Breakdown of Di kelas undang-undang, kami bercakap tentang hak alam dan hak manusia.
Questions & Answers about Di kelas undang-undang, kami bercakap tentang hak alam dan hak manusia.
Di is a preposition meaning in/at/on when talking about location.
In Di kelas undang-undang, it means In the law class or In law class.
- di + place is the standard pattern:
- di rumah – at home
- di sekolah – at school
- di kelas undang-undang – in law class
Note: when di is a preposition for place, it is always written separately from the next word (e.g. di rumah), unlike the passive prefix di- which is written together with a verb (e.g. ditulis – is written).
You can, but there is a slight nuance:
- di kelas undang-undang – neutral, “in/at law class”
- dalam kelas undang-undang – more literally “inside the law class (room)”
In many real situations, both would be understood the same, and di kelas undang-undang sounds a bit more natural and common for “in law class” as an activity or a course.
Malay noun phrases usually put the main thing first, and the descriptor or category after it.
- kelas undang-undang = “class (about) law” → law class
- kelas (class) is the main noun
- undang-undang (law) describes what kind of class it is
Putting it as undang-undang kelas would sound wrong; it would be like saying “law class” in English but with the parts reversed unnaturally. The normal pattern is:
- buku sejarah – history book (book of history)
- guru matematik – math teacher (teacher of math)
- kelas undang-undang – law class (class of law)
Undang-undang is formed by reduplication (repeating a word or root). Many Malay nouns are like this.
- Root: undang (related historically to “rule”/“law”)
- Reduplicated: undang-undang = law (as a general concept, legal system)
The hyphen shows that the word is made by repeating undang. This kind of reduplication is common in Malay:
- lelaki (man) → lelaki-lelaki (men, sometimes)
- budak (child) → budak-budak (children)
- orang (person) → orang-orang (people)
For many established legal or formal words like undang-undang, the reduplicated form is simply the normal dictionary form.
Both kami and kita mean we, but:
- kami = we (not including the person we’re talking to)
- kita = we (including the person we’re talking to)
In this sentence:
- kami bercakap = “we talked” (the speaker and classmates, but not including the listener)
If you were talking to someone who was also in that law class, you could use kita:
- Di kelas undang-undang, kita bercakap tentang…
“In law class, we (you and I and others) talked about…”
Since usually the listener is not assumed to be in that same class, kami is the normal choice.
Bercakap means to speak / to talk.
Common related verbs:
- bercakap – to speak, to talk (quite general)
- berbual – to chat, to talk casually
- berbincang – to discuss (more focused, “discussing a topic”)
- membincangkan (something) – to discuss something (more formal/academic)
In a law class, if you want to emphasize a more serious discussion, berbincang might be slightly more precise:
- Di kelas undang-undang, kami berbincang tentang hak alam dan hak manusia.
But bercakap is still correct and natural, especially in less formal speech.
Tentang means about / regarding / concerning.
Pattern:
- bercakap tentang X – to talk about X
- berbincang tentang X – to discuss X
You can often replace tentang with mengenai or berkenaan dengan, which are slightly more formal:
- kami bercakap tentang hak alam
- kami bercakap mengenai hak alam
- kami bercakap berkenaan dengan hak alam
All of these mean we talked about natural/environmental rights. Tentang is very common and neutral.
Malay usually does not mark plural with an ending like English -s. The word hak can mean right or rights, depending on context.
In this sentence:
- hak alam dan hak manusia can be understood as
“(the) rights of nature and (the) rights of humans”
If you really want to stress the plural, you can use reduplication:
- hak-hak – rights (emphasized as “many rights”)
For example:
- kami bercakap tentang hak-hak manusia – we talked about (various) human rights
But in most contexts, just hak manusia already naturally implies human rights.
Hak alam literally means rights of nature or the rights of the natural world.
Depending on the context, it could be understood as:
- rights of nature – the idea that nature itself has rights
- environmental rights – human or community rights related to the environment
- natural rights – innate rights that exist “by nature” (philosophical sense)
More common specific phrases in Malay include:
- hak asasi manusia – human rights (fundamental rights of humans)
- hak alam sekitar – environmental rights / rights relating to the environment
- hak-hak alam – the rights of nature (emphasizing plurality)
So hak alam is understandable, but in real legal or academic writing people might choose a more precise phrase like hak alam sekitar or hak-hak alam depending on the exact meaning.
Both can appear, but:
- hak asasi manusia is the standard phrase for “human rights” in Malay
(literally: “basic / fundamental rights of humans”) - hak manusia is understandable as “human rights”, but it is less fixed as a set term
So, a very natural sentence in a law-class context would be:
- Di kelas undang-undang, kami bercakap tentang hak alam dan hak asasi manusia.
“In law class, we talked about the rights of nature and human rights.”
Malay often uses a “X Y” pattern where:
- X = head noun
- Y = modifier (often “of Y” in English)
So:
- hak manusia = rights (of) humans → human rights
- buku pelajar = book (of) a student → student’s book
- rumah guru = house (of) the teacher → teacher’s house
Putting manusia hak would be ungrammatical; it would be like saying “human rights” with the words in the wrong order. The possessed or qualifying noun (manusia) comes after the main noun (hak).
Malay verbs like bercakap do not change form for tense. The same form can mean:
- we talk / we are talking – present
- we talked / we were talking – past
- we will talk – future (if indicated by context or time words)
In your sentence, the time is understood from context, such as:
- Semalam, di kelas undang-undang, kami bercakap tentang hak alam dan hak manusia.
– Yesterday, in law class, we talked about…
If you want to mark past more clearly, you can add words like:
- tadi / semalam – earlier / yesterday
- telah – (has/had) [formal]
Example:
- Tadi, di kelas undang-undang, kami telah bercakap tentang hak alam dan hak manusia.
“Earlier, in law class, we talked/had talked about the rights of nature and human rights.”
Native speakers sometimes drop pronouns when the subject is very clear from context, but in this sentence:
- Di kelas undang-undang, bercakap tentang hak alam dan hak manusia.
sounds incomplete or unnatural, because it’s not clear who is doing the talking.
More natural options:
Keep kami as in the original:
- Di kelas undang-undang, kami bercakap tentang hak alam dan hak manusia.
Change the word order but keep the subject:
- Kami bercakap tentang hak alam dan hak manusia di kelas undang-undang.
Use a generic subject like kami or kita if you mean “we (people in general)”:
- Dalam kelas undang-undang, kita bercakap tentang hak alam dan hak manusia.
For a learner, it is safer and more natural to keep the pronoun (like kami) in sentences like this.