Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Ibu mencarikan obat untuk adik saya. - Mother looks for medicine for my younger sibling.

Mother – when talking about your own mother, as in this sentence.
Madam/Mrs./Ma’am – a polite form of address for an adult woman (e.g. a teacher, an older woman, a female official).

Because there is no other context and the verb is something a parent commonly does for a child, Ibu is best understood as “my mother” here, even though saya (my) is not written after it. In family contexts, Ibu is often used without saya and still clearly means “my mother.”

What is the difference between mencari and mencarikan?

Both come from the root cari (to search, to look for), but:

mencari = to look for / search for (something)
- Ibu mencari obat. → Mom is looking for medicine.
mencarikan = to look for something for someone (benefactive)
- Ibu mencarikan obat untuk adik saya. → Mom is looking for medicine for my younger sibling.

The suffix -kan often adds a sense of:

doing the action for someone’s benefit, or
causing/making something happen.

So mencarikan emphasizes that the searching is on behalf of someone else (here, the younger sibling). You can say Ibu mencari obat untuk adik saya, but mencarikan makes the “for (someone)” sense more built into the verb.

If mencarikan already means “look for something for someone,” why do we still need untuk adik saya?

mencarikan tells us there is a beneficiary, but it doesn’t say who.
The phrase untuk adik saya explicitly identifies the beneficiary:

Ibu mencarikan obat.
Mom is looking for medicine (for someone, but we don’t know who).
Ibu mencarikan obat untuk adik saya.
Mom is looking for medicine for my younger sibling.

So:

mencarikan = “look for (something) for (someone)”
untuk adik saya = tells us for whom.

Could the sentence be Ibu mencari obat untuk adik saya instead? What’s the difference?

Yes, that sentence is grammatically correct and natural.

Nuance:

Ibu mencari obat untuk adik saya.
Neutral: Mom looked for medicine for my younger sibling.
Ibu mencarikan obat untuk adik saya.
Emphasizes that Mom did the searching as a helpful act for my younger sibling. The verb itself highlights the “on behalf of” meaning.

In everyday conversation, both would often be understood similarly, but mencarikan feels slightly more benefactive / service-oriented.

Why is the word order obat untuk adik saya, not untuk adik saya obat?

In Indonesian, the usual order is:

Verb + direct object + (prepositional phrase)

So:

mencarikan = verb
obat = direct object (what is being looked for)
untuk adik saya = prepositional phrase indicating beneficiary

Therefore, Ibu mencarikan obat untuk adik saya is the natural order.

A phrase like ✗ Ibu mencarikan untuk adik saya obat is not idiomatic Indonesian and sounds wrong to native speakers.

Does this sentence mean “Mom looked for medicine” or “Mom is looking for medicine”? There’s no tense marker.

Indonesian verbs do not change form for tense (past/present/future).
Ibu mencarikan obat untuk adik saya can mean:

Mom is looking for medicine for my younger sibling.
Mom looked for medicine for my younger sibling.
Mom will look for medicine for my younger sibling. (with the right context)

The specific tense is understood from context or from time words like:

tadi (earlier)
sekarang (now)
nanti (later)
kemarin (yesterday), etc.

Example:

Tadi Ibu mencarikan obat untuk adik saya. → Mom looked for medicine for my younger sibling earlier.
Sekarang Ibu mencarikan obat untuk adik saya. → Mom is looking for medicine for my younger sibling now.

What exactly does adik saya mean? Does it mean “little brother”, “little sister”, or just “younger sibling”?

adik means younger sibling, without specifying gender.

adik saya = my younger sibling (could be brother or sister)
If you want to be specific:
- adik laki-laki saya = my younger brother
- adik perempuan saya = my younger sister

Indonesians often leave gender unspecified unless it’s important to the conversation. So adik saya is perfectly natural.

Why is it adik saya and not saya adik, if it means “my younger sibling”?

In Indonesian, possession typically goes:

[possessed noun] + [possessor]

So:

adik saya = younger sibling + I → my younger sibling
buku saya = book + I → my book
rumah mereka = house + they → their house

You do not say saya adik to mean “my younger sibling.” Saya adik would be more like “I am the younger sibling,” but even then you’d normally say saya adik only as part of a longer sentence, e.g. Saya adik dari Budi (I’m Budi’s younger sibling).

Could I say adikku instead of adik saya?

Yes, in principle:

adik saya = my younger sibling (using the separate pronoun saya)
adikku = my younger sibling (using the enclitic -ku for aku = I)

But there are two differences:

Formality
- saya = neutral/polite
- aku / -ku = more casual/intimate
Pronoun identity
- saya and aku/-ku both mean “I”, but saya sounds more formal or distant; aku is more personal and casual.

So adik saya is more neutral/polite, while adikku sounds more casual/affectionate and fits better in informal speech or writing (messages to friends, family, song lyrics, etc.). Mixing Ibu (polite-sounding) with -ku (casual) is possible but affects the tone; Ibu mencarikan obat untuk adik saya is stylistically consistent and neutral.

Can I drop saya and just say Ibu mencarikan obat untuk adik?

Yes, you can say:

Ibu mencarikan obat untuk adik.

This would usually be understood as:

Mom is looking for medicine for (our/my) younger sibling.

In many family contexts, adik without a possessive pronoun is still understood as “our younger sibling” or “the younger child in the family” from context.

However:

adik saya makes it explicit that this is my younger sibling.
Just adik may sometimes be interpreted more generically or depend more on context.

Is obat singular or plural here? Should it be “medicine” or “medicines”?

Indonesian nouns generally don’t mark singular/plural.
So obat can mean:

medicine (as an uncountable noun)
a medicine
some medicine
medicines

The correct English translation depends on context. For this sentence, natural options are:

Mom is looking for medicine for my younger sibling.
Mom is looking for some medicine for my younger sibling.
Mom is looking for the medicine for my younger sibling. (if a specific medicine was already mentioned)

To make it clearly plural in Indonesian, you might say berbagai macam obat (various kinds of medicine) or use a number or classifier, e.g. tiga jenis obat (three kinds of medicine).

Could we say Ibu mencarikan obat adik saya without untuk?

You can say Ibu mencarikan obat adik saya, but the meaning shifts slightly.

Ibu mencarikan obat untuk adik saya.
→ Mom is looking for medicine for my younger sibling (beneficiary).
Ibu mencarikan obat adik saya.
→ Most naturally understood as: Mom is looking for my younger sibling’s medicine (the medicine that belongs to/was prescribed to my younger sibling).

So without untuk, obat adik saya can be interpreted as:

a possessive phrase = “my younger sibling’s medicine”,

rather than a clear beneficiary phrase (“for my younger sibling”).
Using untuk keeps the “for (someone)” meaning unambiguous.

What is the role of untuk here? Could I use buat or bagi instead?

untuk means for (purpose or beneficiary). In this sentence, it marks the beneficiary:

untuk adik saya = for my younger sibling

Alternatives:

buat
- More informal/colloquial.
- Ibu mencarikan obat buat adik saya.
  → Very natural in casual spoken Indonesian.
bagi
- More formal/literary; less common in everyday spoken language in this context.
- Ibu mencarikan obat bagi adik saya.
  → Grammatically correct; may sound a bit formal or written.

In normal conversation, untuk (neutral) and buat (casual) are the most common choices here.