Suaranya yang serak sama sekali tidak mengganggu kami.

Suara means voice. The ending -nya often marks a third-person possessor, so suaranya most naturally means his voice or her voice here.

A few useful notes about -nya:

• it does not show gender, so it can mean his or her
• depending on context, it can also mean their
• sometimes it makes a noun sound definite, like the ...

In this sentence, the most natural reading is his/her voice.

Here yang introduces a description of suaranya. So yang serak means something like that is hoarse or which is hoarse.

So:

• suaranya yang serak = literally his/her voice that is hoarse
• natural English = his/her hoarse voice

A very important point: without yang, suaranya serak would normally be understood as a full clause meaning his/her voice is hoarse. Using yang helps show that serak is part of the noun phrase describing voice, not the main statement of the sentence.

Yes, from an English point of view, it can feel like something is missing, but in Malay this is normal.

Malay often does not use a separate word for to be before adjectives. So:

• serak = hoarse
• yang serak = that is/was hoarse

Malay leaves tense mostly to context, so the same phrase can be understood as is hoarse or was hoarse, depending on the situation.

Serak is an adjective. It means hoarse, raspy, or rough-sounding when talking about a voice.

Examples:

• suaranya serak = his/her voice is hoarse
• suara serak = a hoarse voice

In your sentence, serak describes suaranya.

With a negative like tidak, sama sekali means at all or not at all.

So:

• sama sekali tidak mengganggu kami = did not bother us at all

It adds emphasis. The idea is absolutely not or not in the slightest.

You may also see:

• tidak mengganggu kami sama sekali

That means the same thing. The position of sama sekali can vary.

Because mengganggu is a verb.

In Malay:

• tidak is used to negate verbs and adjectives
• bukan is mainly used to negate nouns or identity/classification

So:

• tidak mengganggu = does not / did not bother
• bukan guru = is not a teacher

Since mengganggu is an action word, tidak is the correct negator.

Mengganggu means to disturb, to bother, or to annoy.

It comes from:

• root: ganggu = disturb / bother
• prefix: meng-

The prefix meng- forms an active verb here, so mengganggu is an active transitive verb: it does the action to something or someone.

In this sentence:

• suaranya yang serak = the thing doing the bothering
• kami = the people affected by it

So the structure is basically:

• His/her hoarse voice
  • did not bother
    • us

Yes. Kami can mean we or us, depending on its role in the sentence. Malay pronouns usually do not change form the way English pronouns do.

So:

• kami datang = we came
• mengganggu kami = bother us

Also, kami is exclusive: it means the speaker and others, but not the listener.

That is different from kita, which includes the listener.

So:

• kami = we/us, not you
• kita = we/us, including you

Malay verbs usually do not change form for tense. So tidak mengganggu can mean:

• does not bother
• did not bother
• sometimes even is not bothering

The exact time is usually understood from context, not from the verb form itself.

So the English tense depends on the wider situation, not on any special ending in mengganggu.

A simple way to break it down is:

• Suaranya yang serak = his/her hoarse voice
• sama sekali tidak mengganggu = did not bother at all
• kami = us

So the sentence pattern is:

• Subject
  • negative verb phrase
    • object

More literally:

• His/her voice, which was hoarse, did not disturb us at all

More natural English:

• His/her hoarse voice did not bother us at all