Breakdown of Semalam, kipas baru dipasang di bilik saya.
Questions & Answers about Semalam, kipas baru dipasang di bilik saya.
In Malay you can start a sentence with a time-adverb like semalam (“yesterday”) to set the temporal context early. The comma after semalam is purely optional—aids readability but isn’t grammatically required. You can write either:
• Semalam, kipas baru dipasang di bilik saya.
• Semalam kipas baru dipasang di bilik saya.
Malay creates the passive by adding the prefix di- directly to the verb root (here pasang → dipasang = “was installed”). In passive clauses you often omit the agent, but if you want to include it you use oleh (“by”):
• Semalam, kipas baru dipasang oleh tukang paip di bilik saya.
Here baru is an adjective modifying kipas, so it means “new fan.” Malay places descriptive adjectives after the noun. If you instead want “the fan was just installed,” you’d treat baru as an adverb (often adding sahaja or saja) and move it nearer the verb:
• Semalam, kipas dipasang baru sahaja di bilik saya.
Use an active verb and a subject. For example:
• Semalam, tukang paip memasang kipas baru di bilik saya.
Or keep passive but add the agent:
• Semalam, kipas baru dipasang oleh tukang paip di bilik saya.