Kami mengosongkan bengkel.

We evacuate the workshop.

Breakdown of Kami mengosongkan bengkel.

• bengkel: the workshop
• kami: we/us
• mengosongkan: to evacuate or empty

Questions & Answers about Kami mengosongkan bengkel.

Why does the sentence use kami instead of kita?

Kami means we, but it is the exclusive form: it does not include the person being spoken to.

So:

• kami = we, but not you
• kita = we, including you

In Kami mengosongkan bengkel, the speaker is talking about their group emptying the workshop, and the listener is not part of that group.

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What is the structure of mengosongkan?

Mengosongkan can be broken down like this:

• kosong = empty
• meng- = a common active verb prefix
• -kan = a suffix that often means to cause/make something become something

So:

• kosong = empty
• mengosongkan = to empty something, literally to make something empty

This is a very common pattern in Malay:

• adjective or noun root
• plus meN- ... -kan
• becomes a transitive verb

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What does -kan do in this verb?