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Teman saya mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan di kota untuk kakak saya.

Teman saya mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan di kota untuk kakak saya.
My friend looks for a job vacancy in the city for my older sibling.
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Questions & Answers about Teman saya mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan di kota untuk kakak saya.

What is the function of -kan in mencarikan, and how is it different from just mencari?

The base verb mencari means “to look for / to search for.”

When you add -kan → mencarikan, it usually gives a benefactive meaning: doing the action for someone else.

  • mencari pekerjaan = to look for a job (neutral)
  • mencarikan pekerjaan (untuk seseorang) = to look for a job for someone

In the sentence:

  • Teman saya mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan di kota untuk kakak saya.
    → My friend is looking for a job vacancy in the city for my older sibling.

Here mencarikan highlights that the friend is doing the searching on behalf of the older sibling, not for themselves.

Could we just say “Teman saya mencari lowongan pekerjaan di kota untuk kakak saya”? What’s the difference?

Yes, that sentence is grammatically correct and completely understandable:

  • Teman saya mencari lowongan pekerjaan di kota untuk kakak saya.

The difference is nuance:

  • mencari … untuk kakak saya
    – expresses “looking for … for my older sibling” using the preposition untuk.
    – sounds more neutral.

  • mencarikan … (untuk kakak saya)
    – has the benefactive meaning built into the verb.
    – subtly emphasizes the idea of doing a favor / helping.

In everyday speech, many Indonesians use both patterns, and in this specific sentence the meaning is practically the same. The version with mencarikan just feels a bit more like “doing it for them.”

If mencarikan already has a “for someone” sense, why do we still need untuk kakak saya? Isn’t that redundant?

It can look redundant, but in actual usage it’s very common and natural.

Think of it in two layers:

  1. mencarikan
    – tells us the action is done for someone (benefactive), but doesn’t say who.

  2. untuk kakak saya
    – clearly specifies who benefits from the action.

So:

  • Teman saya mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan di kota.
    → My friend is looking for a job vacancy in the city for someone (unspecified).

  • Teman saya mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan di kota untuk kakak saya.
    → The beneficiary is now explicitly stated: my older sibling.

In colloquial Indonesian, you get patterns like:

  • Dia mencarikan pekerjaan untuk saya.
  • Dia membelikan buku untuk adiknya.

Using both me-…-kan and untuk is very natural and not considered wrong.

Could we drop untuk and say “Teman saya mencarikan kakak saya lowongan pekerjaan di kota” like in English “find my brother a job”?

Grammatically, that structure is possible, but:

  • Teman saya mencarikan kakak saya lowongan pekerjaan di kota.

sounds unusual or bookish in modern Indonesian, especially in speech.

Indonesian generally prefers:

  • [Verb me-…-kan] + [thing] + untuk + [beneficiary]

So the most natural pattern is:

  • Teman saya mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan di kota untuk kakak saya.

You can say:

  • Teman saya mencarikan saya pekerjaan.

when the beneficiary is a short pronoun (saya, kamu, dia), but with a full noun phrase like kakak saya, using untuk is much more typical and sounds smoother.

What exactly does kakak mean? Does it mean “older brother” or “older sister”?

Kakak means:

  • older sibling (gender-neutral)

So:

  • kakak saya = my older sibling (could be brother or sister)

If you want to be explicit about gender, you can say:

  • kakak laki-laki saya = my older brother
  • kakak perempuan saya = my older sister

In many contexts, speakers don’t care about specifying gender; kakak alone is enough and context usually tells you which one is meant.

Why do we need saya in kakak saya? Can we just say kakak?

kakak by itself only means “older sibling”; it does not automatically mean my older sibling.

To express possession (“my”), you normally use:

  • kakak saya = my older sibling
  • kakakku = my older sibling (more intimate/colloquial, using the suffix -ku)

You can sometimes drop saya when it’s extremely clear from context who you’re talking about, but as a learner, it’s safer and more natural to include the possessor:

  • untuk kakak saya = for my older sibling

Also, note that kakak is often used as a form of address (like calling someone “Older sister/brother”) when speaking to them directly, but in this sentence kakak saya is clearly a third person (“my older sibling”), not a form of direct address.

Could “Teman saya” ever mean “my friend and I”? Because saya is “I.”

No. In Teman saya, the saya is a possessor, not part of the subject as a person.

  • teman = friend
  • saya = I / me
  • teman saya = my friend (literally “friend of me”)

So:

  • Teman saya mencarikan…
    = My friend is the subject, not “my friend and I.”

To say “my friend and I,” you would say, for example:

  • Saya dan teman saya mencarikan…
  • Teman saya dan saya mencarikan…
  • or simply kami mencarikan… (we, excluding the listener)
What is the difference between lowongan pekerjaan, pekerjaan, and kerja?

They are related but not the same:

  • pekerjaan
    – noun: job / work / occupation in general.
    – e.g. Dia sudah punya pekerjaan. = He/She already has a job.

  • lowongan pekerjaan
    – job vacancy, an opening for a job.
    – lowongan = vacancy/opening
    – pekerjaan = job
    – Together: a position that is available and not yet filled.
    – Very common in job-hunting contexts.

  • kerja
    – can be verb (“to work”) or a more casual noun (“job, work”) depending on context.
    – cari kerja (informal) ≈ mencari pekerjaan.

In the sentence:

  • lowongan pekerjaan di kota
    → “job vacancies in the city” – we’re talking specifically about open positions, not just “work” in an abstract sense.
What does di kota really mean here? “In the city” or “in a city”? Why is there no word for “the” or “a”?

Indonesian generally does not use articles like “the” or “a/an.”
So di kota can be translated as either:

  • in the city
  • in a city
  • in town

The exact nuance depends on context, for example:

  • If you live in the countryside and contrast it with urban jobs, di kota will usually be understood as “in the city (as opposed to the village)”.
  • If you had just mentioned a specific city (e.g. Jakarta), di kota could be understood as “in that city” from context, or more explicitly di kota Jakarta.

If you really want to emphasize “a city (unspecified),” you could say:

  • di sebuah kota = in a (certain) city

But di kota alone is very natural and commonly used the way English uses both “in the city” and “in a city.”

Does di kota describe the job vacancies or the searching action? Is there any ambiguity?

By default, the most natural reading is:

  • lowongan pekerjaan di kota
    → job vacancies in the city

So di kota most naturally attaches to lowongan pekerjaan, telling us where the job vacancies are.

The structure is:

  • Teman saya (subject)
  • mencarikan (verb)
  • lowongan pekerjaan di kota (object: “job vacancies in the city”)
  • untuk kakak saya (beneficiary phrase: “for my older sibling”)

You could theoretically interpret di kota as “my friend is searching in the city,” but that is less natural from this word order. To clearly say the searching happens in the city, you might say:

  • Teman saya di kota sedang mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan untuk kakak saya.
    (My friend, who is in the city, is looking for job vacancies for my older sibling.)

Word order and prosody in real speech usually make the intended meaning clear.

How is it that this sentence has no tense markers? How do we know if it’s past, present, or future?

Indonesian verbs do not change form for tense.
The verb mencarikan itself is tense-neutral.

The time reference is understood from context or from additional words:

  • Past:

    • Kemarin teman saya mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan…
      → Yesterday my friend looked for job vacancies…
    • Tadi teman saya mencarikan… → Earlier, my friend…

  • Present (ongoing/right now):

    • Teman saya sedang mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan…
    • Sekarang teman saya mencarikan…

  • Future:

    • Besok teman saya akan mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan…
      → Tomorrow my friend will look for job vacancies…

Your original sentence:

  • Teman saya mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan di kota untuk kakak saya.

could be translated as “is looking for” / “looks for” / “was looking for” / “will look for” depending on the surrounding context. English forces you to pick a tense; Indonesian doesn’t.

Why is it di kota and not ke kota?

Because di and ke express different kinds of relations:

  • di = at / in / on (location, static)
    → di kota = in the city

  • ke = to / toward (movement, destination)
    → ke kota = to the city

In your sentence, we are talking about the location of the job vacancies:

  • lowongan pekerjaan di kota
    = job vacancies in the city (they are located there)

If the sentence were about going to the city, you’d use ke:

  • Teman saya pergi ke kota untuk mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan.
    → My friend goes to the city to look for job vacancies.
Is this sentence formal, informal, or neutral? How might it sound in more casual spoken Indonesian?

The original sentence is neutral and perfectly suitable for:

  • everyday conversation
  • writing
  • semi-formal contexts

A more casual / spoken version might be:

  • Teman saya lagi nyariin kerjaan di kota buat kakak saya.

Differences:

  • lagi = currently / in the middle of doing
  • nyariin = colloquial form of mencarikan
  • kerjaan = informal variant of pekerjaan
  • buat = informal for untuk

So you can choose:

  • Teman saya mencarikan lowongan pekerjaan di kota untuk kakak saya.
    (neutral / standard)

vs.

  • Teman saya lagi nyariin kerjaan di kota buat kakak saya.
    (more casual, everyday speech)