Breakdown of Saya mendengar podcast kesehatan di ruang tamu malam ini.
Questions & Answers about Saya mendengar podcast kesehatan di ruang tamu malam ini.
Indonesian verbs usually do not change for tense. Mendengar is a neutral form; it doesn’t show past/present/future by itself. Tense is understood from context and time expressions.
Here, malam ini (“tonight / this evening”) tells us about time. So the sentence can naturally mean:
- “I am listening to a health podcast in the living room tonight” (current or near future plan)
- or “I will listen to a health podcast in the living room tonight” (future plan)
If you really want to mark tense more clearly, you can add particles:
- Future: Saya akan mendengar podcast kesehatan di ruang tamu malam ini.
- Past: Tadi malam saya mendengar podcast kesehatan di ruang tamu. (“Last night / earlier tonight I listened …”)
Both come from the root dengar (“hear”).
- mendengar: to hear, to listen (more general, very common)
- Saya mendengar musik. – I hear/listen to music.
- mendengarkan: to listen to (more actively, focusing on the act of listening)
- Saya mendengarkan musik. – I (actively) listen to music.
In everyday speech, both are used with things like music, radio, or podcasts:
- Saya mendengar podcast kesehatan…
- Saya mendengarkan podcast kesehatan…
Both are acceptable. Some people feel mendengarkan sounds a bit more “carefully listening,” but you won’t be wrong with mendengar.
Colloquial spoken forms you might also hear:
- Saya denger podcast kesehatan…
- Saya lagi dengerin podcast kesehatan… (very informal)
In Indonesian, verbs like mendengar and mendengarkan take a direct object. You don’t add a preposition like “to” between them and the object.
So you say:
- mendengar podcast (listen to a podcast)
- mendengarkan musik (listen to music)
Adding a preposition such as kepada here would be wrong:
- ✗ mendengarkan kepada podcast (incorrect)
Indonesian often uses Noun + Noun to form a kind of compound:
- podcast (head noun)
- kesehatan (modifier noun: “health”)
So podcast kesehatan literally is “health podcast” or “podcast [of] health,” naturally understood as “a health podcast” / “a podcast about health.”
If you want to make the “about” idea explicit, you can say:
- podcast tentang kesehatan – podcast about health
Both podcast kesehatan and podcast tentang kesehatan are correct; the first is shorter and very normal.
Yes, Indonesian word order is fairly flexible, especially for time and place phrases. All of these are grammatical:
- Saya mendengar podcast kesehatan di ruang tamu malam ini.
– neutral; place (di ruang tamu) comes before time (malam ini). - Saya mendengar podcast kesehatan malam ini di ruang tamu.
– also fine; time then place. - Malam ini saya mendengar podcast kesehatan di ruang tamu.
– emphasizes malam ini (“TONIGHT, I’m listening …”).
General pattern often taught: S–V–O–(place)–(time), but putting time at the front is very common for emphasis. Native speakers use all these orders depending on what they want to highlight.
- di = at / in / on (location, no movement)
- ke = to / towards (movement to a destination)
In your sentence, the focus is on where the listening happens:
- di ruang tamu – in the living room (location)
If you wanted to talk about going there, you’d use ke:
- Saya pergi ke ruang tamu untuk mendengar podcast.
I go to the living room to listen to a podcast.
- ruang = room/space
- ruangan = a derived noun meaning “room, enclosed space” (often interchangeable with ruang)
However, for “living room,” the fixed, idiomatic phrase is:
- ruang tamu – literally “guest room,” but it means the living room / sitting room.
Ruangan tamu is not standard for “living room” and would sound odd in normal conversation. You might see ruangan tamu in some very specific or technical contexts, but for everyday Indonesian, say:
- di ruang tamu – in the living room
Indonesian does not have articles like a or the, so usually you just say:
- podcast kesehatan – a health podcast / the health podcast (context decides)
You only use words like sebuah or satu when you want to emphasize “one (single)”:
- Saya mendengar sebuah podcast kesehatan. – I listen to a health podcast (one specific podcast; a bit more formal or story-like).
- Saya mendengar satu podcast kesehatan. – I listen to one health podcast (emphasizing the number “one”).
In your sentence as a simple statement of activity, podcast kesehatan without sebuah is most natural.
You can drop Saya in some contexts, but it changes the feel:
- Saya mendengar podcast… – full normal sentence: “I am/will be listening …”
- Mendengar podcast… – looks like a sentence fragment or a note/title, not a full sentence.
Subject dropping is common:
- in instructions: Dengarkan podcast ini di ruang tamu malam ini. (“Listen to this podcast …”)
- when context makes the subject obvious, especially in conversation.
But as a standalone neutral sentence, you usually keep the subject:
- Saya mendengar podcast kesehatan di ruang tamu malam ini.
Both mean “I / me”, but they differ in formality:
- Saya
- Neutral–polite.
- Use with strangers, at work, in class, in most writing, or whenever you’re unsure.
- Aku
- Informal/intimate.
- Use with close friends, family, or in songs, poems, and very casual contexts.
In your sentence:
- Saya mendengar podcast kesehatan… – safe, neutral, polite.
- Aku mendengar podcast kesehatan… – casual, friendly.
Whichever you choose, keep your pronouns consistent (for example, saya–Anda vs aku–kamu).
Malam ini literally means “this night / tonight” and usually refers to the current or upcoming night on the same date. It’s normally understood as present/future:
- “tonight / this evening (later)”
For something that already happened, Indonesian normally uses:
- tadi malam or malam tadi – last night / earlier this evening
So:
- Saya mendengar podcast kesehatan di ruang tamu malam ini.
– what I’m doing (now) or will do tonight. - Tadi malam saya mendengar podcast kesehatan di ruang tamu.
– I listened to a health podcast last night / earlier tonight.
In everyday Indonesian, you normally don’t use di before time words like this.
Natural options:
- malam ini – tonight (neutral, very common)
- pada malam ini – on this night / tonight (more formal/written)
Di malam ini can appear in songs, speeches, or poetic language, but in ordinary conversation your sentence should be:
- Saya mendengar podcast kesehatan di ruang tamu malam ini.
To emphasize that the action is happening right now, add sedang before the verb:
- Saya sedang mendengar podcast kesehatan di ruang tamu malam ini.
– I am (currently) listening to a health podcast in the living room tonight.
Even more colloquial is lagi (especially with the informal verb form):
- Saya lagi dengerin podcast kesehatan di ruang tamu.
– I’m listening to a health podcast in the living room (right now).
(Very casual speech.)
Without sedang or lagi, Saya mendengar… is still often understood as present from context, but it’s more neutral.
The root word is sehat, meaning “healthy”.
Indonesian uses the circumfix ke- … -an to turn adjectives (and some verbs) into abstract nouns:
- sehat (healthy) → kesehatan (health)
- penting (important) → kepentingan (interest, importance)
- adil (fair) → keadilan (justice, fairness)
So kesehatan means “health” (the abstract concept or field), and podcast kesehatan is literally a “health podcast.”