Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Andaikan saya belajar pemrograman sejak SMA, mungkin saya sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang. - If only I had studied programming since high school, I might already have made my own app now.

Andaikan means something like “if only” / “suppose that” / “if (hypothetically)”, and it usually introduces an unreal or imaginary situation—often expressing regret or something contrary to fact.

Andaikan and seandainya are very close in meaning. Both often suggest “if only…”, with a slightly emotional or wistful tone.
- Andaikan saya belajar… = If only I had studied…
- Seandainya saya belajar… = If only I had studied…
Kalau is more general:
- can be neutral conditional: If it rains, we stay home. → Kalau hujan, kita di rumah.
- can also be hypothetical, but not necessarily emotional or regretful.

In this sentence, Andaikan saya belajar pemrograman sejak SMA clearly suggests “But I did not study programming in high school”, and the speaker is imagining an unreal past and a different present.

Why is “belajar” in the base form? Shouldn’t there be a past tense marker like “studied” in English?

Indonesian does not have verb conjugations for tense like English (study / studied / will study). The verb belajar is used for present, past, or future, and time expressions or context show the time:

Saya belajar pemrograman kemarin.
I studied programming yesterday. (past)
Saya belajar pemrograman sekarang.
I am studying programming now. (present)
Besok saya belajar pemrograman.
Tomorrow I will study programming. (future)

In the sentence:

Andaikan saya belajar pemrograman sejak SMA...

the past, unreal time is indicated by the word sejak (since) plus SMA (high school), and by the overall conditional structure, not by changing the verb form. The base form belajar is correct and normal.

What exactly does “sejak SMA” mean, and how is it different from “di SMA” or “waktu SMA”?

SMA = Sekolah Menengah Atas, which is senior high school (roughly ages 15–18).
Sejak SMA literally means “since (the time I was in) high school”.

Differences:

sejak SMA = since (the period of) high school, starting then and continuing onward
→ Emphasizes the starting point in time.
di SMA = in/at high school (location or general period)
→ Focus can be on the place or just the phase of life, less about “from then until now”.
waktu SMA or pas SMA (colloquial) = when I was in high school
→ A more general “when”, not “since then up to now”.

So:

Saya belajar pemrograman sejak SMA.
I’ve been learning programming since high school (starting then and going on).
Saya belajar pemrograman waktu SMA.
I studied programming when I was in high school (at that time).

In the original sentence, sejak fits well with the idea “If I had been learning from (back) then”.

Why is “pemrograman” used, not a verb like “memrogram”? What part of speech is it?

Pemrograman is a noun meaning “programming” (the activity/field, like programming as a subject). It comes from the root program:

program → program (noun)
memrogram → to program (verb, less common in everyday speech)
pemrograman → programming (noun, the field or process)

So:

belajar pemrograman = to study programming (learn the field/subject)
belajar memrogram would sound like learn to (actually) do programming as an action, but this is not common phrasing.

Native speakers almost always say:

belajar pemrograman = learn/study programming
not belajar memrogram in this context.

What is the function of “mungkin” here, and can it be placed somewhere else in the sentence?

Mungkin means “maybe / perhaps / probably” and expresses uncertainty or possibility.

In the sentence:

... mungkin saya sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang.

it softens the statement:

Without mungkin:
Saya sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang.
→ I would have made my own app by now (stronger, more certain in this hypothetical).
With mungkin:
→ I might have made my own app by now. (less absolute)

Position:
Mungkin is quite flexible:

Mungkin saya sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang. (the given version)
Saya mungkin sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang.
Saya sudah mungkin membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang. (this one sounds awkward; avoid)

Most natural are:

Mungkin saya sudah... or
Saya mungkin sudah...

The given word order is very natural and common.

Why is “sudah” used together with “sekarang”? Doesn’t “sudah” mean “already”, and isn’t that redundant with “now”?

Sudah generally means “already” / “have (done something)” and sekarang means “now”. Together, they form a natural combination that emphasizes “by now” or “by this time”.

Saya sudah makan. = I have already eaten.
Sekarang saya sudah makan. = Now I have (already) eaten. → implies by this point in time.

In the hypothetical:

... mungkin saya sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang.

the sense is:

I might already have made my own app by now.

Here:

sudah → perfect aspect, something would be completed
sekarang → the reference time point (now)

So they are not redundant; they complement each other like “already … now” → “by now” in English.

Why is “sudah” used instead of “akan”? In English we say “I would have made”, not exactly “I already made.”

Indonesian doesn’t have a direct equivalent of English “would have”. To express this counterfactual past → different present result pattern, Indonesian typically uses sudah (or udah in informal speech) in the main clause.

Compare:

Andaikan saya belajar pemrograman sejak SMA, saya sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang.
→ If I had studied programming since high school, I would have made my own app by now.
Andaikan saya belajar pemrograman sejak SMA, saya akan membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang.
This sounds off; akan (will/would) usually points to future from some reference point, not to a completed result by now.

So:

sudah gives the meaning of a completed result by the present time.
akan is more like “would (in the future)”, not “would have (already)”.

That’s why sudah is the natural choice here.

Is this a real or unreal conditional? How does Indonesian show that it’s unreal or counterfactual?

This is an unreal / counterfactual conditional:

The speaker did not actually study programming since high school.
The statement about making an app is imaginary.

Indonesian marks this in several ways:

Andaikan → strongly suggests a hypothetical or unreal situation, often with regret.
The time phrase sejak SMA plus context implies that this is in the past, and clearly not what happened.
The result clause uses sudah … sekarang, which expresses a result that would be true now if the (unreal) condition had been met.

So:

English: If I had studied ..., I would have made ... by now.
Indonesian: Andaikan saya belajar ..., (mungkin) saya sudah membuat ... sekarang.

The unreal feeling comes mostly from andaikan/seandainya and the overall logic, not from any special verb form.

Can “saya” be dropped from the second clause? For example:
“Andaikan saya belajar pemrograman sejak SMA, mungkin sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang.”

Yes, it can be dropped, and that would still be grammatical and natural:

Andaikan saya belajar pemrograman sejak SMA, mungkin sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang.

Indonesian often omits pronouns like saya when the subject is clear from context. Since saya is clearly the subject of the first clause, listeners will understand that saya is also the subject in the second clause.

Including saya:

mungkin saya sudah membuat...
→ slightly clearer, a bit more explicit.

Omitting saya:

mungkin sudah membuat...
→ a bit more compact and casual.

Both are fine in everyday usage.

What does “aplikasi sendiri” mean exactly? Is there a difference between “aplikasi sendiri”, “aplikasi saya sendiri”, and “aplikasi saya”?

aplikasi = app / application
sendiri = self / own / by oneself, depending on context.

In this sentence, aplikasi sendiri is understood as “my own app”.

Subtle differences:

aplikasi sendiri
- Usually understood as “(my) own app” because the subject is saya.
- Natural and concise: my own app.
aplikasi saya sendiri
- More explicitly: “my own app (not someone else’s)”.
- Adds a bit of emphasis on ownership.
aplikasi saya
- Just “my app”, not necessarily stressing that I made it or that it is uniquely mine.
- Could be something I own but didn’t create.

In this context, aplikasi sendiri nicely implies that the speaker developed their own app. If you want to strongly emphasize it, you can say:

membuat aplikasi saya sendiri
→ make my very own app.

Where does “sekarang” normally go in a sentence like this? Is it okay at the end?

Sekarang (now) is quite flexible in Indonesian. All of these are possible:

Sekarang mungkin saya sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri.
Mungkin sekarang saya sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri.
Mungkin saya sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang. ← the original pattern

Placing sekarang at the end is very common and natural. It tends to sound like English “by now”, because sudah … sekarang together gives that sense.

So the given position (at the end) is perfectly natural and often preferred in this kind of sentence.

How formal or informal is this sentence? Would a native speaker actually say “Andaikan saya belajar pemrograman sejak SMA, mungkin saya sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang.”?

This sentence is natural and correct, and a native speaker could absolutely say or write it, especially in a neutral or slightly formal context (writing, conversation with polite tone, etc.).

Formality:

Andaikan is a bit literary / formal-neutral.
Saya is the neutral polite “I”.
Vocabulary is standard, not slang.

In more informal spoken Indonesian, people might say something like:

Kalau saja dulu gue belajar programming dari SMA, mungkin gue udah bikin app sendiri sekarang.

Changes:

Kalau saja / kalau aja instead of Andaikan → more casual.
gue instead of saya → Jakarta-style informal “I”.
udah instead of sudah → colloquial.
English loan programming / app is common in casual tech speech.

But your original sentence is very good, clear, and natural in a standard register.

What is the difference between “sejak”, “dari”, and “mulai” in this context?

All three can be related to starting points in time, but they have different typical uses:

sejak = since (a point in time), often implying continuity up to another point (often now)
- Saya belajar pemrograman sejak SMA.
  I’ve been learning programming since high school.
dari = from, can be place or time, but more neutral
- Dari SMA saya sudah tertarik dengan komputer.
  From (the time of) high school I’ve been interested in computers.
- In many sentences, sejak is more precise than dari for “since (time)”.
mulai = start / begin, can be a verb or preposition-like
- Saya mulai belajar pemrograman sejak SMA.
  I started learning programming in high school.
- Mulai SMA, saya belajar pemrograman.
  Starting from high school, I learned programming.

In your sentence, sejak is best because it clearly expresses “since (that time)” as the beginning of a period that extends up to the imagined present.

Could we replace “Andaikan” with “Kalau saja” or “Seandainya” without changing the meaning much?

Yes, you can, and the meaning stays very close:

Andaikan saya belajar pemrograman sejak SMA, mungkin saya sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang.
Seandainya saya belajar pemrograman sejak SMA, mungkin saya sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang.
Kalau saja saya belajar pemrograman sejak SMA, mungkin saya sudah membuat aplikasi sendiri sekarang.

Nuance:

Andaikan / Seandainya → slightly more literary / wistful; often used in writing or more formal speech, but still okay in conversation.
Kalau saja → more colloquial, feels very natural in spoken Indonesian.

All three convey a regretful, unreal “if only…” meaning here.