Tawar-menawar bermula di pasar lambak.

The hyphen shows reduplication, which is very common in Malay. Tawar-menawar is a fixed expression meaning bargaining or haggling, especially over price.

In Malay spelling, reduplicated forms are often written with a hyphen, so this is a normal pattern to recognize.

Here, tawar-menawar means bargaining / haggling / negotiating a price.

It is commonly used for the back-and-forth between buyer and seller, especially in markets. So the sentence suggests that price negotiation starts happening at the flea market.

In this sentence, tawar-menawar functions like a noun-like subject:

• Tawar-menawar = bargaining
• bermula = begins

So the whole sentence is structured like:

• Bargaining begins at the flea market.

Malay often allows action words or event words to act naturally as the subject of a sentence.

Bermula means to begin or to start.

In this sentence:

• Tawar-menawar bermula = Bargaining begins

It is a common and natural verb for something starting.

Because bermula and memulakan are used differently:

• bermula = begins / starts
• memulakan = starts something

So:

• Tawar-menawar bermula = The bargaining begins
• Mereka memulakan tawar-menawar = They start the bargaining

In your sentence, the bargaining itself is what begins, so bermula is the right choice.

Di is a preposition for location. It usually means at, in, or on, depending on context.

Here:

• di pasar lambak = at the flea market

A useful comparison:

• di = at / in / on
• ke = to

So:

• di pasar lambak = at the flea market
• ke pasar lambak = to the flea market

Pasar lambak means flea market.

• pasar = market
• lambak helps form the expression for a market of second-hand, miscellaneous, or piled-up goods

The word order may feel backwards to an English speaker, because Malay usually puts the main noun first and the describing word after it.

So this pattern is normal in Malay:

• pasar malam = night market
• rumah besar = big house
• pasar lambak = flea market

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

That means:

• pasar lambak can mean a flea market or the flea market
• tawar-menawar can mean bargaining or the bargaining

The exact meaning is understood from context. English needs an article, but Malay usually does not.

The structure is:

• Tawar-menawar = subject/topic
• bermula = verb
• di pasar lambak = location phrase

So the pattern is:

Subject + Verb + Place

That is a very normal Malay sentence order.