Mereka menubuhkan dan memperbadankan syarikat itu.

Mereka means they.

A few useful points:

• It refers to more than one person
• It does not show gender, so it can mean they for men, women, or a mixed group
• Malay pronouns do not change form the way English pronouns do, so mereka can correspond to English they or them, depending on sentence position

In this sentence, it is the subject, so the natural English equivalent is they.

Not necessarily. Malay verbs usually do not change form for tense the way English verbs do.

So menubuhkan and memperbadankan do not by themselves mean specifically:

• established
• are establishing
• will establish

The time is normally understood from:

• context
• time words such as semalam (yesterday), sedang (in progress), akan (will), and so on

So this sentence could be understood as past, present, or future depending on context.

Malay often builds verbs by adding prefixes and suffixes to a root.

Here:

• menubuhkan = meN- ... -kan pattern
• memperbadankan = memper- ... -kan pattern

These affixes help show that the verbs are active and transitive, meaning they do something to an object.

For learners, the most important thing is not to translate every part too mechanically. It is often better to learn the whole verb as a unit:

• menubuhkan = establish / found / set up
• memperbadankan = incorporate

Still, noticing the affixes is very useful, because they are common in Malay.

They are related, but not identical.

• menubuhkan usually means to establish, set up, or found
• memperbadankan is more specific and formal, meaning to incorporate, especially in a legal or corporate sense

So together they suggest something like:

• they set up the company
• and they legally incorporated it

Using both verbs gives a more precise business or legal meaning than using only one.

Because both verbs apply to the same object.

The structure is:

• Mereka = subject
• menubuhkan dan memperbadankan = two coordinated verbs
• syarikat itu = one shared object

This works much like English:

• They established and incorporated the company

You do not need to repeat the object after each verb if both verbs refer to the same thing.

Because in Malay, demonstratives normally come after the noun.

So:

• syarikat itu = that company
• not itu syarikat in normal noun-phrase order

This is one of the big word-order differences from English.

Compare:

• rumah itu = that house
• buku ini = this book
• syarikat itu = that company

It can often be understood as either, depending on context.

Literally, itu is that, so syarikat itu is literally that company.

But in real usage, noun + itu can also function a lot like the + noun when the noun is already known or specific in context. So in translation, syarikat itu may become:

• that company
• the company

The best choice depends on what came before in the conversation or text.

Because mereka is plural, but the object syarikat itu refers to just one company.

Malay nouns usually do not change form for singular vs. plural the way English nouns do. The noun syarikat can mean:

• company
• companies

Context tells you which one is meant.

Here, syarikat itu strongly suggests a specific single company: that company / the company.

If speakers really needed to make the plural explicit, they could say something like syarikat-syarikat itu, but that is not what this sentence is doing.

Sometimes Malay allows the subject to be omitted if it is already clear from context, but in a normal standalone sentence, keeping mereka is the safest and most natural choice.

So:

• Mereka menubuhkan dan memperbadankan syarikat itu. = a complete, normal sentence

If you remove mereka, the result may sound:

• incomplete
• dependent on earlier context
• like a note, heading, or fragment

So for learners, it is best to keep the subject unless the context clearly supplies it.

Yes, especially because of memperbadankan.

This sentence sounds quite natural in:

• business writing
• legal contexts
• formal reports
• corporate history

The verb memperbadankan is more formal and technical than everyday conversation. In casual speech, people might choose simpler wording depending on what exactly they mean.

So this is good standard Malay, but it has a somewhat formal, professional tone.

Yes. In this sentence, both verbs are being used as transitive verbs, meaning they take an object.

That object is:

• syarikat itu

So the pattern is:

• menubuhkan syarikat itu = establish the company
• memperbadankan syarikat itu = incorporate the company

This is one reason the active verb forms with affixes are important here: they fit the pattern of doing something to an object.

Yes. The basic order here is very standard:

• Mereka = subject
• menubuhkan dan memperbadankan = verb phrase
• syarikat itu = object

So the sentence follows the common Malay SVO pattern:

• Subject–Verb–Object

That makes it structurally quite close to English, even though details like affixes and the position of itu are different.