Learn Hardcore Malay: Kadang-kadang saya sukar memahami perasaan sendiri dan pelajaran di kelas. - Sometimes I find it hard to understand my own feelings and the lessons in class.

Why is it “Kadang-kadang saya sukar memahami …” and not something like “Sukar bagi saya untuk memahami …” like in English “It is hard for me to understand …”?

Both patterns are possible in Malay, but the sentence uses a very common and natural structure:

Kadang-kadang saya sukar memahami …
Literally: Sometimes I am difficult (in) understanding …
Idiomatic: Sometimes I find it hard to understand …

Here, sukar is an adjective describing saya, and memahami … explains what is difficult for you.

You could also say:

Kadang-kadang sukar untuk saya memahami …
Kadang-kadang sukar bagi saya untuk memahami …

These are also grammatical, but they sound slightly more formal or written. The original sentence is smoother and more typical in everyday speech and writing.

Can I move “kadang-kadang” to the middle of the sentence, like “Saya kadang-kadang sukar memahami …”?

Yes, you can. Both are correct:

Kadang-kadang saya sukar memahami …
Saya kadang-kadang sukar memahami …

They mean the same thing: Sometimes I find it hard to understand …

Nuance:

Kadang-kadang saya … – Slightly more natural as a neutral, complete sentence starter; often used in writing and speech.
Saya kadang-kadang … – Also common; feels a bit more like you’re focusing on you and then adding “sometimes” as extra information.

In practice, both are perfectly fine and very commonly used.

What’s the difference between “sukar”, “susah”, and “sulit”? Could I say “Kadang-kadang saya susah memahami …”?

All three relate to “difficult,” but they differ in nuance and register.

sukar
- Meaning: difficult, hard
- Register: fairly neutral to formal
- Common in writing, news, formal speech, but also okay in neutral conversation.
susah
- Meaning: hard / troublesome
- Register: more informal, very common in everyday speech
- Example: Saya susah nak faham pelajaran di kelas.
- It can also mean “in trouble” or “in a difficult situation”: Dia susah sekarang. (He’s having a hard time now.)
sulit
- Meaning: difficult, complicated
- Register: formal, more common in Indonesian; in Malaysia it sounds literary/official.

So:

Kadang-kadang saya sukar memahami … – neutral, slightly formal.
Kadang-kadang saya susah memahami … – casual, everyday speech, very natural in conversation.

Grammatically both sukar and susah work here. The choice is about tone/formality.

Why is it “memahami” and not just “faham”? What’s the difference between “memahami” and “faham”?

The root here is faham (“to understand”), and memahami is the meN- verb form from paham/faham.

faham
- Often used as a stative verb/adjective:
  - Saya faham. – I understand.
  - Saya tak faham. – I don’t understand.
- Can also mean “to understand” but is often shorter and more conversational.
memahami
- Clearly a transitive verb “to understand (something)”:
  - Saya memahami pelajaran itu. – I understand that lesson.
- Sounds a bit more formal / standard, especially in writing.

In your sentence:

sukar memahami perasaan sendiri dan pelajaran di kelas

There are clear objects (perasaan sendiri and pelajaran di kelas), so using the transitive memahami is very natural and standard.

You might hear informal versions like:

Kadang-kadang saya susah nak faham perasaan sendiri dan pelajaran di kelas.

Here, nak (for hendak) and faham make the sentence more casual.

What exactly does “perasaan sendiri” mean? Why not just “perasaan saya”?

perasaan = feelings, emotions
sendiri = own / self

So perasaan sendiri literally means “one’s own feelings.”

In this sentence:

perasaan sendiri = my own feelings (because the subject is saya)

You could say:

perasaan saya – my feelings
perasaan saya sendiri – my own feelings (with extra emphasis)

sendiri adds a nuance of:

self-reflection (my own inner feelings), or
emphasis (not other people’s feelings, but mine).

So perasaan sendiri here sounds natural and slightly more reflective than just perasaan saya.

Does “sendiri” here mean “by myself”, like “alone”?

No, not in this sentence.

sendiri in Malay can do different jobs depending on position and context:

After a noun/pronoun to mean “own”
- rumah saya sendiri – my own house
- perasaan sendiri – one’s own feelings
After a pronoun to mean “oneself” / “alone” / “personally”
- Saya sendiri tak tahu. – I myself don’t know. / Even I don’t know.
- Saya pergi sendiri. – I’m going alone.

In perasaan sendiri, it attaches to perasaan, so it means “own feelings”, not “alone”.

If you wanted to say “Sometimes I find it hard to understand my feelings by myself (without help)”, you’d phrase it differently, e.g.:

Kadang-kadang saya sukar memahami perasaan saya tanpa bantuan orang lain.

What does “pelajaran di kelas” specifically mean? Is it “lessons”, “subjects”, or “studies”?

pelajaran comes from the root ajar (to teach) → pelajaran = “lesson(s) / things learned / studies / schoolwork”.
di kelas = in class.

So pelajaran di kelas is best understood as:

the lessons in class,
what is taught in class, or
the material in class.

It’s more specific than just “school” and more general than “a single subject”; it refers to whatever is being taught/learned during class time.

Why is it “pelajaran di kelas” and not “pelajaran kelas”?

In Malay, “X di Y” often means “X that is/occurs in Y”.

pelajaran di kelas = the lessons in class
pelajaran di sekolah = the lessons at school
makanan di restoran itu = the food at that restaurant

pelajaran kelas is not idiomatic; it sounds like a compound word that isn’t normally used that way.

So to show location (in class), you almost always use di + place:

pelajaran di kelas – correct
pelajaran kelas – unnatural/wrong in this meaning.

What’s the difference between “di kelas” and “dalam kelas”? Could I say “pelajaran dalam kelas”?

Both di and dalam relate to location, but:

di = at / in (neutral, very common place marker)
dalam = inside (more physical “inside-ness”)

For kelas:

di kelas – the normal, default phrase for “in class” (meaning during class / in the classroom).
dalam kelas – possible, but it feels more literal: inside the space of the classroom.

In this sentence, pelajaran di kelas is more natural. pelajaran dalam kelas is understandable but sounds slightly odd or overly literal in standard usage.

Does “memahami perasaan sendiri dan pelajaran di kelas” mean I’m understanding both my feelings and the lessons, with just one verb memahami? Is that okay in Malay?

Yes. This is normal and natural.

Structure:

memahami (verb)
- perasaan sendiri (object 1)
- dan (and)
- pelajaran di kelas (object 2)

So memahami applies to both objects:

memahami [perasaan sendiri] dan [pelajaran di kelas]
→ to understand [my own feelings] and [the lessons in class]

Malay, like English, allows one verb to have two joined objects like this.

Is the sentence formal or informal? Would people actually say it like this?

The sentence:

Kadang-kadang saya sukar memahami perasaan sendiri dan pelajaran di kelas.

is neutral in tone:

Vocabulary like sukar, memahami, perasaan, pelajaran is slightly on the standard/formal side.
The structure is natural and could appear in spoken or written Malay.

In everyday casual speech, people might make it a bit more informal:

Kadang-kadang saya susah nak faham perasaan sendiri dan pelajaran dalam kelas.
Kadang-kadang susah saya nak faham perasaan sendiri dan pelajaran di kelas.

So your original version is perfectly natural, especially for writing, self-reflection, or slightly more careful speech.

Is “kadang-kadang” always written with a hyphen? Can I use “kadangkala” instead?

kadang-kadang is the standard and very common form for “sometimes”, and yes, it normally has the hyphen.
kadangkala also exists and means the same thing. It’s a bit more literary or formal and is used less in everyday speech, but it is correct.

So you can say:

Kadang-kadang saya sukar memahami … – most common.
Kadangkala saya sukar memahami … – also correct, slightly more formal/poetic in feel.