Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Saat liburan, kami berjalan ke air terjun kecil di hutan dekat desa. - On vacation, we walk to a small waterfall in the forest near the village.

Ketika liburan – more like “when (it was) vacation”. Slightly more literary/formal; often used in written stories.
Waktu liburan – literally “holiday time”, also natural, maybe a bit more casual.

In this sentence, Saat liburan and Ketika liburan are almost interchangeable. Saat is very common in both spoken and written Indonesian for “when / during” at the start of a sentence.

There’s no past tense marker here. How do we know this sentence is in the past?

Indonesian usually does not mark tense with verb changes like English does. Instead, it uses:

Time expressions: kemarin (yesterday), tadi (a moment ago), besok (tomorrow), or phrases like saat liburan.
Context: If the story is clearly about a past event, Indonesians just understand it as past.

In Saat liburan, kami berjalan ke air terjun kecil di hutan dekat desa, the phrase Saat liburan plus context lets listeners know you are talking about something that happened during some holiday in the past. The verb berjalan itself does not change form for tense.

If you really wanted to mark it clearly as past, you could add tadi or kemarin, e.g. Kemarin saat liburan, kami berjalan …, but it’s not required.

Why is kami used instead of kita? What’s the difference?

Both kami and kita mean “we”, but:

kami = we (not including the listener)
kita = we (including the listener)

In this sentence, kami implies that the speaker and some other people went to the waterfall, but the person being talked to was not part of that group.

If you were talking to someone who did go with you to the waterfall, you’d naturally use kita:

Saat liburan, kita berjalan ke air terjun kecil…

For English speakers: Indonesian cares about whether “we” includes the listener or not, and that’s why kami vs kita matters.

Does berjalan only mean “to walk”, or can it also mean “to go / to travel”? Could I say pergi instead?

In this sentence:

berjalan = to walk (on foot).
So kami berjalan ke air terjun → we walked to the waterfall.

berjalan can sometimes mean “to run/operate/function” (e.g. Mesin ini berjalan dengan baik – This machine runs well), but in a movement context with ke, it means physically walking.

You could say:

Kami pergi ke air terjun kecil… = We went to the small waterfall…

This doesn’t specify how you went (could be by car, bike, etc.).
berjalan ke explicitly tells the listener you went on foot.

Both are correct; you choose based on whether you want to highlight walking.

Why do we use ke before air terjun and di before hutan? What’s the difference?

ke and di are basic prepositions with different roles:

ke = to / towards (movement, direction)
- berjalan ke air terjun → walked to the waterfall
di = in / at / on (location, no movement implied)
- di hutan → in the forest

So the structure is:

berjalan ke air terjun → movement towards a place
di hutan dekat desa → where that place is located: in a forest near the village

You generally don’t mix them here: ke hutan (to the forest) vs di hutan (in the forest).

Why is it air terjun kecil and not kecil air terjun? Where do adjectives go in Indonesian?

In Indonesian, adjectives usually come after the noun:

air terjun kecil = waterfall small → small waterfall
rumah besar = house big → big house
mobil baru = car new → new car

So the pattern is:

noun + adjective

Putting the adjective before the noun (like English) is not normal Indonesian.
kecil air terjun would sound wrong.

You can also add more adjectives in a row:

air terjun kecil yang indah = a beautiful small waterfall

There’s no word like “a” or “the” in air terjun kecil. Does it mean “a small waterfall” or “the small waterfall”?

Indonesian usually does not use separate words for “a/an” or “the”.

air terjun kecil can mean:

a small waterfall
the small waterfall

Which one is correct depends on context:

If you’re introducing it for the first time, English will usually translate it as “a small waterfall”.
If it’s already known to both speaker and listener, English might use “the small waterfall”.

If you really want to be explicit:

sebuah air terjun kecil – explicitly “a small waterfall” (using a classifier), but in everyday speech air terjun kecil is usually enough.

In di hutan dekat desa, what exactly is near the village? The forest, us, or the waterfall?

The most natural reading is:

hutan dekat desa = the forest that is near the village

So the structure is:

air terjun kecil (a small waterfall)
di hutan dekat desa (in the forest near the village)

That implies:

The waterfall is in a forest, and that forest is near the village.

We understand it as the forest is near the village, not that we are near the village.

If you wanted to say we walked near the village, you might say:

Kami berjalan dekat desa – We walked near the village.
Or: Kami berjalan di dekat desa – We walked in the area near the village.

Could I say di hutan yang dekat dengan desa instead of di hutan dekat desa? Is there any difference?

Yes, you can say both:

di hutan dekat desa
di hutan yang dekat dengan desa

They both mean “in the forest that is near the village”.

Nuances:

di hutan dekat desa
- Shorter, more colloquial and very common in speech and writing.
di hutan yang dekat dengan desa
- Slightly more explicit and often feels more formal or written because of yang and dengan.

Meaning-wise, they’re effectively the same here. In everyday conversation, di hutan dekat desa is perfectly natural.

How does dekat work? What’s the difference between dekat desa, dekat dengan desa, and di dekat desa?

dekat = near / close

You’ll see it in a few common patterns:

dekat + noun
- dekat desa = near the village
- Often used when it directly modifies another noun:
  - hutan dekat desa = a forest near the village
dekat dengan + noun
- dekat dengan desa = near the village
- Slightly more explicit/“complete”; sometimes feels a bit more careful or formal.
di dekat + noun
- di dekat desa = in the area near the village / near the village (locational phrase)
- Here di is a location preposition; dekat behaves more like an adjective or adverb.

Examples:

Kami tinggal dekat desa. → We live near the village.
Kami tinggal di dekat desa. → We live in the area near the village.

In practice, you will hear all of them; the differences are mostly about style and emphasis, not big meaning changes.

Is the comma after Saat liburan necessary? Can I move saat liburan to the end of the sentence?

The comma is good style, but not absolutely required in casual writing.

Indonesian often puts time expressions at the beginning:

Saat liburan, kami berjalan ke air terjun kecil…
= During the holidays, we walked to a small waterfall…

You can also move it:

Kami berjalan ke air terjun kecil di hutan dekat desa saat liburan.

This is still correct and natural. The meaning is the same; the fronted version Saat liburan, ... just emphasizes the time frame a bit more, which is very normal in narratives.

Could I drop kami and just say Saat liburan, berjalan ke air terjun kecil di hutan dekat desa?

In standard Indonesian, you usually do not drop the subject pronoun in a sentence like this.

Saat liburan, kami berjalan ke air terjun kecil… – clear and natural.
Saat liburan, berjalan ke air terjun kecil… – sounds incomplete or strange; listeners will ask “Who walked?”

Dropping saya, kami, etc. can happen in very informal speech or short answers when the subject is extremely obvious from context (e.g. in chat messages), but in a full sentence like this, especially in writing or in learning contexts, you should keep the subject:

Saat liburan, kami berjalan ke air terjun kecil di hutan dekat desa.