Kondisi jalan buruk.

The road condition is bad.

Breakdown of Kondisi jalan buruk.

• buruk: bad
• jalan: the road
• kondisi: the condition

Questions & Answers about Kondisi jalan buruk.

Why is there no word for is in Kondisi jalan buruk?

In Indonesian, you usually do not need a present-tense verb like is/are between a subject and an adjective.

So:

Kondisi jalan buruk
literally looks like road condition bad,
but it naturally means The road condition is bad.

This is very normal in Indonesian.

Can I use adalah here?

Usually, no.

Kondisi jalan adalah buruk sounds unnatural to most speakers.
In Indonesian, adalah is usually used to link one noun phrase to another, especially in definitions or formal statements.

For example:

Indonesia adalah negara kepulauan.
= Indonesia is an archipelagic country.

But before an adjective like buruk, Indonesian normally just leaves the copula out:

Kondisi jalan buruk.

What does kondisi jalan literally mean?

Kondisi means condition or state.
Jalan means road or street.

Together, kondisi jalan means:

• road condition
• the condition of the road
• the condition of the roads, depending on context

This noun + noun pattern is very common in Indonesian.

Is buruk describing jalan, or is it the predicate of the whole sentence?