Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Dokter menyarankan kontrol setiap bulan. - The doctor recommends a check-up every month.

Dokter by itself can mean “a doctor”, “the doctor”, or even “doctors”, depending on context.
Here, in a real situation, the speaker is usually talking about a specific doctor both people already know about (e.g. “my doctor” or “the doctor we just saw”), so dokter will be understood as “the doctor”.

If you really want to emphasize “a certain doctor”, you can say:

Seorang dokter menyarankan kontrol setiap bulan.
→ A doctor recommended a monthly check-up.

But in everyday speech, just dokter is usually enough, and the context tells you whether it’s a or the.

What exactly does menyarankan mean, and how is it different from merekomendasikan or menganjurkan?

All three can translate as “to recommend / to suggest”, but there are some nuances:

menyarankan
- Root: saran (advice, suggestion)
- Meaning: to advise, to suggest (quite common, neutral)
- Example: Dokter menyarankan kontrol setiap bulan.
  → The doctor advises monthly check‑ups.
menganjurkan
- Root: anjur (recommendation)
- Very similar to menyarankan, maybe feels a bit more formal or “strongly suggest” in some contexts.
- Example: Dokter menganjurkan saya untuk diet.
merekomendasikan
- From English “recommend”.
- Sounds more formal/technical, often used in written language, reports, or reviews.
- Example: Dokter merekomendasikan obat ini.

In this sentence, menyarankan is perfectly natural and common. You could also say:

Dokter menganjurkan kontrol setiap bulan.
→ Also correct, a bit more formal-sounding.

Merekomendasikan would not be wrong, just a little more like report or written style:

Dokter merekomendasikan kontrol setiap bulan.

What does kontrol mean here? Is it the same as English “control”?

Here, kontrol is a loanword from English, but its everyday medical meaning in Indonesian is:

kontrol (ke dokter) = a check-up / follow‑up visit to the doctor.

So in this sentence:

Dokter menyarankan kontrol setiap bulan.
→ The doctor advised a check‑up / follow‑up every month.

It does not mean:

to control a machine,
to control people,
to control your emotions.

For those meanings, Indonesian would use other words, e.g.:

mengendalikan mesin (control a machine)
mengontrol emosi (here mengontrol is used as a verb “to control”)

But in a medical context, kontrol as a noun almost always means “follow‑up visit / check‑up”.

Why is it menyarankan kontrol and not menyarankan untuk kontrol? Is something missing?

Both patterns exist, with a small grammatical difference:

menyarankan + noun
- Dokter menyarankan kontrol setiap bulan.
  Here, kontrol is a noun meaning “a check‑up / follow‑up visit”.
  So literally: “The doctor advised (a) monthly check‑up.”
menyarankan untuk + verb
- Dokter menyarankan untuk kontrol setiap bulan.
  Here, kontrol is treated more like a verb-like activity:
  “The doctor advised to come for a check‑up every month.”

In everyday speech, both are used and easily understood. Pattern (1) is a bit shorter and very common, especially with kontrol in medical contexts.

How do I know the tense? Does this mean “The doctor recommends” or “The doctor recommended”?

Indonesian does not mark tense (past/present/future) on the verb the way English does.

menyarankan can mean “recommends”, “is recommending”, or “recommended”.
You get the time reference purely from context or time words like:
- tadi (earlier),
- sudah (already),
- akan (will),
- nanti (later), etc.

So:

Dokter menyarankan kontrol setiap bulan.
Could be translated as:
- The doctor recommends a check‑up every month. (general habit)
- The doctor recommended a check‑up every month. (talking about an appointment you already had)

If you wanted to make past time very explicit, you might say:

Tadi dokter menyarankan kontrol setiap bulan.
→ Earlier, the doctor recommended a monthly check‑up.

Can I say “setiap bulan kontrol” instead of “kontrol setiap bulan”? Is the word order fixed?

Both are possible, but they feel slightly different:

kontrol setiap bulan (more common here)
- kontrol (check‑up) is the main noun,
- setiap bulan (every month) describes how often.
- Very natural: Dokter menyarankan kontrol setiap bulan.
setiap bulan kontrol
- Sounds more like you’re emphasizing “every month (there should be) a check‑up.”
- Grammatically okay, but in this exact sentence it sounds a bit less natural.

In practice, for this kind of medical recommendation, native speakers strongly prefer:

kontrol setiap bulan

What’s the difference between kontrol and pemeriksaan? Could I say “Dokter menyarankan pemeriksaan setiap bulan”?

Yes, you can say:

Dokter menyarankan pemeriksaan setiap bulan.

But there is a nuance:

kontrol
- Very commonly used in doctor–patient talk.
- Implies a follow‑up visit or routine check‑up.
- Sounds casual–neutral and very natural in clinics.
pemeriksaan
- Root: periksa (to examine)
- Means “examination / check / inspection” in a more general or formal sense.
- Can be used for medical exams, lab tests, police checks, etc.
- Sounds a bit more formal and a bit more like the examination procedure itself.

In everyday clinic speech, a doctor is much more likely to say:

Nanti kontrol lagi, ya, sebulan sekali.
rather than
Nanti lakukan pemeriksaan lagi setiap bulan.

So the original sentence with kontrol is very natural doctor’s language.

Is setiap the same as tiap? Which one should I use?

Yes, setiap and tiap are essentially synonyms meaning “every / each”.

setiap bulan
tiap bulan

Both mean “every month”.

Nuance:

setiap is slightly more formal/neutral.
tiap is slightly more informal/colloquial.

You could say:

Dokter menyarankan kontrol setiap bulan. (original, neutral)
Dokter menyarankan kontrol tiap bulan. (a bit more casual)

Both are very natural.

Why isn’t there any word for “you” in the sentence? Shouldn’t it be “The doctor recommended that you have a check‑up every month”?

Indonesian often drops pronouns and other elements when they’re obvious from context.

Dokter menyarankan kontrol setiap bulan.
Literally: “(The) doctor advised (a) check‑up every month.”

It’s understood that:

It’s you (the patient) who should come for the check‑up.

If you really want to make it explicit, you can say:

Dokter menyarankan saya kontrol setiap bulan.
→ The doctor recommended that I have a check‑up every month.
Dokter menyarankan kamu kontrol setiap bulan.
→ The doctor recommended that you have a check‑up every month.

But in real conversations, especially in medical settings, leaving the pronoun out is very common and natural when it’s obvious who the patient is.

Is this sentence formal, informal, or neutral? Would a doctor really say it like this?

The sentence is neutral and sounds very natural in a real doctor–patient interaction.

A doctor might say, for example:

Dokter menyarankan kontrol setiap bulan, ya.
(adding ya for a softer, friendly tone)

Or more casually in speech:

Nanti kontrol tiap bulan, ya.
Coba kontrol sebulan sekali, ya.

So “Dokter menyarankan kontrol setiap bulan.” is a good, standard form that is:

natural,
polite,
and appropriate both in spoken and written Indonesian.