Kami menyalut tembikar dengan licau sebelum mengeringkannya.

In Malay, kami means we, but it excludes the person being spoken to.
So Kami menyalut... means We coat..., but not including you.

By contrast, kita means we in an inclusive sense: you and I / all of us including the listener.

So the sentence uses kami because the speaker is talking about what their group does, without including the listener.

Menyalut means to coat, to cover with a layer, or to apply a coating to something.

It comes from the root salut.
When the active verb prefix meN- is added to a root beginning with s, the s usually drops and the prefix becomes meny-:

• salut → menyalut
• compare:
  • sapu → menyapu
  • sebut → menyebut

So menyalut tembikar = to coat the pottery.

Malay often uses bare nouns without an article or classifier unless you specifically need to count something.

So tembikar here simply means pottery / earthenware / a pottery item, depending on context.

You would use something like sebuah only if you wanted to emphasize one item:

• sebuah tembikar = one pottery item / one earthenware vessel

But in a general statement like this, tembikar by itself is natural.

Malay nouns usually do not change form for singular vs. plural.
So tembikar can mean:

• pottery in a general or mass sense
• a pottery item
• pottery items

The exact number is understood from context.

So this sentence could refer to one piece of pottery or pottery in general, depending on the situation.

Dengan often means with, using, or by means of.

Here, dengan licau tells you what material is being used for the coating:

• menyalut tembikar dengan licau = to coat pottery with glaze

This is a very common pattern in Malay:

• mengisi borang dengan dakwat hitam = fill in the form with black ink
• melukis dengan pensel = draw with a pencil

So dengan licau is the part that corresponds to English with glaze.

Licau is a ceramics word meaning glaze.

So it refers to the glossy or protective coating applied to pottery or ceramics.

Because it is a more specialized word, learners may not see it often outside contexts like pottery, ceramics, or craft-making.

The most natural order here is:

verb + object + dengan-phrase

So:

• menyalut tembikar dengan licau

This matches English fairly closely:

• coat the pottery with glaze

If you say menyalut dengan licau tembikar, it sounds less natural because the direct object tembikar is normally placed right after the verb.

So for this kind of sentence, Malay strongly prefers:

• menyalut
  • what is being coated
    • what it is coated with

It means before drying it.

After sebelum (before), Malay can use a verb phrase without repeating the subject if the subject is already clear from the previous clause.

So:

• Kami menyalut tembikar dengan licau sebelum mengeringkannya.

literally works like:

• We coat the pottery with glaze before [we] dry it.

The subject kami does not need to be repeated after sebelum, because it is understood.

These forms are related but not identical:

• kering = dry
  This is usually an adjective.

  • Tembikar itu kering. = The pottery is dry.

• mengering = to dry up / to become dry
  This is more intransitive: the thing itself becomes dry.

  • Cat itu mengering. = The paint is drying.

• mengeringkan = to dry something / to make something dry
  This is transitive: someone dries something.

  • Kami mengeringkan tembikar itu. = We dry the pottery.

In your sentence, mengeringkannya is used because there is an object being dried: it.

Here -nya means it, and it refers back to tembikar.

So:

• mengeringkan = to dry something
• mengeringkannya = to dry it

In this sentence, the meaning is:

• before drying it
• where it = the pottery

Malay -nya can mean several things in different contexts, including his/her/its or a definite reference, but here it is clearly the object pronoun it.

It means before drying it, because mengeringkan is a transitive verb: to dry something.

If you wanted to say before it dries or before it becomes dry, you would use a different structure, for example:

• sebelum ia kering = before it is dry
• sebelum tembikar itu kering = before the pottery dries
• sebelum mengering = before drying up / before becoming dry in suitable contexts

So the -kan in mengeringkan is important: it shows that someone is causing the drying or carrying it out on an object.