Learn Hardcore Malay: Kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu di taman. - We chat about a funny dream in the park.

kita = inclusive we (includes the speaker and the listener)
kami = exclusive we (includes the speaker and their group, but excludes the listener)

In Kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu di taman, kita implies:

“We (including you) are chatting about funny dreams in the park.”

If the speaker wants to say “We are chatting (but you are not part of it)”, they would use Kami berbual… instead.

So kita is correct here if the listener is part of the group that is chatting.

What does berbual mean exactly, and how is it different from other verbs like bercakap or bersembang?

berbual means “to chat, to talk (in a relaxed, conversational way)”. It’s common in Malaysian Malay.

Other similar verbs:

bercakap – to speak, to talk (more neutral and general; can be formal or informal)
- Example: Dia bercakap dengan guru. – He/she is talking with the teacher.
bersembang – to chat, to have a chat (very colloquial, especially in Malaysia)
- Often feels more informal than berbual.
borak (slang) – to chat, to talk casually; very informal.

In this sentence:

Kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu di taman.
suggests a relaxed, friendly conversation, like “We’re chatting about funny dreams in the park.”

You could also say:

Kita bercakap tentang mimpi lucu di taman. – grammatically fine, maybe a bit more neutral.
Kita bersembang pasal mimpi lucu di taman. – sounds more colloquial.

Why do we use tentang here, and could we use other words like mengenai or pasal?

tentang means “about / regarding / concerning”.

In this sentence:

berbual tentang mimpi lucu = “chat about funny dreams”

Other options:

mengenai – “about, regarding”; a bit more formal, often used in writing:
- Kita berbual mengenai mimpi lucu di taman.
pasal – colloquial “about”; very common in everyday Malaysian speech:
- Kita berbual pasal mimpi lucu di taman.

Roughly in terms of register (from more formal to more informal):

mengenai → tentang → pasal

In standard neutral Malay, tentang fits very well.

Why is it mimpi lucu and not lucu mimpi? How does noun–adjective order work in Malay?

In Malay, the usual order is:

NOUN + ADJECTIVE

So:

mimpi lucu = funny dream(s)
- mimpi = dream
- lucu = funny

Putting the adjective before the noun (lucu mimpi) is not grammatical in standard Malay. It would sound wrong or at least very odd.

Other examples:

rumah besar – big house
kucing hitam – black cat
baju baru – new shirt

So the correct structure is mimpi lucu, never lucu mimpi.

Does mimpi here mean one dream or many dreams? How do you show plural in Malay?

Malay usually doesn’t mark plural with an ending the way English does. Context tells you whether it’s singular or plural.

So:

mimpi lucu can mean:
- “a funny dream”
- or “funny dreams”

If you really want to emphasize plural, you have a few options:

Reduplication:
- mimpi-mimpi lucu – funny dreams (clearly plural; more common in writing or careful speech)
Use a quantity word:
- banyak mimpi lucu – many funny dreams
- beberapa mimpi lucu – several funny dreams
Context:
- If earlier you said: Malam tadi saya ada banyak mimpi. (“Last night I had many dreams.”)
  Then mimpi lucu in the next sentence is naturally understood as plural.

In normal conversation, mimpi lucu without any marker is perfectly fine and often left ambiguous, just like English “I like coffee” vs “I like coffees” (depending on context).

There is no word like “am / was / will” here. How do we know the tense? Can this sentence mean past or future?

Malay normally doesn’t mark tense with a verb change. The verb berbual stays the same whether it’s present, past, or future. Time is usually understood from context or from time words.

Kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu di taman can mean:

We are chatting about funny dreams in the park. (present)
We chatted / talked about funny dreams in the park. (past)
We will chat about funny dreams in the park. (future; less common without a time word, but possible in context)

To make the time clear, you add a time expression:

Past:
- Tadi kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu di taman.
  – Earlier we chatted about funny dreams in the park.
Present (ongoing):
- Sekarang kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu di taman.
  – Right now we are chatting about funny dreams in the park.
Future:
- Nanti kita akan berbual tentang mimpi lucu di taman.
  – Later we will chat about funny dreams in the park.

So tense is mostly indicated by time adverbs, not by changes to berbual.

What exactly does lucu mean? Is it just “funny”, or can it also mean “cute”?

In Malay (Malaysia):

lucu primarily means funny, amusing.
cute is more commonly comel.

In Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia):

lucu is often used both for funny and cute (especially for animals, babies, etc.).

In the sentence mimpi lucu, the natural reading is “funny dreams”, not “cute dreams”.

So for Malay learners:

lucu → funny
comel → cute

Does di taman mean “in the park” or “at the park”? Could it also mean “to the park”?

di is a location preposition, roughly “at / in / on”, depending on context.

di taman = in the park or at the park (both are possible translations, depending on English style)

It does not mean “to the park”. For “to the park” you would use:

ke taman – to the park (direction / movement)

Examples:

Kita berbual di taman. – We chat in/at the park.
Kita pergi ke taman. – We go to the park.

So in this sentence, di taman describes where the chatting happens (location), not movement.

Could di taman describe the dreams instead of the chatting? Like “funny dreams in the park”?

Grammatically, di taman is placed at the end, and Malay tends to attach such a final prepositional phrase to the main verb phrase unless there’s a clearer marker.

So:

Kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu di taman.

is most naturally understood as:

“We chat in the park about funny dreams.”
(the chatting happens in the park)

If you wanted to make it clear that the dreams are “in the park”, you could say:

Kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu yang berlaku di taman.
– We chat about funny dreams that happen in the park.
or more loosely: Kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu di sebuah taman. (still somewhat ambiguous, but context can make it clearer)

In normal conversation, di taman at the end like this will usually be taken as the location of the chatting.

Is the word order fixed? Can I say Di taman, kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu?

Yes, Malay allows some flexibility in word order for emphasis or style.

Both are correct:

Kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu di taman.
– neutral order
Di taman, kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu.
– puts emphasis on “In the park” (as the topic)

This fronting of di taman is similar to:

“In the park, we chat about funny dreams.”

It’s often used in storytelling or in written style, but also heard in speech.

Is this sentence formal, casual, or neutral? Would people say this in everyday conversation?

The sentence Kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu di taman. is:

Grammatically standard
Neutral in formality – it’s fine in everyday speech and also acceptable in many written contexts.

In real casual Malaysian speech, you might hear variations like:

Kita borak pasal mimpi lucu kat taman.
- borak – very informal “chat”
- pasal – informal “about”
- kat – colloquial form of di

But the original sentence is completely natural and not overly formal.

Can we leave out tentang and just say Kita berbual mimpi lucu di taman?

No, that would sound ungrammatical or very unnatural in standard Malay.

The verb berbual (to chat) typically needs a preposition before its object when you mean “chat about (something)”. Common choices:

berbual tentang … – chat about …
berbual mengenai … – chat about …
Colloquial: berbual / borak pasal … – chat about …

So you should keep tentang (or a similar word):

Kita berbual tentang mimpi lucu di taman. ✓
Kita berbual mimpi lucu di taman. ✗ (not standard)

In very casual speech, some people might compress or drop little words, but for correct Malay, tentang (or mengenai/pasal) is needed here.

If I don’t want to include the listener in “we”, how do I change the sentence?

To exclude the listener from “we”, change kita to kami:

Kami berbual tentang mimpi lucu di taman.

This now means:

We (not including you) chat about funny dreams in the park.

So:

kita = we (including you)
kami = we (excluding you)

Everything else in the sentence can stay the same.