Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Guru sejarah membacakan kisah pahlawan kepada murid-murid kelas lima. - The history teacher reads a hero’s story aloud to the fifth-grade students.

membaca kisah pahlawan = to read a hero story (focus on the act of reading the text itself)
membacakan kisah pahlawan (kepada …) = to read a hero story to/for someone (focus on doing the reading for an audience)

The suffix -kan often adds a “do something for someone / cause someone to experience something” meaning.

So:

Guru sejarah membaca kisah pahlawan.
The history teacher reads a hero story. (no mention of audience)
Guru sejarah membacakan kisah pahlawan kepada murid-murid kelas lima.
The history teacher reads a hero story to the fifth-grade students.

In this sentence, membacakan is more natural because the action is clearly directed toward the students as listeners.

Why is kepada used before murid-murid kelas lima? Could I use untuk instead?

kepada is usually used with people as an indirect object in verbs like:

say to, give to, send to, write to, read to, etc.

Here, membacakan … kepada murid-murid kelas lima = to read … to the fifth-grade students.

You can say:

Guru sejarah membacakan kisah pahlawan untuk murid-murid kelas lima.

but there is a nuance:

kepada stresses the direction of the action toward someone (to the students as recipients/listeners).
untuk stresses that something is for the benefit of someone (for the students).

Both are acceptable, but kepada is the most standard with this kind of verb in a neutral–formal style.

Why do we say murid-murid instead of just murid?

Reduplication (repeating the word) is a common way to show plural in Indonesian:

murid = student (can be “a student” or “students” depending on context)
murid-murid = explicitly “students” (plural)

So murid-murid kelas lima clearly means “the fifth-grade students”.

In everyday speech, Indonesians often just say murid kelas lima and let context show it is plural. Using murid-murid here simply makes the plurality very clear and sounds natural.

What does kelas lima literally mean? Is it “fifth class” or “class five”?

Literally kelas lima is “class five”, but idiomatically it means fifth grade.

In a school context, kelas satu, kelas dua, …, kelas enam usually refer to grades 1–6 (especially in primary school).
So murid-murid kelas lima = fifth-grade students.

Compare:

kelas lima – grade 5 (the group/level)
kelas kelima – the fifth class (ordinal form; could mean “the fifth classroom” in a sequence, or the fifth session in a timetable, depending on context)

Why is it murid-murid kelas lima, not kelas lima murid-murid?

In Indonesian noun phrases, the main noun usually comes first, and its descriptors follow it.

murid-murid = main noun (students)
kelas lima = describing which students (those of class five / fifth grade)

So the pattern is:

[murid-murid] [kelas lima]
[head noun] [descriptor]

Putting it as kelas lima murid-murid would sound unnatural or confusing. The natural order is exactly as in the sentence: murid-murid kelas lima.

Why can we say Guru sejarah without any word like “a” or “the”?

Indonesian doesn’t have articles like a/an or the.

guru sejarah can mean “a history teacher”, “the history teacher”, or “history teachers” depending on context.
If you really want to emphasize “one (single) history teacher”, you can say seorang guru sejarah.

In this sentence:

Guru sejarah membacakan… is naturally understood as “The / A history teacher reads…”
The context will tell the listener whether it’s a specific teacher they already know, or just any teacher fitting that description.

What exactly does kisah pahlawan mean? Is it “hero story” or “story of a hero”?

kisah = story, tale
pahlawan = hero

When two nouns are put together like this, kisah pahlawan can mean:

a hero story
the story of a hero / heroes
heroic tales

The phrase is quite flexible:

kisah pahlawan – a hero’s story / the story of a hero (could be singular or general)
kisah para pahlawan – stories of the heroes (more clearly plural and specific to several heroes, because of para)

In the original sentence, kisah pahlawan is best taken as “a story about heroes” or “a hero story” in a general educational sense.

How does the word membacakan get formed from baca?

The base verb is baca (read).
membacakan is formed by:

prefix meN-
- root baca
  - suffix -kan

Step by step:

meN-
- baca → membaca (to read)
  The N in meN- assimilates to m before b, so it becomes mem-.
Add -kan → membacakan (to read something to/for someone)

Meaning change:

membaca: to read
membacakan [something] [to someone]: to read [something] out loud for/to someone (benefactive / “do for someone” sense)

Could we just say Guru sejarah membaca kisah pahlawan kepada murid-murid kelas lima? Is that wrong?

It’s not wrong, but it’s less natural.

membaca … kepada … is understandable, but usually Indonesians say:
- membacakan … kepada … (read something to someone), or
- membaca … untuk … (read something for someone)

The pattern membacakan X kepada Y strongly suggests “reading X aloud to audience Y”, which is exactly the situation in the sentence. So membacakan fits better there.

Why is it kepada and not just ke before murid-murid?

Both ke and kepada can translate as “to”, but they are used differently.

ke is mostly for physical direction or destination:
- ke sekolah = to school
- ke rumah = to the house
kepada is mostly for abstract direction toward a person as a recipient:
- memberi buku kepada Ali = give a book to Ali
- berbicara kepada guru = speak to the teacher
- membacakan kisah kepada murid-murid = read a story to the students

In casual speech, some people do sometimes use ke with people, but kepada is more standard and formal, especially in writing and teaching contexts.

Why is there a hyphen in murid-murid? Could I write murid murid instead?

The hyphen shows reduplication (intentional repetition) to mark plurality.

murid-murid (with hyphen) = repeated word, meaning “students”
murid murid (without hyphen) looks like two separate words and is considered incorrect spelling for the plural form.

Standard spelling rules use a hyphen for this kind of repetition:

buku-buku = books
guru-guru = teachers
murid-murid = students

Does the sentence indicate past, present, or future? How do we know the tense?

Indonesian verbs do not change form for tense. The verb membacakan is the same for past, present, or future.

The time is understood from:

context, and/or
time expressions like tadi (earlier), kemarin (yesterday), besok (tomorrow), sedang (in the process of), etc.

So:

Guru sejarah membacakan kisah pahlawan kepada murid-murid kelas lima.
could mean:
- The history teacher read a hero story…
- The history teacher is reading a hero story…
- The history teacher will read a hero story…

To make it explicit:

Tadi pagi guru sejarah membacakan kisah pahlawan…
This morning the history teacher read a hero story…
Sekarang guru sejarah sedang membacakan kisah pahlawan…
Now the history teacher is reading a hero story…
Besok guru sejarah akan membacakan kisah pahlawan…
Tomorrow the history teacher will read a hero story…