Ayah mengajari saya menekan rem pelan dan memegang setir dengan tenang.

Mengajari means to teach someone how to do something or to teach someone something, with emphasis on the person being taught.

So in:

Ayah mengajari saya ...

the focus is on me as the learner.

Compare:

• mengajar = to teach, to give instruction in general
• mengajari seseorang = to teach someone
• mengajarkan sesuatu kepada seseorang = to teach something to someone

So this sentence sounds very natural because it is about Dad teaching me how to do those actions.

Saya is the object of mengajari.

So:

• Ayah = the one doing the teaching
• mengajari = teaches / taught
• saya = me

A useful thing to remember is that Indonesian pronouns do not change form the way English pronouns do. English has I / me, but Indonesian just uses saya in both subject and object positions.

So:

• Saya belajar = I study
• Ayah mengajari saya = Dad teaches me

They express the actions that saya is being taught to do.

So the structure is roughly:

Ayah mengajari saya + [action 1] + dan + [action 2]

Here the actions are:

• menekan rem pelan
• memegang setir dengan tenang

Indonesian often puts verbs directly after verbs like mengajari without needing an extra word like English to.

So English says:

• teach me to press
• teach me to hold

But Indonesian can simply say:

• mengajari saya menekan
• mengajari saya memegang

Yes, untuk can sometimes be added:

• Ayah mengajari saya untuk menekan rem pelan ...

This is understandable and grammatical. But in many everyday sentences, Indonesian often leaves untuk out because it sounds more direct and natural.

So both are possible, but:

• mengajari saya menekan ... = very natural
• mengajari saya untuk menekan ... = also possible, a bit more explicit

Here pelan means something like gently or slowly.

In the phrase:

menekan rem pelan

it means pressing the brake gently / not abruptly.

Pelan and perlahan are often similar, but there is a slight difference in feel:

• pelan = slow, softly, gently; common in everyday speech
• perlahan = slowly; often a bit more formal or explicitly adverbial

So you could also hear:

• menekan rem perlahan

That would also sound natural.

Because pelan can already function adverbially by itself in Indonesian.

So:

• menekan rem pelan = press the brake gently/slowly

is perfectly natural.

Indonesian often lets adjectives or adjective-like words act like adverbs without adding anything extra.

Compare:

• bicara pelan = speak softly
• jalan cepat = walk fast
• duduk tenang = sit calmly

So pelan here works smoothly without dengan.

Dengan tenang means calmly, steadily, or in a calm manner.

In this sentence, it most naturally modifies:

memegang setir

So the idea is:

• Dad taught me to press the brake gently
• and to hold the steering wheel calmly / steadily

It suggests controlled, non-panicky driving behavior.

Also note the pattern:

• dengan + adjective/noun-like word often means in a ... way / with ...
• dengan tenang = calmly
• dengan hati-hati = carefully

Because memegang is the active verb form with the meN- prefix, which is normal in this kind of statement.

Base/root form:

• pegang = hold

Active verb:

• memegang = to hold / holding

Similarly:

• tekan → menekan
• ajar → mengajari

In a full standard sentence, Indonesian usually uses these meN- forms for active verbs.

So:

• Saya memegang setir = I hold the steering wheel

whereas pegang setir sounds more like a command or a more reduced informal expression:

• Pegang setir! = Hold the wheel!

They all use the same general active prefix family, usually called meN-, but its shape changes depending on the first sound of the root.

For example:

• ajar → mengajari
• tekan → menekan
• pegang → memegang

This is a normal sound-change pattern in Indonesian morphology.

Very roughly:

• before some sounds, it becomes meng-
• before others, men-
• before others, mem-

So these are not random forms; they follow regular spelling and pronunciation patterns.

Dan connects two parallel actions that saya is being taught to do:

1. menekan rem pelan
2. memegang setir dengan tenang

So the structure is:

Ayah mengajari saya [action 1] dan [action 2].

This is similar to English:

• Dad taught me to press the brake gently and to hold the steering wheel calmly.

The understood doer of both actions is still saya, not Ayah.

Yes, setir is very common in everyday Indonesian.

In casual and normal speech, people often say:

• pegang setir
• putar setir

There are more formal alternatives, such as kemudi or roda kemudi, but setir is extremely common and natural in ordinary conversation.

So for a practical sentence about driving, setir is a very normal choice.

It usually feels more like Dad than the more formal English word father.

Ayah is a common family word for one’s father, and it is often warm and personal. Depending on context, English translations may use either Dad or Father, but Dad is often the more natural match in everyday situations.

Also, because it is at the beginning of the sentence, it is capitalized simply as normal sentence capitalization. If you saw it in the middle of a sentence, it might be lowercase unless it was being treated like a name.

No, the most natural reading is that Dad taught me to do those things.

That is because mengajari saya strongly sets up saya as the learner, and the following verbs are understood as the actions that I am being taught to perform.

So the logic is:

• Ayah = teacher
• saya = learner
• menekan rem pelan dan memegang setir dengan tenang = the skills being taught

So the sentence does not normally mean Dad was the one doing those two actions.