Dia mengetatkan pedal.

Dia can mean either he or she. Malay does not normally mark gender in third-person singular pronouns the way English does.

So:

• Dia = he
• Dia = she

You only know which one is meant from context.

The base word is ketat, which means tight.

From that base, Malay builds the verb mengetatkan:

• ketat = tight
• meN- ... -kan added to it
• mengetatkan = to tighten, to make something tight

So the verb is built from a simple base plus affixes.

Here, -kan helps make the word a transitive verb, meaning a verb that takes an object.

Compare the idea:

• ketat = tight
• mengetatkan pedal = tighten the pedal / make the pedal tight

A useful way to think about -kan here is make X become Y:

• ketat = tight
• mengetatkan = make something tight

So pedal is the thing being tightened.

This is because of a common Malay sound/spelling pattern with the meN- prefix.

When meN- is added to a root beginning with k, the initial k usually drops. So:

• ketat
• add meN-
• the initial k disappears
• result: mengetatkan

This is a normal pattern in Malay word formation.

Malay verbs usually do not change form for tense.

So Dia mengetatkan pedal could mean:

• He/She tightens the pedal
• He/She tightened the pedal
• He/She will tighten the pedal

The time is usually understood from:

• context
• time words such as semalam (yesterday), sekarang (now), nanti (later)
• the larger conversation

For example:

• Semalam dia mengetatkan pedal. = Yesterday he/she tightened the pedal.
• Sekarang dia mengetatkan pedal. = He/She is tightening the pedal now.

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

So pedal by itself can mean:

• a pedal
• the pedal

The exact meaning depends on context.

If you want to make it more specific, Malay can use words such as:

• itu = that / the one we know about
• sebuah or other classifiers in some contexts, though not usually needed here

For example:

• Dia mengetatkan pedal itu. = He/She tightened that/the pedal.

Yes, this sentence uses the very common Subject–Verb–Object order:

• Dia = subject
• mengetatkan = verb
• pedal = object

So it matches English word order quite closely:

• He/She
  • tightened
    • the pedal

That makes this sentence relatively straightforward for an English speaker.

Yes. Pedal is a borrowed word that is commonly used in Malay.

Malay uses many loanwords, especially for modern objects, technology, vehicles, and mechanical parts. So seeing a familiar-looking word like pedal is very normal.

Its exact meaning depends on context:

• bicycle pedal
• brake pedal
• accelerator pedal
• some other pedal

In informal or colloquial Malay, you may hear shorter forms like ketatkan without the full meN- prefix.

So:

• Dia mengetatkan pedal. = more standard/formal
• Dia ketatkan pedal. = more colloquial/spoken in some contexts

For learners, it is safest to learn and use the full standard form first: mengetatkan.

Normally, dia is used for he or she, not for it.

Malay often handles it differently from English:

• sometimes the noun is repeated
• sometimes the pronoun is omitted
• in more formal written Malay, ia may appear

So in this sentence, dia would usually be understood as a person, not a thing.

A common passive version would be:

• Pedal itu diketatkan olehnya.

Breakdown:

• pedal itu = the pedal
• diketatkan = was tightened / is tightened
• olehnya = by him/her

In natural Malay, the oleh phrase is often omitted if it is clear:

• Pedal itu diketatkan. = The pedal was tightened.

This is useful because Malay uses passive forms quite often.