Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Pagar kayu tua di belakang rumah kami rapuh. - The old wooden fence behind our house is fragile.

You can insert adalah before a noun phrase, but it’s usually not used before a plain adjective like rapuh, so Pagar kayu tua di belakang rumah kami rapuh is the most natural version.

Why is there no word like “the” or “a” before pagar?

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

The noun pagar can mean “a fence,” “the fence,” or “fences” depending on context. Here, context (plus the detail di belakang rumah kami) makes it naturally understood as “the old wooden fence behind our house.”

How does the word order of pagar kayu tua compare to “old wooden fence” in English?

In Indonesian, the basic pattern is:

Noun + modifiers (other nouns, adjectives, etc.)

So:

pagar = fence (head noun)
kayu = wood (a noun modifying pagar: a wood fence, wooden fence)
tua = old (adjective modifying pagar)

Altogether, pagar kayu tua is literally “fence wood old”, which corresponds in English to “old wooden fence.” Nouns and adjectives that describe another noun usually come after that noun in Indonesian, not before.

Can I change the order to pagar tua kayu or tua pagar kayu?

No. The natural order is:

Head noun: pagar
Noun modifier: kayu (telling you what kind of fence)
Adjective: tua

So pagar kayu tua is fine, but pagar tua kayu or tua pagar kayu is ungrammatical.

If you want to emphasize that it’s made of wood, you might say pagar tua dari kayu (an old fence made of wood), but the simple stacked form stays as pagar kayu tua.

What exactly does kami mean here, and why not kita?

Both kami and kita mean “we / us,” but:

kami = we (not including the person spoken to) → exclusive
kita = we (including the person spoken to) → inclusive

In rumah kami, the speaker is saying “our house” where “our” does not include the listener (for example, the speaker is talking about their own family home to a guest).

If the house belongs to both the speaker and the listener, rumah kita would be used instead.

What does di do in di belakang, and can I just say belakang rumah kami?

di is a preposition meaning roughly “at / in / on.”

di belakang = “behind” (literally “at the back [of]”)

In this sentence, di belakang rumah kami means “behind our house.”

You can say belakang rumah kami, but then it normally means “the back of our house” as a noun phrase (a place), not a full location phrase. For a clear location expression “behind our house,” di belakang rumah kami is the standard form.

Is di belakang rumah kami describing pagar kayu tua, or is it attached to rapuh?

It describes the fence, not rapuh.

The structure is:

Subject: Pagar kayu tua di belakang rumah kami
Predicate: rapuh

So the whole subject phrase is “the old wooden fence behind our house,” and the comment about it is “is fragile.”

In other words, it’s not “is fragile behind our house”; it’s “the old wooden fence (which is) behind our house is fragile.”

Can I add itu (or ini) to say “that old wooden fence behind our house is fragile”?

Yes. You can say:

Pagar kayu tua di belakang rumah kami itu rapuh. = “That old wooden fence behind our house is fragile.”

Here itu is a demonstrative like “that,” placed after the noun phrase.

Similarly, if the fence is near you (physically or in focus), you might say:

Pagar kayu tua di belakang rumah kami ini rapuh. = “This old wooden fence behind our house is fragile.”

Why don’t we use yang here, like pagar kayu yang tua?

yang is used to introduce relative clauses or to highlight/identify something, similar to “that / which / who” in English.

You could say pagar kayu yang tua di belakang rumah kami, but it subtly suggests contrast, as if there are several wooden fences and you mean “the wooden fence that is old behind our house (not the newer one).”

In a simple descriptive sentence where you’re not contrasting things, pagar kayu tua di belakang rumah kami is more natural and shorter. So yang is not needed here.

How would I say “The old wooden fences behind our house are fragile” (plural)?

Indonesian usually does not mark plural on the noun; context shows plurality. So you can still say:

Pagar kayu tua di belakang rumah kami rapuh.

and it can mean “The old wooden fences…” if the context clearly involves more than one fence.

If you really want to emphasize plural, you can use reduplication:

Pagar-pagar kayu tua di belakang rumah kami rapuh.

This literally marks pagar as plural (“fences”).

What kind of word is rapuh grammatically, and how is it used?

rapuh is an adjective meaning “fragile / brittle.”

In Indonesian, adjectives can function directly as the predicate of a sentence, without any “to be” verb. So:

Pagar kayu tua di belakang rumah kami rapuh.
= “The old wooden fence behind our house is fragile.”

You can modify rapuh with adverbs or particles, e.g. sangat rapuh (very fragile), agak rapuh (rather fragile), etc.

If I want to say “has become fragile” instead of just “is fragile,” what would change?

You can show a change of state with sudah or menjadi:

Pagar kayu tua di belakang rumah kami sudah rapuh.
= “The old wooden fence behind our house has already become fragile / is now fragile.”
Pagar kayu tua di belakang rumah kami menjadi rapuh.
= “The old wooden fence behind our house becomes/became fragile.”

sudah emphasizes that the state is now true (often after some time), while menjadi focuses more on the process of becoming.