Saya letak kotak di bawah meja.

I put the box under the table.

Breakdown of Saya letak kotak di bawah meja.

• saya: I
• di bawah: under
• meja: the table
• letak: to put
• kotak: the box

Questions & Answers about Saya letak kotak di bawah meja.

How do you tell the tense of the verb letak in “Saya letak kotak di bawah meja”?

Malay verbs do not change form for tense. Instead, context or time words (like sudah for past or akan for future) indicate when an action happens.

• “Saya letak kotak…” by itself is often understood as past if you’ve been talking about what you just did.
• To make it explicit past, you could say Saya sudah letak kotak di bawah meja.
• For future: Saya akan letak kotak di bawah meja.

Why doesn’t the verb have the me- prefix (i.e. why not meletakkan)?

“Saya letak…” is colloquial Malay. In informal speech, people often drop the me- prefix and the -kan suffix. The full formal verb is meletakkan, so formally you could say:

• Saya meletakkan kotak di bawah meja.
  Both mean “I put the box under the table,” but the version with me-…-kan sounds more formal or written.

What role does di play in di bawah meja?

Here, di is part of the compound preposition di bawah, meaning “under.” It is not the passive-voice marker (which also uses di- on verbs). In this phrase:

• di
  • bawah = “under”
• meja = “table”
  So di bawah meja = “under the table.”

Why aren’t there any words for “a” or “the” before kotak or meja?

Malay does not have articles like a or the. Nouns stand alone, and you rely on context to know if you mean “a box,” “the box,” or “that box.” If needed, you can add demonstratives or classifiers:

• sebuah kotak = “a box”
• kotak itu = “that box”

What is the standard word order in Malay, and how does this sentence follow it?

Typical Malay word order is: Subject – Verb – Object – (Place) – (Time).
In Saya letak kotak di bawah meja:

• Subject = Saya (“I”)
• Verb = letak (“put”)
• Object = kotak (“box”)
• Place = di bawah meja (“under the table”)
  There’s no time phrase here; if you wanted to add one, it would come at the end.

Can I start the sentence with kotak instead of saya, like “Kotak saya letak di bawah meja”?

Yes. Fronting kotak makes it a topic-comment structure and shifts the emphasis to the box. It’s still grammatical:

• Kotak, saya letak di bawah meja.
  But the neutral order is Saya letak kotak….

Is it ever okay to drop di and just say bawah meja?

Dropping di (saying bawah meja) is very informal or dialectal. In standard Malay, you should keep di for prepositional phrases:

• Correct: di bawah meja
• Very colloquial: bawah meja

What’s the difference between meletakkan and just letak in terms of meaning?

Meletakkan is the verb in its full form (with me- prefix and -kan suffix). It’s considered more formal and is the “dictionary” version of “to place/put.” Letak is simply the root form used colloquially. The meaning is the same; register is what changes.