media sosial.

Difference:

Berpikir kritis membantu kami…
→ “Critical thinking helps us…”
Treats berpikir kritis as the subject that performs the action “helps”.
Dengan berpikir kritis, kami tidak mudah percaya…
→ “By thinking critically, we don’t easily believe…”
Dengan berpikir kritis is now a manner phrase (“by / through critical thinking”) that explains how we manage not to believe things easily.

Both are natural; the original focuses on “critical thinking” as something useful that “helps”, while the dengan version focuses more on the method (“by thinking critically, we achieve this result”).