Breakdown of Kesehatan mental penting bagi keluarga kami.
Questions & Answers about Kesehatan mental penting bagi keluarga kami.
Kesehatan comes from the adjective sehat (healthy).
Indonesian often uses the prefix ke- and suffix -an to turn adjectives into abstract nouns:
- sehat → kesehatan = health
- penting (important) → kepentingan (interest, concern)
- baik (good) → kebaikan (kindness, goodness)
So kesehatan literally means “the state of being healthy,” i.e., health.
In Indonesian, the usual pattern is:
main noun + describing word
So:
- kesehatan (health) = main noun
- mental (mental) = word describing what kind of health
Therefore:
- kesehatan mental = mental health
- kesehatan fisik = physical health
- kesehatan jiwa = psychological/spiritual health
Putting mental first (mental kesehatan) would sound wrong or at least ungrammatical in standard Indonesian.
Penting is an adjective meaning important.
In Indonesian, adjectives can act directly as the predicate of a sentence without any linking verb:
- Dia cantik. = She is beautiful.
- Rumah itu besar. = That house is big.
- Kesehatan mental penting. = Mental health is important.
So you do not need adalah (which loosely corresponds to “is/are” before a noun phrase) in front of adjectives.
That’s why Kesehatan mental penting is complete and natural as it is.
You can hear or see this, but in everyday Indonesian it sounds stiff or slightly off.
More natural options:
- Kesehatan mental penting bagi keluarga kami.
- Kesehatan mental itu penting bagi keluarga kami. (adding itu as a topic marker, similar to “Mental health, it’s important for our family.”)
Adalah is mainly used before a noun phrase:
- Dia adalah dokter. = He/She is a doctor.
- Jakarta adalah ibu kota Indonesia. = Jakarta is the capital of Indonesia.
Before adjectives like penting, it’s usually omitted.
Both are possible:
- bagi keluarga kami
- untuk keluarga kami
Both would be understood as for our family.
Subtle nuance:
- bagi is slightly more formal and often used in written language, speeches, or more serious topics (like health, education, law).
- untuk is more general and neutral, used widely in speech and writing.
In this sentence, both are fine:
- Kesehatan mental penting bagi keluarga kami.
- Kesehatan mental penting untuk keluarga kami.
Your original version with bagi just sounds a bit more formal/serious.
Yes. Both are grammatical:
- Kesehatan mental penting bagi keluarga kami.
- Bagi keluarga kami, kesehatan mental penting.
The difference is in emphasis:
- (1) focuses first on mental health, then mentions for whom it is important.
- (2) starts by setting the viewpoint “for our family”, then states what is important from that viewpoint.
In practice, both are natural; choice depends on what you want to highlight.
Indonesian distinguishes between two kinds of “we/our”:
- kami = we / our (excluding the listener)
- kita = we / our (including the listener)
Keluarga kami = our family (not including you)
Keluarga kita = our family (including you)
So:
- If you’re talking to someone outside your family, you say keluarga kami.
- If you’re talking to another family member, you might say keluarga kita.
Both are possible, but they feel slightly different:
- keluarga saya = my family
- Neutral, often used when the speaker is just talking about their own family.
- keluarga kami = our family (excluding you)
- Emphasizes we as a group, not just “me”.
Compare:
Kesehatan mental penting bagi keluarga saya.
→ Mental health is important for my family. (individual focus)Kesehatan mental penting bagi keluarga kami.
→ Mental health is important for our family. (group focus, stressing “we”)
Usually, no—you would not normally drop kami here.
- bagi keluarga alone is incomplete: it sounds like you mean “for (some) family” in general, not specifically your family.
You need a possessor to make it clear:
- bagi keluarga kami = for our family
- bagi keluarga saya = for my family
- bagi keluarga mereka = for their family
You can omit the bagi keluarga kami part entirely if the context is clear:
- Kesehatan mental penting. = Mental health is important.
But if you keep keluarga, you usually keep the possessor (kami/saya/kita/mereka).
Kesehatan mental penting bagi keluarga kami. is neutral to slightly formal, suitable for:
- writing (articles, essays, presentations)
- polite spoken Indonesian (seminars, TV, school)
A more casual, spoken version could be:
- Kesehatan mental itu penting buat keluarga kami.
Changes:
- itu – adds a topic feel (“mental health, it’s important…”).
- buat – casual alternative to untuk/bagi, very common in speech and informal writing.
Approximate syllable breakdown and stress (Indonesian stress is light, often near the end):
- ke-se-hat-an
- men-tal
- pen-ting
- ba-gi
- ke-luar-ga (said roughly “kuh-loo-AR-ga”)
- ka-mi
So together:
kə-se-HA-tan MEN-tal PEN-ting BA-gi kə-lu-AR-ga KA-mi
Notes:
- e in ke- is usually a schwa [ə], like the ‘a’ in about.
- luar in keluarga merges smoothly; don’t split “lu” and “ar” too far apart.
- Consonants are generally pronounced clearly; vowels are not reduced as much as in English.
Keluarga kami is actually ambiguous between:
- our family (one family unit)
- our families (more than one), depending on context.
Indonesian usually does not mark plural overtly unless needed.
If you really want to make “families” explicit, you can use:
- keluarga-keluarga kami = our families (reduplication for plural)
- beberapa keluarga kami = several of our families
But in most normal situations, keluarga kami will naturally be understood as our family (one family) unless you clearly talk about multiple families.
Yes, but with different structures and meanings:
mental yang sehat
- Literally: “mental that is healthy”
- Means: a mind/mentality that is healthy
- Example: Anak-anak perlu memiliki mental yang sehat.
= Children need to have a healthy mind.
sehat mental
- Grammatically possible in some contexts, but feels less standard and more like “healthy (in a mental way)” as a descriptive phrase.
- Much less common than sehat secara mental (mentally healthy) or sehat jiwa.
For the noun mental health as a concept, the standard, natural phrase is kesehatan mental.