Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Guru bahasa menjelaskan apa yang dimaksud dengan pesan moral kepada semua pembaca muda. - The language teacher explains what is meant by a moral message to all young readers.

In many contexts (e.g. in Indonesia, talking about school), guru bahasa might be understood as the Indonesian teacher from context, but grammatically it’s just language teacher.

Why is there no word for a or the before guru bahasa?

Indonesian has no articles like a/an or the.

Whether guru bahasa means a language teacher or the language teacher depends on context, not on a separate word.

In English: A language teacher explained… or The language teacher explained…
In Indonesian: both are just Guru bahasa menjelaskan…

If you really need to emphasize one teacher, you can say seorang guru bahasa, but it’s often unnecessary.

What does menjelaskan mean, and how is it used grammatically?

Menjelaskan means to explain. It comes from the adjective jelas (clear), with the prefix men- and suffix -kan.

The usual pattern is:

menjelaskan [thing explained] kepada [person who receives explanation]

In this sentence:

menjelaskan – explained
apa yang dimaksud dengan pesan moral – what is meant by the moral message (the thing being explained)
kepada semua pembaca muda – to all young readers (who receive the explanation)

So structurally it’s like:
[Subject] menjelaskan [object] kepada [indirect object].

What is going on in the phrase apa yang dimaksud dengan pesan moral? How does it work structurally?

Apa yang dimaksud dengan pesan moral literally breaks down as:

apa – what
yang – relative marker (“that/which”)
dimaksud – is meant / is intended
dengan – by / with
pesan moral – (the) moral message

A very literal rearrangement into English structure would be:
“what is meant by the moral message”

So the pattern is:

apa yang dimaksud dengan X = what is meant by X

It’s a common formal/neutral way to ask or state the definition or intended meaning of something.

What exactly is dimaksud? Is it a passive form?

Yes, dimaksud is a passive form.

Root noun: maksud – intention, meaning, purpose
Active verb: memaksudkan – to intend (something), to mean (something)
Passive: dimaksud – (is) meant / (is) intended

In yang dimaksud, it functions as “that is meant”:

yang dimaksud (adalah)… – that which is meant (is)…

In our sentence, apa yang dimaksud dengan pesan moral is built around this passive:
“what is meant by the moral message”.

Why is dengan used here? I thought dengan meant “with,” not “by.”

Dengan usually means with, but in certain fixed expressions and passive structures it can correspond to English by.

In apa yang dimaksud dengan pesan moral, dengan connects the passive verb dimaksud to the thing that carries the meaning: pesan moral.

You can think of it this way:

apa yang dimaksud dengan pesan moral
≈ what is meant by the moral message

In some other passives (especially with agents like people), oleh is more common for by:

ditulis oleh guru – written by the teacher

Here, dengan sounds natural because pesan moral is not an agent/person but the thing whose meaning is being discussed.

Why is kepada used before semua pembaca muda? Could I use untuk instead?

Kepada and untuk both can translate as to/for, but they’re used differently:

kepada – to (a person/recipient), often after verbs of saying/giving
untuk – for (purpose/benefit), more general

Here, kepada semua pembaca muda marks the recipients of the explanation:

menjelaskan … kepada semua pembaca muda
– explained … to all young readers

Using untuk here (… untuk semua pembaca muda) would sound more like for all young readers in the sense of intended for, not directly said to them. It’s not wrong, but the nuance shifts:

kepada – she actually addresses them
untuk – it’s aimed/allocated for their benefit

What is the difference between semua pembaca muda and pembaca muda semua?

Both can be understood as all the young readers, but the emphasis and naturalness differ:

semua pembaca muda – the normal, neutral way to say all young readers.
pembaca muda semua – can sound more like stressing that these readers are all young, or like a tag meaning the young readers, all of them. It’s more colloquial and context-dependent.

In a clean, formal sentence like this one, semua pembaca muda is the standard and most natural form.

How is pembaca formed, and what’s the difference from membaca?

Root: baca – to read
membaca – to read (verb)
pembaca – reader (noun: the person who reads)

Pembaca is formed with the prefix peN- on baca, turning an action into the doer of the action:

menulis (to write) → penulis (writer)
mengajar (to teach) → pengajar (teacher)
membaca (to read) → pembaca (reader)

So pembaca muda = young readers.

Does pesan moral mean “moral message” or “moral of the story”? Is the word order fixed?

Pesan moral literally is moral message, but in the context of literature/stories, it often functions like the moral (of the story).

Word order in this kind of noun phrase is:

pesan (head noun: message)
moral (modifier: moral)

So: pesan moral = message that is moral.
You generally cannot reverse it to moral pesan in standard Indonesian; that would be incorrect.

Indonesian doesn’t mark plural with -s. How do we know if pembaca muda is singular or plural here?

By default, Indonesian nouns are number-neutral:

pembaca muda can mean a young reader or young readers.

Here we know it’s plural because of semua (all):

semua pembaca muda = all young readers

If you wanted to emphasize plurality without semua, you could use reduplication:

pembaca-pembaca muda – young readers (emphatically plural)

But that’s not needed in this sentence because semua already makes it clear.

Could this sentence be said in a simpler or more everyday way?

Yes. A slightly more everyday version might be:

Guru bahasa menjelaskan arti pesan moral kepada semua pembaca muda.

Changes:

apa yang dimaksud dengan pesan moral → arti pesan moral
- arti = meaning

So instead of the more formal passive structure “what is meant by the moral message”, you get the simpler “the meaning of the moral message.”

Both are correct; the original sounds a bit more formal and textbook-like.

Is the word order in the whole sentence flexible? Could I move kepada semua pembaca muda earlier?

There is some flexibility, but not all orders sound equally natural.

Original (natural):

Guru bahasa menjelaskan apa yang dimaksud dengan pesan moral kepada semua pembaca muda.

You can move the recipient phrase earlier:

Guru bahasa menjelaskan kepada semua pembaca muda apa yang dimaksud dengan pesan moral.

This is still correct and natural, just a slightly different rhythm.

But you would not normally break up apa yang dimaksud dengan pesan moral or split guru bahasa; those internal structures are quite fixed.