Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Kami menunggu di depan pengadilan setelah rapat keluarga. - We wait in front of the court after the family meeting.

In the sentence Kami menunggu di depan pengadilan setelah rapat keluarga, the speaker is talking about their own group (for example, their family members) and not including the listener. That’s why kami is the correct choice.

If the listener were also part of the waiting group, you would say:

Kita menunggu di depan pengadilan setelah rapat keluarga.
→ We (you and I / we all) are waiting in front of the court after the family meeting.

Does menunggu need an object? Can you say just menunggu like this?

Menunggu can be used both:

with an object:
- Kami menunggu bus. → We are waiting for the bus.
without an explicit object (when it’s clear from context or not important):
- Kami menunggu di depan pengadilan. → We are waiting in front of the court. (What are we waiting for? Not specified.)

So using menunggu without directly stating what is being waited for is natural and common. Context often fills in the missing object.

What’s the base word of menunggu, and what does the prefix meN- do?

The base word is tunggu (wait).

The prefix meN- turns it into a verb in the “standard” active form:

tunggu → menunggu = to wait

More examples:

baca (read) → membaca (to read)
masak (cook) → memasak (to cook)

In everyday informal Indonesian, people sometimes use the base form:

Aku tunggu di sini. → I’ll wait here.

But in neutral/standard style, menunggu is preferred.

What exactly does di depan mean? Is it “in front of” or “at the front of”?

Di is a preposition for location: at / in / on.
Depan means front.

Together, di depan = in front of or at the front (of), depending on context:

Kami menunggu di depan pengadilan.
→ We waited in front of the court / courthouse.

So yes, it naturally translates as in front of here.

Is pengadilan “court” the place, or “court” the institution?

Pengadilan can mean both:

The institution (the court of law), and
The building (the courthouse).

In this sentence, because it’s combined with di depan (a physical location), it clearly refers to the place/building:

di depan pengadilan → in front of the courthouse / court building.

If you were talking about the institution in an abstract sense, you might see phrases like:

putusan pengadilan → court decision
proses pengadilan → court process

Why is there no word for “the” before pengadilan or rapat keluarga?

Indonesian does not use articles like a / an / the.

Whether something is definite (the court) or indefinite (a court) is understood from context, or clarified by extra words if needed.

So:

pengadilan can mean a court or the court
rapat keluarga can mean a family meeting or the family meeting

In this sentence, natural English would choose:

after the family meeting
in front of the court

But Indonesian doesn’t mark the explicitly.

What does setelah mean, and can I replace it with sesudah?

Setelah means after (in terms of time).

setelah rapat keluarga → after the family meeting

Setelah and sesudah are very close in meaning and are often interchangeable:

setelah rapat keluarga
sesudah rapat keluarga

Both are correct and natural. In modern usage, setelah sounds slightly more formal/standard, but the difference is small.

Can setelah rapat keluarga be placed at the beginning of the sentence?

Yes. Time expressions in Indonesian are flexible in position. Both are correct:

Kami menunggu di depan pengadilan setelah rapat keluarga.
Setelah rapat keluarga, kami menunggu di depan pengadilan.

Putting setelah rapat keluarga at the start just emphasizes the time a bit more, similar to English:

After the family meeting, we waited in front of the court.

Is rapat keluarga a fixed phrase? What does it literally mean?

Literally:

rapat = meeting, formal meeting, session
keluarga = family

So rapat keluarga literally means family meeting.

It can refer to any kind of family gathering where decisions or discussions are made, from informal to quite formal, depending on context.

You could also say pertemuan keluarga (family gathering/meeting), which is a bit more general and can sound less formal, but rapat keluarga is completely natural.

Is there any marker for past tense in Kami menunggu? How do we know it means “waited”?

Indonesian verbs don’t change form for tense. Menunggu can mean:

wait / are waiting / will wait / waited

The tense is understood from context or from time expressions. In this sentence, setelah rapat keluarga (after the family meeting) suggests a past or completed action, so:

Kami menunggu di depan pengadilan setelah rapat keluarga.
→ We waited in front of the court after the family meeting.

If you wanted to make the past sense very explicit, you could add tadi (earlier, just now) or kemarin (yesterday), etc.:

Tadi kami menunggu di depan pengadilan setelah rapat keluarga.
→ Earlier, we waited in front of the court after the family meeting.

Could we say Kami sedang menunggu di depan pengadilan…? What’s the difference?

Yes, you can say:

Kami sedang menunggu di depan pengadilan setelah rapat keluarga.

Sedang marks an action as ongoing (progressive), similar to am/are/is -ing in English:

Kami menunggu → We wait / we are waiting (context decides)
Kami sedang menunggu → We are currently in the process of waiting

If you’re narrating something that was happening at that time, sedang makes the “in the middle of doing it” sense clearer. But in many cases, Indonesians omit sedang and rely on context.

Can kami be dropped, like in some other languages, so the sentence starts directly with menunggu?

Normally, Indonesian keeps the subject pronoun, especially in neutral or written language:

Kami menunggu di depan pengadilan setelah rapat keluarga.

You can find subject dropping in very casual speech or when the subject is already very clear:

(Kami) menunggu di depan pengadilan tadi.

But as a learner, it’s safer and more natural to keep the pronoun kami in sentences like this unless you’re copying the style of very informal conversations or chat messages.