Dompet kecil itu terselip di bawah sofa, jadi kami mencarinya lama sekali.

In Indonesian, demonstratives like ini and itu usually come after the noun they describe.

So:

• dompet itu = that wallet
• dompet kecil itu = that small wallet

This is normal Indonesian word order. English says that small wallet, but Indonesian puts itu at the end of the noun phrase.

Terselip suggests that something is accidentally tucked, wedged, slipped, or lodged somewhere.

The prefix ter- often gives a sense like:

• a state that happened unintentionally
• a result that is already true
• something being in a certain condition

So terselip di bawah sofa suggests the wallet ended up stuck/slipped under the sofa, not necessarily because someone deliberately put it there that way.

It feels more natural here than a form that would suggest a deliberate action.

These forms have different focuses:

• terselip = to be accidentally tucked/slipped somewhere; to end up lodged somewhere
• menyelipkan = to tuck/insert something somewhere intentionally
• diselipkan = to be tucked/inserted by someone

So:

• Dompet itu terselip di bawah sofa focuses on the wallet’s state
• Dia menyelipkan dompet itu di bawah sofa means someone intentionally tucked it there
• Dompet itu diselipkan di bawah sofa means it was tucked there by someone

In your sentence, terselip fits because the idea is that the wallet was hidden there and that is why it took a long time to find.

No. They look similar, but they are different things.

• di as a separate word is a preposition meaning in, at, on
• di- attached to a verb is a passive prefix

Here, di bawah sofa means under the sofa.

So:

• di bawah = under
• di meja = on the table / at the table
• ditaruh = was put
• dicari = was searched for

A good clue is spacing:

• di bawah → separate word = preposition
• dicari → attached = passive verb prefix

Indonesian does not use articles like a, an, and the the way English does.

So sofa can mean:

• a sofa
• the sofa

The context tells you which one is meant.

In this sentence, English naturally says under the sofa, but Indonesian simply says di bawah sofa.

If the speaker wanted to make it more explicitly definite, they could sometimes use something like sofa itu, but it is often unnecessary.

Here jadi means so, therefore, or as a result.

It links the two ideas:

• the wallet was stuck under the sofa
• because of that, we searched for it for a long time

So jadi is functioning as a connector between cause and result.

It is very common in both spoken and written Indonesian.

This is an important distinction in Indonesian:

• kami = we, but not including the person being spoken to
• kita = we, including the person being spoken to

So kami mencarinya means we searched for it, but the listener is not part of that group.

If the listener had been part of the search, kita would be more appropriate.

Mencarinya = mencari + -nya

• cari = search, look for
• mencari = to search for, to look for
• -nya = it in this sentence

So mencarinya means to look for it or to search for it.

Here -nya refers back to dompet kecil itu.

This is very common in Indonesian: object pronouns are often attached to the verb.

Cari is the root word.
Mencari is the standard active verb form made with the meN- prefix.

In careful or neutral Indonesian, the active verb is often formed this way:

• cari → mencari
• baca → membaca
• tulis → menulis

In casual speech, people sometimes use the bare root, especially in conversation:

• Saya cari dompetnya is common colloquially

But in a full standard sentence like this, kami mencarinya is the normal form.

In this sentence, -nya means it, referring to the wallet.

The suffix -nya can mean different things depending on context, such as:

• him
• her
• it
• his
• her
• sometimes a kind of definiteness marker

Here it is an object pronoun, and the meaning is clearly it because it refers to dompet kecil itu.

So:

• kami mencarinya = we looked for it

Lama sekali means very long or for a very long time.

In Indonesian, sekali often comes after an adjective or adverb to intensify it:

• besar sekali = very big
• jauh sekali = very far
• lama sekali = very long / for a very long time

That is why the word order is not like English very long, but instead long very.

You could also say sangat lama, and that also means very long, but lama sekali sounds very natural here.

It is fairly flexible, but the version in the sentence is very natural.

• kami mencarinya lama sekali = we searched for it for a very long time
• kami lama sekali mencarinya = also possible, with a slightly different emphasis

The original order sounds smooth and straightforward: first the action, then the duration.

So the sentence is not using a strange or special order; it is a normal Indonesian way to say it.