Breakdown of Setelah liburan, saya mengirimkan foto keluarga kepada nenek lewat pesan singkat.
Questions & Answers about Setelah liburan, saya mengirimkan foto keluarga kepada nenek lewat pesan singkat.
Both mengirim and mengirimkan come from the root kirim (to send), and in this sentence they are nearly interchangeable:
- Saya mengirim foto keluarga kepada nenek...
- Saya mengirimkan foto keluarga kepada nenek...
Both are correct and natural.
Nuance:
- mengirim is slightly simpler and very common in everyday speech.
- mengirimkan can feel a bit more formal or “complete,” and often appears in writing or more careful speech.
In many real-life situations, native speakers don’t feel a clear difference in meaning here. As a learner, you can safely treat them as synonyms in this kind of sentence.
In practice, Indonesian usually still uses a preposition to mark the recipient, even with mengirimkan:
- ✅ Saya mengirimkan foto keluarga kepada nenek.
- ✅ Saya mengirim foto keluarga kepada nenek.
Dropping kepada and putting nenek directly after the verb is generally not natural in standard Indonesian:
- ❌ Saya mengirimkan nenek foto keluarga. (too English-like)
So:
- Keep kepada (or ke) to show “to whom” you send something.
- Think of mengirim / mengirimkan as “send,” not as “send someone something” with a double object like in English.
Yes, both are possible, but there is a nuance:
kepada nenek
- More formal/polite.
- Common in writing, letters, official or careful speech.
- Very natural in a sentence about sending messages or letters.
ke nenek
- More colloquial and general.
- Used a lot in everyday conversation, especially for physical movement:
- Saya pergi ke nenek. – I go to Grandma.
In your sentence:
- Saya mengirimkan foto keluarga kepada nenek... sounds slightly more formal.
- Saya mengirimkan foto keluarga ke nenek... is fine in casual speech.
As a learner, using kepada for “to someone (a person)” is always safe and correct.
lewat literally means “through” or “via.” In this sentence:
- lewat pesan singkat = “via a short message / via text message.”
You can usually replace it with melalui:
- ...kepada nenek lewat pesan singkat.
- ...kepada nenek melalui pesan singkat.
Differences:
- lewat – more informal, everyday.
- melalui – more formal, written, or careful.
Both are correct and widely used. For everyday conversation, lewat is perfectly natural.
Literally, pesan singkat means short message.
In practice:
- It can refer to an SMS text message (this comes from the English term “Short Message Service”).
- It is also used more broadly for short written messages sent by phone:
- SMS
- Line
- Telegram, etc.
If you want to be very specific, people often say things like:
- pesan SMS – an SMS
- pesan WhatsApp / pesan WA – a WhatsApp message
- chat – a (chat) message in apps
In your sentence, pesan singkat is best understood as “a text message” in a general sense.
Setelah liburan is a time phrase meaning after the vacation/holiday.
It is not a complete clause because there is no verb; it only gives the time.
Indonesian often places time or place information at the beginning of the sentence:
- Setelah liburan, saya mengirimkan foto keluarga...
- Di rumah, saya belajar bahasa Indonesia.
A comma is usually written after such fronted time/place phrases to separate them from the main clause. It helps readability but doesn’t change the grammar.
You could also put the time phrase at the end, where no comma is needed:
- Saya mengirimkan foto keluarga kepada nenek lewat pesan singkat setelah liburan.
Indonesian does not change the verb form for tense. Instead, it uses time words and context.
In this sentence:
- Setelah liburan – after the holiday/vacation
This implies that the sending happened after some already completed period (the holiday), so in English we translate it as “After the holiday, I sent…”
Other common time markers:
- kemarin – yesterday
- tadi – earlier today
- tadi malam – last night
- sudah / telah – already (often implies past)
The verb mengirimkan itself is neutral; the past meaning comes from setelah and context.
Yes, you can:
- Setelah liburan, saya mengirim foto keluarga kepada nenek lewat pesan singkat.
This is fully correct and natural.
Meaning:
- There is no important difference in meaning between mengirim and mengirimkan in this context.
- Both are widely used. Some speakers slightly feel mengirimkan as a bit more formal or “completed,” but many use them interchangeably.
For your purposes, treat both as acceptable unless your teacher/teacher’s materials insist on one form for a specific exercise.
Indonesian usually does not mark plural on the noun. Context tells you whether it’s singular or plural.
- foto keluarga can mean:
- “a family photo”
- “family photos”
- “the family photo(s)”
If you really want to emphasize that there were many, you can say:
- foto-foto keluarga – family photos (clearly plural)
- banyak foto keluarga – many family photos
- beberapa foto keluarga – several family photos
But in everyday speech, people often just say foto keluarga and let context show whether it’s one or several.
Literally:
- foto keluarga = “family photo(s)”
- foto keluarga saya = “my family photo(s)”
Yes, foto keluarga is technically ambiguous, but in natural context, if you say:
- Saya mengirimkan foto keluarga kepada nenek...
listeners will normally assume:
- The family is your family.
- The nenek is your grandmother (part of that family).
Indonesian often leaves out possessives when the owner is obvious:
- Saya telepon nenek. – I call Grandma (my grandma).
- Saya pulang ke rumah. – I go back home (my home).
If you want to be explicit, you can absolutely say:
- Saya mengirimkan foto keluarga saya kepada nenek...
- Saya mengirimkan foto-foto keluarga kami kepada nenek...
Both are correct; the original sentence is just more natural and not usually confusing.
In this sentence, liburan is a noun:
- Setelah liburan = After the vacation / After the holiday (period)
Forms:
libur
- Basic root meaning “off / holiday / no work or school.”
- e.g. Hari ini saya libur. – I’m off today.
liburan
- Noun: “holiday, vacation,” often a period of days/weeks.
- e.g. Saya senang waktu liburan. – I’m happy during vacation.
berlibur
- Verb: “to go on vacation / to take a holiday.”
- e.g. Saya berlibur ke Bali. – I go on vacation to Bali.
Compare:
Setelah liburan, saya mengirimkan foto keluarga...
After the vacation (as a period), I sent…Setelah berlibur, saya mengirimkan foto keluarga...
After (having gone) on vacation, I sent…
Both are grammatically correct; Setelah liburan is more common and sounds very natural.
In standard sentences like this, you should keep the subject:
- ✅ Setelah liburan, saya mengirimkan foto keluarga kepada nenek...
If you remove saya:
- Setelah liburan, mengirimkan foto keluarga kepada nenek...
this sounds incomplete or unnatural in normal written Indonesian because there is no clear subject. Native speakers do sometimes drop pronouns when context is very obvious, especially in informal speech:
- Kemarin sudah makan? – (Did you) already eat yesterday?
But in a neutral sentence describing an action you did once, it is better (and more natural for learners) to include the subject.
By itself, nenek can mean:
- “grandmother” in general
- “Grandma” (as a specific person you’re talking about)
- an old woman (in some contexts), e.g. seorang nenek – an old lady
In your sentence:
- Saya mengirimkan foto keluarga kepada nenek...
the natural interpretation in context is:
- nenek = my grandmother (“Grandma”).
Indonesian often omits the possessive when there is only one obvious person:
- Saya telepon nenek. – I call Grandma (my grandma).
- Saya ajak adik bermain. – I invite (my) younger sibling to play.
If you want to be explicit, you can say:
- kepada nenek saya – to my grandmother.
Both versions are correct; the shorter nenek is very natural when talking about your own grandmother.