Learn Hardcore Malay: Mi di gerai hujung jalan itu murah dan sedap. - The noodles at the stall at the end of that road are cheap and delicious.

In this sentence, mi refers to “the noodle dish” sold at that stall – not just raw noodles. It’s like saying “the noodles” or “the noodle dish” in English, depending on context. Malay doesn’t force you to say whether it’s one plate or many; mi can cover both unless you specify with a number or a classifier (e.g. sepinggan mi = one plate of noodles).

Why is there no word for “are” (as in “are cheap and delicious”) in the Malay sentence?

Malay usually does not use a separate verb “to be” before adjectives or location phrases.

English: The noodles are cheap and delicious.
Malay: Mi … murah dan sedap.
Literally: “The noodles cheap and delicious.”

The adjectives murah and sedap themselves act like a verb phrase here: they say what the noodles are.

You can use adalah in some situations, but:

It’s mostly used in formal writing, or
Before nouns, not so much before adjectives.

So “Mi di gerai hujung jalan itu adalah murah dan sedap” is technically possible but sounds overly formal or awkward in everyday speech.

What does di mean here, and how is it different from ke and dari?

di is a preposition meaning “at / in / on”, depending on context. Here, di gerai… = “at the stall…”

The three basic location-related prepositions:

di = at / in / on (location, no movement)
- di gerai – at the stall
- di rumah – at home
ke = to / toward (movement to a place)
- ke gerai – to the stall
- ke rumah – to (someone’s) house
dari = from (movement away from a place)
- dari gerai – from the stall
- dari rumah – from home

So here, you’re describing where the noodles are available, not where they’re going, so di is the right choice.

What exactly is a gerai? How is it different from kedai?

Gerai is usually a stall, booth, or small stand, especially for selling food or small items. Think of:

A hawker stall
A food stall at a market
A booth at a bazaar

Kedai is a more general shop or store, and can be:

A bigger, more permanent place (e.g. kedai runcit – grocery shop)
A café/restaurant (e.g. kedai makan, kedai kopi)

So gerai often suggests a smaller, more informal stall (often open-air or semi-permanent), whereas kedai is more like a shop or restaurant.

How should I understand the phrase “gerai hujung jalan itu” word by word?

Breakdown:

gerai – stall
hujung – end, tip, far end
jalan – road, street
itu – that / the (specific one)

Malay often stacks nouns/phrases after the main noun to describe it. So:

gerai hujung jalan itu
≈ “the stall (at) the end of that road”
or more literally: “the end-of-road stall, that (one)”

The head noun is gerai, and hujung jalan itu is telling you which stall it is.

Why is itu at the end of “gerai hujung jalan itu”? Can itu mean “the”?

Itu is a demonstrative meaning “that”, and in Malay:

Demonstratives (ini = this, itu = that) usually come after the noun phrase:
- gerai itu – that stall / the stall
- jalan itu – that road / the road

When you have a longer noun phrase, itu still goes at the end of the whole phrase:

hujung jalan itu – the end of that road
gerai hujung jalan itu – the stall at the end of that road

In English we often translate itu as “that”, but in context it often works like a specific “the” (referring to something known to both speaker and listener), e.g. “that particular stall”.

Could I say “di gerai di hujung jalan itu” instead? What’s the difference?

Yes, you can say:

Mi di gerai di hujung jalan itu murah dan sedap.

This would be understood as:

“The noodles at the stall at the end of that road are cheap and delicious.”

Comparing:

di gerai hujung jalan itu
- Feels like “at the end‑of‑road stall (that one)”
- A bit more compact; treats “gerai hujung jalan itu” as one descriptive unit.
di gerai di hujung jalan itu
- More literally, “at the stall at the end of that road”
- Two di-phrases: di gerai (at the stall) and di hujung jalan itu (at the end of that road).

Both are grammatical and natural. The original version is just slightly more “compressed” as a single noun phrase.

What does hujung mean, and where else can I use it?

Hujung basically means “end”, “tip”, or “far end” of something.

Common uses:

hujung jalan – the end of the road
hujung minggu – weekend (literally: end of the week)
hujung tahun – end of the year
hujung rambut – hair tips, hair ends
di hujung sana – at the far end over there

In this sentence, hujung jalan is “the end of the road”, and then itu makes it “that particular road”.

In “murah dan sedap”, why are the adjectives at the end, and why don’t we use adalah?

Here “murah dan sedap” is the predicate (what we’re saying about the noodles):

Mi di gerai hujung jalan itu – subject/topic
murah dan sedap – predicate (cheap and delicious)

Malay allows adjectives to function directly as the predicate, so no extra word like “is/are” is needed:

Mi ini sedap. – This noodle dish is delicious.
Gerai itu murah. – That stall is cheap.

Adalah is mostly used:

In formal contexts, and
Usually before nouns, e.g.
- Dia adalah doktor. – He/She is a doctor.

Before adjectives, adalah is usually unnecessary and can sound stiff or overly formal in everyday speech. So “Mi … murah dan sedap” is the normal way to say it.

How do I say “very cheap” or “really delicious” in this sentence? Where do I put words like sangat or sekali?

You can use common intensifiers like:

sangat – very
amat – very (formal-ish)
sekali – very / extremely (comes after the adjective)
memang – indeed / really (often before the whole adjective phrase)

Examples with your sentence:

Mi di gerai hujung jalan itu sangat murah dan sangat sedap.
– … is very cheap and very delicious.
Mi di gerai hujung jalan itu murah sekali dan sedap sekali.
– … is extremely cheap and extremely delicious.
Mi di gerai hujung jalan itu memang murah dan sedap.
– … is really cheap and delicious / is indeed cheap and delicious.

Placement patterns:

Before an adjective: sangat murah, sangat sedap
After an adjective: murah sekali, sedap sekali
Before the whole predicate: memang murah dan sedap

How do plurals work here? Does mi mean “noodle” or “noodles”?

Malay does not usually mark plural on the noun itself. So mi can mean:

“noodle” (as a type / dish), or
“noodles” (the actual servings)

Context fills in the number. To be explicit, Malay uses:

Reduplication:
- mi-mi – noodles (plural, rarely used in this case)
Numbers + classifier:
- tiga pinggan mi – three plates of noodles
Quantifiers:
- banyak mi – a lot of noodles

In this sentence, mi naturally reads as “the noodles / the noodle dish” without needing a plural marker.

Why is di written separately here, but sometimes I see it joined to another word like dibeli?

Malay has two different di forms:

Preposition “di” (separate word) – location:
- di gerai – at the stall
- di rumah – at home
- Always written separately.
Prefix “di-” (joined) – passive voice marker on verbs:
- dibeli – is bought / was bought
- dibaca – is read / was read
- Always written attached to the verb.

In your sentence, di is the preposition “at”, so it must be separate: di gerai, not digerai.

Is there another natural way to say this, maybe starting with the place instead of the noodles?

Yes, Malay is quite flexible with word order for topic–comment sentences. For example:

Di gerai hujung jalan itu, mi murah dan sedap.
– At the stall at the end of the road, the noodles are cheap and delicious.

You can also add emphasis:

Di gerai hujung jalan itu, mi memang murah dan sedap.
– At the stall at the end of the road, the noodles really are cheap and delicious.

Putting the place first highlights the location, then comments about what the noodles are like there.

What’s the nuance of sedap compared to words like lazat or enak?

All three can relate to good taste, but their feel and usage differ:

sedap
- Very common and informal in Malay.
- Means “tasty / delicious” and can also mean “pleasant” in some contexts (e.g. sedap didengar – pleasant to hear).
- Default word you’ll hear in daily speech for yummy food.
lazat
- More formal or descriptive, often in writing, menus, ads.
- Closer to “delicious” in a slightly elevated tone.
- Makanan yang lazat – delicious food.
enak
- Extremely common in Indonesian; also understood in Malaysia but heard less often in daily Malay in some regions.
- Means “tasty / nice / pleasant”.

In your sentence, sedap is the most natural everyday choice: “… murah dan sedap.” sounds casual, spoken, and authentic.

How do you pronounce each word in the sentence?

Approximate pronunciation (Malay is quite phonetic):

Mi – “mee”
- /miː/
di – “dee”
- /di/
gerai – “guh-rye” (one syllable “ger” like gə in ago, then “rye”)
- /gə.rai/ or /gə.raɪ/
- g is always hard, like in go.
hujung – “hoo-joong”
- /hu.dʒuŋ/
- j like English “j” in jam; final ng as in sing.
jalan – “jah-lan”
- /dʒa.lan/
- Both a like the “a” in father.
itu – “ee-too”
- /i.tu/
murah – “moo-rah”
- /mu.rah/
- Final h is lightly breathed, often almost silent in casual speech.
dan – “dahn”
- /dan/
- Short, like “dun” but with a clearer a.
sedap – roughly “suh-dahp”
- /sə.dap/
- e in se- is like the “a” in sofa;
- Final p is unreleased (lips close but you don’t strongly “pop” it).

Spoken smoothly, the sentence flows as:
“mee dee guh-RYE hoo-JOONG JAH-lan EE-too MOO-rah dan suh-DAP” (with natural rhythm, not robotically separated).