Learn Hardcore Malay: Masyarakat di kampung saya bebas berkongsi pendapat mereka. - The community in my village is free to share their opinions.

masyarakat is more formal/collective than orang (person/people).
- masyarakat → a group viewed as a community or social unit
- orang → individual persons (less “social” or “collective” sounding)

So:

Masyarakat di kampung saya = the community / the people as a group
Orang-orang di kampung saya = the people (individuals) in my village

Both are grammatical, but masyarakat sounds more formal and collective.

Why is it “di kampung saya” and not something like “di saya kampung” for “in my village”?

Malay possession is expressed as [noun] + [possessor], not like English.

kampung = village
saya = I / me / my

So:

kampung saya = my village (literally “village I”)
di = in / at

Putting it together:

di kampung saya = in my village

The order “di saya kampung” is ungrammatical in Malay. The standard pattern is:

preposition + [thing] + [possessor]
di kampung saya = at/in my village
di rumah saya = at/in my house
dalam bilik saya = in my room

Why is there no word for “are” before bebas? In English we say “people are free”.

Malay normally drops the verb “to be” (is/are/am) when linking a subject to an adjective or a noun in the present tense.

Structure here:

Masyarakat di kampung saya = The people in my village
bebas = free

Malay:

Masyarakat di kampung saya bebas.
English:
The people in my village are free.

You do not say:

✗ Masyarakat di kampung saya adalah bebas. (unnatural; adalah is not used with adjectives in this way)

Use of adalah:

Often used with nouns, not adjectives:
- Dia adalah doktor. = He/She is a doctor.

So the “missing” are is normal in Malay:

Dia tinggi. = He/She is tall.
Mereka lapar. = They are hungry.
Masyarakat di kampung saya bebas. = The people in my village are free.

Is bebas an adjective (“free”) or an adverb (“freely”) here? How does Malay show that difference?

Bebas is an adjective meaning “free” (as in having freedom).

Malay often uses the same form where English distinguishes between adjective and adverb:

bebas = free / freely (depending on context)

In this sentence:

Masyarakat di kampung saya bebas berkongsi pendapat mereka.

Literally:

The people in my village are free to share their opinions.

So bebas is more “are free (to do something)” than “do something freely”, but English might translate it either way:

The people in my village are free to share their opinions.
The people in my village freely share their opinions.

Malay doesn’t add an -ly equivalent. The role of the word (adjective vs adverb-like) is understood from the sentence pattern.

Why is it berkongsi and not just kongsi or something like mengongsi?

Base word: kongsi = share

Malay often uses prefixes to turn a root into a verb. Here, the prefix ber- is used:

ber-
- kongsi → berkongsi = to share (intransitive or with an object)

Usage:

berkongsi pendapat = to share opinions
berkongsi makanan = to share food

Why not mengongsi?

The standard form is berkongsi.
Forms like mengongsi are non-standard or dialectal; in standard Malay you should stick to berkongsi meaning “to share”.

Why not just kongsi?

kongsi by itself is often used as a noun, e.g. rumah kongsi = workers’ quarters, or kongsi = partnership.
For the action “to share (something)”, berkongsi is the normal standard verb.

So in this sentence, bebas berkongsi pendapat = “(are) free to share (their) opinions”.

Do we need untuk before berkongsi, like “bebas untuk berkongsi” (“free to share”)?

Both forms are possible, but they have slightly different feel:

Without “untuk” (as in the sentence):
- Masyarakat di kampung saya bebas berkongsi pendapat mereka.
- Very natural and common.
- Means they are free to share or freely share their opinions.
With “untuk”:
- Masyarakat di kampung saya bebas untuk berkongsi pendapat mereka.
- Also correct.
- Slightly more explicit/formal, emphasizing “free in order to share”.

In everyday speech and writing, dropping untuk is very normal after bebas when followed by a verb:

Anda bebas memilih. = You are free to choose.
Murid bebas bertanya. = Students are free to ask questions.

So the original sentence is perfectly complete without untuk.

Where is the word “their” in pendapat mereka? How does possession work here?

In Malay, possession is often expressed as:

[thing] + [possessor pronoun]

Here:

pendapat = opinion
mereka = they / them / their

So:

pendapat mereka = their opinions

Notice the order is opposite to English:

English: their opinions
Malay: opinions their (literally)

More examples:

rumah saya = my house
buku kamu = your book
kereta mereka = their car

So mereka is doing the job of “their” here. There is no separate “of” or possessive marker; word order alone shows the relationship.

Why is the subject masyarakat but the pronoun is mereka? Can we say pendapat masyarakat instead?

Yes, you can say pendapat masyarakat (“the community’s opinions”), but pendapat mereka is more natural in this sentence for clarity and flow.

The pattern is:

Subject: Masyarakat di kampung saya (the people in my village)
Referring back to that group: mereka (they / their)

So:

pendapat mereka = their opinions (the opinions of those people)

You could also say:

Masyarakat di kampung saya bebas berkongsi pendapat.
- Grammatical, but slightly less explicit (whose opinions?).
Masyarakat di kampung saya bebas berkongsi pendapat mereka.
- Very clear: their own opinions.

Using mereka helps avoid repeating masyarakat, and sounds natural because Malay often uses pronouns to refer back to a previously mentioned group.

Could we say “Orang-orang di kampung saya” instead of “Masyarakat di kampung saya”? Does it change the meaning?

You can say either, and both are grammatical, but the nuance changes slightly.

Masyarakat di kampung saya
- More formal and collective.
- Emphasizes them as a community/society.
Orang-orang di kampung saya
- More everyday / neutral.
- Emphasizes individual people rather than the notion of a community.

Meaning overall (in English) will still be understood as “The people in my village…”, but masyarakat sounds like you’re talking about the community as a social unit, which fits well with ideas like freedom and sharing opinions.

Can “di kampung saya” be moved to the end, like “Masyarakat bebas berkongsi pendapat mereka di kampung saya”?

Yes, you can move di kampung saya to the end, and it is still grammatical:

Masyarakat di kampung saya bebas berkongsi pendapat mereka.
Masyarakat bebas berkongsi pendapat mereka di kampung saya.

Both can mean:

The people in my village are free to share their opinions.

Subtle differences in emphasis:

Masyarakat di kampung saya bebas…
- First focuses on which people: “The people in my village…”
Masyarakat bebas… di kampung saya.
- First states a general idea (“People are free to share their opinions”) and then locates it (“…in my village”).

In normal conversation, the original order (di kampung saya after masyarakat) is very natural, because we usually identify who we’re talking about before describing what they do.

Does kampung always mean “village”? Can it also mean “hometown”?

Kampung literally means village, especially a rural village.

However, in real use it often has a broader, emotional meaning:

kampung halaman = hometown (more formal phrase)
balik kampung = go back to one’s village/hometown (often used even if the place is now a town/city)

So in Masyarakat di kampung saya, depending on context, the speaker might mean:

literally: the people in my (rural) village, or
more loosely: the people in the place I come from / my hometown area

But grammatically, kampung is “village”; the “hometown” sense comes from context and cultural usage.