Doktor melakukan operasi di hospital.

Malay word order here is very similar to basic English word order:

• Doktor = subject
• melakukan = verb
• operasi = object
• di hospital = place phrase

So the pattern is:

Subject + Verb + Object + Place

That is one reason this sentence feels quite straightforward for English speakers. Malay usually does not need extra words like the or is doing in a simple sentence like this.

Malay does not normally use articles like a/an and the the way English does.

So:

• doktor can mean a doctor, the doctor, or just doctor
• hospital can mean a hospital or the hospital
• operasi can mean an operation or the operation

Which meaning is intended usually comes from context.

If Malay speakers want to be more specific, they can add other words, but in many ordinary sentences they simply leave articles out.

Melakukan is a more formal verb meaning to do, to carry out, or to perform.

In this sentence, it fits well because surgery or medical procedures are usually described in a formal way. So melakukan operasi means something like carry out an operation or perform an operation.

Buat also means do/make, but it is more everyday and less formal. In many contexts, buat operasi would sound less natural than melakukan operasi.

So:

• melakukan operasi = formal, standard, natural in medical contexts
• buat operasi = more casual, usually less preferred here

Melakukan comes from the root laku and the derived form lakukan, with the prefix meN- added.

A simplified way to think about it is:

• lakukan = do/carry out
• melakukan = to do / to carry out

For learners, the most useful thing is to recognize melakukan as a common active verb used in formal written and spoken Malay.

You do not need to fully master every affix rule immediately, but it helps to notice that Malay often builds verbs with prefixes like meN-.

No. Operasi is a borrowed word and can mean operation in more than one sense, depending on context.

For example, it can refer to:

• a medical operation
• a military or police operation
• an operational process in some contexts

But with doktor and hospital, the meaning is clearly medical.

So in this sentence, operasi is understood as a surgical operation.

Because di marks location, while ke usually marks movement toward a destination.

• di hospital = at/in the hospital
• ke hospital = to the hospital

So:

• Doktor melakukan operasi di hospital = the doctor performs the operation at the hospital
• If someone were going there, you would use ke hospital

This is a very common distinction in Malay:

• di = location
• ke = direction / movement toward

Because this di is a preposition meaning at/in/on, and prepositions are written separately from the word that follows.

So:

• di hospital = correct

This is different from the passive prefix di-, which is attached to a verb.

Compare:

• di hospital = at the hospital
• dibuat = done / made

This is a very important spelling point in Malay.

By itself, doktor is usually understood as singular here: doctor.

Malay nouns often do not change form for plural. If needed, plural can be shown by context or by reduplication:

• doktor = doctor / doctors, depending on context
• doktor-doktor = doctors

In this sentence, the most natural reading is singular because nothing suggests more than one doctor.

Malay does not mark tense the same way English does. A sentence like this often relies on context.

So Doktor melakukan operasi di hospital could mean:

• the doctor performs an operation at the hospital
• the doctor is performing an operation at the hospital
• the doctor performed an operation at the hospital

To make time clearer, Malay can add time words such as:

• semalam = yesterday
• sekarang = now
• esok = tomorrow

For example:

• Doktor melakukan operasi semalam = The doctor performed an operation yesterday.

So Malay is often more context-based than English when it comes to tense.

Yes, that is also possible, and it shifts the structure slightly.

Compare:

• Doktor melakukan operasi di hospital
  Focuses on performing an operation
• Doktor mengoperasi pesakit di hospital
  Focuses on operating on a patient

So the difference is partly about what the verb takes as its object:

• melakukan operasi → object = operasi
• mengoperasi pesakit → object = pesakit

Both are grammatical, but they highlight different things.

It sounds fairly neutral to formal.

Reasons:

• doktor is standard
• melakukan is more formal than buat
• operasi is standard and appropriate in medical contexts

So this sentence would fit well in:

• news reports
• textbooks
• formal conversation
• written explanations

In very casual speech, people might choose simpler wording, but this sentence is perfectly natural and standard.

Yes, doktor is related to English doctor. It is a borrowed word.

A learner-friendly pronunciation is roughly:

• dok-tor

The spelling matches Malay sound patterns better than the English spelling doctor. Malay spelling is usually more phonetic than English, so words are often pronounced more closely to how they are written.

The sentence does not mention the patient. It only tells you:

• who did it: doktor
• what was done: operasi
• where: di hospital

Malay, like English, does not need to mention every participant if the information is not important or is already known.

If you wanted to mention the patient, you could say something like:

• Doktor melakukan operasi pada pesakit di hospital.

Here, pada pesakit adds the idea of on the patient.

So the original sentence is complete, but less specific.