Tolong lampirkan dokumen penting dalam emel sebelum awak hantar laporan.

Please attach the important document in the email before you send the report.

Breakdown of Tolong lampirkan dokumen penting dalam emel sebelum awak hantar laporan.

• awak: you
• sebelum: before
• penting: important
• hantar: to send
• laporan: the report
• dokumen: the document
• dalam: in
• tolong: please
• emel: the email
• lampirkan: to attach

Questions & Answers about Tolong lampirkan dokumen penting dalam emel sebelum awak hantar laporan.

Why does the sentence start with tolong? Does it literally mean “help”?

In Malay tolong can mean either “help” or function as a polite request marker akin to “please.”

• Here it doesn’t ask someone else to help you, but politely asks the listener to perform an action.
• If you meant “help me,” you’d say Tolong bantu saya.

What is the role of the suffix -kan in lampirkan? And why isn’t there a me- prefix?

• The root word is lampir (“to attach”).
• The suffix -kan turns it into a transitive/cause-to-receive verb: “attach (something).”
• The full active form is melampirkan, but in an imperative you can drop the me- to get lampirkan.
• So lampirkan = “[you] attach [it].”

Why is it dokumen penting instead of penting dokumen?

In Malay, adjectives normally come after the noun they modify.

• dokumen = document
• penting = important
• Together: dokumen penting = “important document.”

Can I use pada emel or di emel instead of dalam emel?

• dalam emel literally means “inside the email” (where you place an attachment).
• pada emel is usually used for “on [a digital platform]” or “at [a time],” so it sounds odd here.
• di emel could mean “by email” (via email), e.g. Saya kirim fail di emel = “I send the file by email.”
• To say “attach in the email,” stick with dalam emel.

What’s the function of sebelum? Can I move it to the front?

• sebelum = “before.” It’s a subordinating conjunction linking two actions.
• You can place it at the start:
  • Sebelum awak hantar laporan, tolong lampirkan dokumen penting dalam emel.
• Word order remains the same in each clause.

Why use awak instead of anda? What’s the difference?

• awak and anda both mean “you,” but:
  • awak is neutral to informal and often used in conversation.
  • anda is more formal or polite, common in written instructions or public signs.
• You could say Sebelum anda hantar laporan… in very formal contexts.

What’s the basic word order here? Is Malay always Subject-Verb-Object?

• Malay generally follows SVO (Subject-Verb-Object).
• In an imperative, you often start with the verb (or a politeness word + verb):
  • Tolong lampirkan dokumen… (Verb-Object)
• The subordinate clause sebelum awak hantar laporan follows normal SVO: awak (Subject) hantar (Verb) laporan (Object).