Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Saya tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan. - I live in a boarding room near the library.

Saya tinggal di kos... = I live in a boarding house...
It can also mean “to stay” in some contexts, but the default meaning with a place is “live/reside.”
For a clearly temporary stay (like one or two nights), Indonesians more often use menginap or nginap:
- Saya menginap di hotel. = I’m staying at a hotel (overnight).

Here, by default, tinggal is understood as where you live, not just a short visit.

Why do we say tinggal di kos and not tinggal ke kos?

In Indonesian:

di = in / at / on (location)
ke = to (movement/direction)

Since the sentence describes where you are living (location), you must use di:

Saya tinggal di kos. = I live in/at a boarding house.
Saya pergi ke kos. = I go to the boarding house.

So tinggal normally uses di to show where someone lives.

What exactly is kos? Is it the same as “house” or “apartment”?

Kos (also spelled kost) is:

A boarding house or rented room in a building, often with shared facilities.
Very common for students and young workers in cities.
Can be a single room with a shared kitchen/bathroom, or more comfortable, depending on price.

It’s not exactly a “house” (rumah) or a modern “apartment” (apartemen), but more like “a rented room in a boarding house.”

So Saya tinggal di kos is close to “I live in a boarding house / in a rented room.”

I’ve seen kos-kosan or rumah kos. Are these different from kos?

They’re related:

kos: can mean the room or the place where you board.
rumah kos: literally boarding house (the whole building).
kos-kosan: colloquial; can mean the boarding house business or the place in general.

In everyday speech, people often just say kos for all of them, and the meaning is clear from context.

Why is there no word for “a” or “the” in this sentence?

Indonesian does not use articles like “a/an” or “the.”

Saya tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan.
Can mean:
- I live in a boarding house near a library.
- I live in the boarding house near the library.

Specificity comes from context, not from a word like “the”:

If the listener already knows which boarding house and library you mean, they’ll understand it as “the.”
If not, they’ll interpret it more like “a.”

What does dekat mean here, and why is there no di before it?

dekat = near / close (to).

You can say it with or without di:

Saya tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan.
Saya tinggal di kos di dekat perpustakaan.

Both are correct and natural.
Notes:

Without di, dekat functions more like a preposition: near (something).
With di dekat, it’s more explicitly “at a place near (something).”

In casual speech, leaving out the second di (as in the original sentence) is very common and sounds natural.

What’s the structure of di kos dekat perpustakaan? How is the phrase built?

You can see it as this structure:

di kos = at/in a boarding house
dekat perpustakaan = (which is) near the library

Put together:

Saya tinggal [di kos [dekat perpustakaan]].
= I live [in a boarding house [near the library]].

So dekat perpustakaan is describing kos (which kos? the one near the library).

Could I say “Saya tinggal dekat perpustakaan di kos” instead?

You could say:

Saya tinggal dekat perpustakaan, di kos.

But usually you’d keep the place first and the description after, like in the original:

Saya tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan.

Your version is understandable but sounds a bit less natural as a single noun phrase. With a pause or comma (spoken intonation), it becomes more acceptable as two pieces of information: “I live near the library, in a boarding house.”

Can I drop di and say Saya tinggal kos dekat perpustakaan?

No, you shouldn’t drop di here.

tinggal di [place] is the normal pattern.
Saya tinggal kos... sounds wrong or very ungrammatical.

You need the preposition di to introduce the location: tinggal di kos.

Can I omit Saya and just say Tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan?

Yes, in casual conversation you could say:

Tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan.

Indonesian often drops the subject when it’s clear from context.
However:

In neutral or careful speech, including Saya is more complete and clear, especially in writing or when introducing yourself:
- Saya tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan.

Is Saya the most natural pronoun here? What about aku or gue?

Saya is:

Neutral–polite, standard Indonesian.
Safe in most situations: with strangers, teachers, in formal writing, etc.

Other options:

aku – more informal/intimate, common with friends, in casual settings.
gue/gw – colloquial Jakarta slang.

So you could say:

Aku tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan. (casual)
Gue tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan. (Jakarta-style casual)

But Saya tinggal... is the safest all-purpose choice.

Does tinggal show tense? How would I say “I lived / I’m living / I will live”?

tinggal itself does not change for tense. Context or extra words show time.

Saya tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan.
= I live / I am living / I lived / I will live (depends on context).

To make tense explicit, you add time words:

Dulu saya tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan. = I used to live / I lived there.
Sekarang saya tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan. = I live / am living there now.
Nanti saya akan tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan. = I will live there later.

If I want to emphasize it’s temporary, how do I say “I’m (just) staying in a kos near the library”?

You can make the “temporary” idea clearer with context words or a different verb:

Sekarang saya cuma tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan.
= Right now I’m just living/staying in a kos near the library.
Saya sementara tinggal di kos dekat perpustakaan.
= I’m living there temporarily.
For very short stays (like nights), you can say:
Saya menginap di kos dekat perpustakaan.
= I’m staying overnight in a kos near the library.