Adakah awak sudah meminjam buku penting itu daripada guru, atau awak belum sempat lagi?

Adakah is a yes/no question marker. It makes the sentence explicitly interrogative, especially in more careful or written Malay.

So:

• Adakah awak sudah meminjam ... ? = Have you already borrowed ... ?

In everyday speech, people often leave adakah out and just rely on intonation:

• Awak sudah meminjam buku penting itu ... ?

That sounds more conversational.

It is repeated because the sentence is really presenting two full alternatives:

• awak sudah meminjam ...
• awak belum sempat lagi

Repeating awak makes both clauses clear and balanced. English often does the same:

• Have you borrowed it already, or have you not had the chance yet?

In casual speech, Malay sometimes drops repeated subjects if the meaning is obvious, but keeping awak is completely normal and clear.

They are opposites in this context:

• sudah = already
• belum = not yet

So:

• sudah meminjam = have already borrowed
• belum sempat = have not yet had the chance

These words are very common in Malay for talking about whether something has happened yet.

Meminjam means to borrow.

It comes from the root pinjam, and the prefix meN- creates an active verb. So:

• pinjam = borrow / lend, depending on context in casual use
• meminjam = to borrow

In careful standard Malay, meminjam clearly means borrow, while meminjamkan means lend something to someone.

Examples:

• Saya meminjam buku. = I borrow / am borrowing a book.
• Cikgu meminjamkan saya buku. = The teacher lends me a book.

In Malay, demonstratives like ini and itu usually come after the noun phrase.

So:

• buku itu = that book
• buku penting itu = that important book

The normal order is:

• noun + adjective + demonstrative

Compare:

• rumah besar itu = that big house
• kereta baru ini = this new car

So buku penting itu is the standard Malay order.

Here daripada means from, specifically showing the source the book is borrowed from:

• daripada guru = from the teacher

In standard Malay, daripada is often used for:

• source or origin, especially people
• comparison
• materials in some contexts

Dari is also used for from, especially for place or direction, and in casual speech many speakers use dari more broadly.

So:

• meminjam buku daripada guru = borrow a book from the teacher

This is a good standard choice.

Sempat means something like:

• to have the time
• to have the chance
• to manage to do something before it is too late

So belum sempat lagi means:

• have not had the chance yet
• have not managed to do it yet

It does not simply mean busy. It focuses more on opportunity or available time.

For example:

• Saya tidak sempat makan. = I didn’t have time / get the chance to eat.
• Dia sempat sampai sebelum hujan. = He managed to arrive before the rain.

In this sentence, lagi helps express the idea of yet.

So:

• belum sempat = have not had the chance
• belum sempat lagi = have not had the chance yet

Malay often uses lagi in negative or incomplete situations to add that still/yet feeling.

Depending on context, belum sempat can already imply not yet, so lagi adds emphasis or naturalness.

Yes. Atau means or and is perfectly normal here.

The sentence gives two possibilities:

• maybe you have already borrowed the book
• or maybe you have not had the chance yet

You may also see ataupun, which can sound a little more formal or stylistically fuller in some contexts, but atau is completely correct and common.

In Malay, aspect markers like sudah usually come before the verb.

So the normal pattern is:

• sudah + verb
• belum + verb/adjective
• akan + verb
• sedang + verb

Examples:

• sudah makan = already ate / have eaten
• belum datang = have not come yet
• sedang belajar = am studying

That is why sudah meminjam is the expected order.

It is somewhere between neutral and slightly formal.

Why?

• adakah sounds more formal or careful
• awak is neutral and common
• meminjam, daripada, and the full structure sound standard

A more casual spoken version might be:

• Awak dah pinjam buku penting tu daripada guru, atau belum sempat lagi?

Changes:

• sudah → dah
• itu → tu
• no adakah
• pinjam instead of meminjam

Both are understandable, but the original sentence is more standard.

Yes, depending on context.

Malay does not have articles like the and a/an in the same way English does. So guru can mean:

• the teacher
• a teacher

The surrounding context usually tells you which one is intended. In this sentence, English often translates it as the teacher because it sounds like a specific known teacher.

Most directly, it means that important book because itu literally points to something specific, like that.

However, in translation, depending on context, English might sometimes use the important book if that sounds more natural.

Malay itu often marks something as identifiable or already known in the conversation, so it can overlap a little with English the, but its core meaning is still demonstrative: that.

Yes. That is one major difference from English.

English often changes structure:

• Have you borrowed ... ?
• Did you borrow ... ?

Malay usually does not use auxiliary verbs like have or did in the same way. Instead, it keeps the verb and adds markers such as:

• sudah = already
• belum = not yet
• sedang = in progress
• akan = will

So the question is formed through:

• question marker adakah
• normal word order
• aspect words like sudah and belum

That makes Malay grammar simpler in this area than English.