Breakdown of Dia bercermin sebentar saja setiap pagi, cukup untuk memastikan wajahnya rapi tanpa lipstik berlebihan.
Questions & Answers about Dia bercermin sebentar saja setiap pagi, cukup untuk memastikan wajahnya rapi tanpa lipstik berlebihan.
Bercermin means “to look at oneself in the mirror” / “to look in the mirror.”
Grammatically:
- Root word: cermin = mirror
- Prefix: ber- (often makes intransitive verbs meaning “to have / to use / to do something related to X”)
So bercermin is literally “to do something with a mirror / to use a mirror,” and in actual use it means to look at yourself in a mirror.
Compare:
- Dia bercermin. = He/She looks in the mirror.
- Dia melihat cermin. = He/She looks at the mirror. (more literal, could be just looking at the object, not necessarily checking appearance)
Another common synonym is:
- Dia berkaca. = He/She looks in the mirror (also natural).
Both are related to “for a short time,” but saja adds a limiting/emphasizing nuance.
- sebentar = for a moment / briefly
- sebentar saja = only for a moment / just briefly
The word saja here:
- emphasizes that the action is short and limited
- can sound like the speaker is downplaying it: “not long, just a bit.”
So:
- Dia bercermin sebentar. = He/She looks in the mirror briefly.
- Dia bercermin sebentar saja. = He/She only looks in the mirror for a very short time (implying no long makeup routine).
You could also say:
- Dia hanya bercermin sebentar. (using hanya instead of saja)
Yes, the word order is flexible, and the core meaning stays the same. Some natural variations:
- Dia bercermin sebentar saja setiap pagi.
- Dia bercermin setiap pagi, sebentar saja.
- Setiap pagi dia bercermin sebentar saja.
All mean roughly: “Every morning, he/she only looks in the mirror briefly.”
Word order mostly affects:
- rhythm of the sentence
- slight emphasis (for example, putting setiap pagi at the start emphasizes “every morning”)
But there’s no big grammatical change in meaning here; they are all acceptable.
In this sentence:
- cukup = enough, sufficiently
- untuk = to / in order to
- memastikan = to make sure / to ensure
cukup untuk memastikan literally: “(it is) enough to make sure …”
About dropping untuk:
- cukup untuk memastikan is the standard, neutral form.
- cukup memastikan is also heard, but it can sound slightly less formal or more colloquial, and sometimes a bit ambiguous (it can sound like memastikan is the main verb: “(he/she) sufficiently makes sure …”).
In this specific structure (after a comma, describing the degree of the previous action), cukup untuk memastikan is the clearest and most natural:
- …, cukup untuk memastikan wajahnya rapi …
= “…, just enough to make sure her/his face is neat …”
Wajah = face
wajahnya can mean:
- his/her face (possessive)
- the face (definite, “that face” already known in context)
In this sentence, it’s understood as “her face” / “his face” (the person mentioned as dia).
So:
- wajah = (a) face, face in general
- wajahnya = their face / the face (owned or context-specific)
Without -nya:
- memastikan wajah rapi would sound more like “to make sure faces are neat” or “to make sure the face (in general) is neat,” which is odd in this personal context.
Thus wajahnya is natural because it matches dia.
Rapi = neat, tidy, well-arranged, put-together.
Bersih = clean (free from dirt, stains, etc.).
In the sentence:
- wajahnya rapi = “her/his face looks neat / well-groomed,”
suggesting: hair in place, makeup balanced, overall appearance orderly.
Compare:
- wajahnya bersih = her/his face is clean (no dirt, maybe washed)
- wajahnya rapi = her/his face looks neatly arranged (not messy, not overdone, likely including grooming or makeup).
You can combine them:
- wajahnya bersih dan rapi = her/his face is clean and neat.
Structure:
- tanpa = without
- lipstik = lipstick
- berlebihan = excessive / too much / overdone
berlebihan is an adjective describing lipstik.
So lipstik berlebihan = excessive lipstick / overdone lipstick.
And tanpa lipstik berlebihan = without excessive lipstick / without overdoing the lipstick.
It implies that the person may or may not wear lipstick, but if they do, it’s not too much. The focus is on avoiding excess.
Both are grammatically correct and natural:
- tanpa lipstik berlebihan
- tanpa lipstik yang berlebihan
Differences are subtle:
- Adding yang makes it slightly more explicit and sometimes a bit more formal or emphatic:
lipstik yang berlebihan = “lipstick that is excessive.” - Without yang, berlebihan directly modifies lipstik, and the phrase is shorter and more colloquial.
In everyday speech and writing, tanpa lipstik berlebihan is very natural and probably more common.
In Indonesian, if two clauses share the same subject, the subject is often not repeated in the second clause when it’s clear from context.
Original:
- Dia bercermin sebentar saja setiap pagi, cukup untuk memastikan wajahnya rapi tanpa lipstik berlebihan.
Literally:
“He/She looks in the mirror briefly every morning, (it is) enough to make sure their face is neat without excessive lipstick.”
The second part is not a full clause with a subject; it’s more like a descriptive phrase explaining the degree of the first action. It’s understood as:
- (waktu bercermin itu) cukup untuk memastikan …
= “(that mirror time) is enough to make sure …”
Saying Dia cukup untuk memastikan… would sound off; cukup here describes how long or how much she/he looks in the mirror, not what dia (the person) “is enough” for. The original structure is the natural one.
Dia is gender-neutral in Indonesian. It can mean he or she.
In this particular sentence, context (lipstick) makes “she” more likely in real-world interpretation, but grammatically:
- dia = he / she
- nothing in the form of the word marks gender.
If you wanted to make it clearly female in context, you could say:
- Perempuan itu bercermin sebentar saja… (That woman looks in the mirror briefly…)
- Dia, seorang wanita karier, bercermin sebentar saja… (She, a career woman, looks in the mirror briefly…)
But as written, dia itself does not encode gender.