Learn Hardcore Malay: Kami duduk di hujung bangku panjang itu.

Kami duduk... means We sat... (but not you).
If the speaker wanted to include the listener in the group that sat at the bench, they would say Kita duduk di hujung bangku panjang itu.

There’s no word for past tense here. How do we know duduk means “sat” and not “sit”?

Malay verbs usually do not change form for tense. Duduk can mean:

sit / are sitting (present)
sat / were sitting (past)
will sit (future), depending on context

We translate it as “sat” in English because the context (for example, the surrounding narration, or a time word like tadi “earlier”) would make it clear. If you really want to mark past tense, you can add words like:

tadi – earlier
sudah / telah – already

Example: Kami sudah duduk di hujung bangku panjang itu. → We had already sat at the end of that long bench.

Does duduk always mean “to sit”? I’ve seen it used differently.

Duduk literally means “to sit”, but in Malay it has extended meanings:

Physical sitting
- Kami duduk di hujung bangku. – We sat at the end of the bench.
To live / reside / stay (especially with a place)
- Saya duduk di Kuala Lumpur. – I live in Kuala Lumpur.
- Dia duduk dengan neneknya. – He/She lives with his/her grandmother.

In your sentence, the context (a bench) makes it clearly the physical meaning to sit.

What is the role of di here? Is it like “at”, “in”, or “on”?

Di is a general location preposition and can correspond to English “at”, “in”, or “on”, depending on context.

In this sentence:

di hujung bangku panjang itu → at the end of that long bench

Some rough guidelines:

di
- place: di rumah (at home), di sekolah (at school)
di atas = on top of
di dalam = inside

You could also say: Kami duduk di atas bangku panjang itu. – We sat on that long bench.
But di hujung bangku focuses on the end/edge of the bench, not just anywhere on it.

What exactly does hujung mean? Is it “end”, “edge”, “tip”, or something else?

Hujung generally means “end” or “tip” of something that has length:

hujung bangku – end of the bench
hujung jalan – end of the road
hujung pensel – tip/end of the pencil

It covers ideas like end, edge, or tip, depending on the noun. In your sentence, hujung is best translated as “the end” of the bench (the part far from the middle).

Does itu refer to the bench or to the end in di hujung bangku panjang itu?

Structurally, the phrase groups like this:

di [hujung [bangku panjang itu]]

So itu is attached to bangku panjang and describes the bench, not the “end”:

bangku panjang itu – that long bench
hujung bangku panjang itu – the end of that long bench
di hujung bangku panjang itu – at the end of that long bench

In normal interpretation, itu is pointing to a specific bench that both speaker and listener can identify.

Why is it bangku panjang and not panjang bangku? Where do adjectives go in Malay?

In Malay, adjectives normally come after the noun they describe:

bangku panjang – long bench
rumah besar – big house
kereta merah – red car

So bangku panjang is the correct order.
Panjang bangku would sound wrong or at least very odd in standard Malay; it could be interpreted as something like “the length of the bench” in some contexts, but not “a long bench” as a simple noun phrase.

What’s the difference between panjang and lama? Both can be translated as “long”, right?

Yes, both can translate as “long”, but they are used for different kinds of “length”:

panjang – long in physical length / distance
- bangku panjang – long bench
- rambut panjang – long hair
- jalan yang panjang – a long road
lama – long in time / duration
- masa yang lama – a long time
- Dia tunggu lama. – He/She waited a long time.

So bangku lama would mean an old bench, not a long one. Bangku panjang is correct for long bench.

Could I say Kami duduk di hujung bangku itu yang panjang instead? Is that correct?

Kami duduk di hujung bangku itu yang panjang is grammatically possible, but it sounds roundabout and unnatural for this meaning.

bangku panjang itu – that long bench (simple, natural)
bangku itu yang panjang – that bench, the one that is long (sounds like you’re contrasting it with another bench that is not long)

Your original sentence Kami duduk di hujung bangku panjang itu is the usual, smooth way to say “We sat at the end of that long bench.”

Could I drop di and say Kami duduk hujung bangku panjang itu?

In standard Malay, you should not drop di here. You need a preposition before a location noun:

Kami duduk di hujung bangku panjang itu. ✅
Kami duduk hujung bangku panjang itu. ❌ (non‑standard)

In very casual spoken language, people might say kat hujung (from di + hujung, colloquially kat), for example Kami duduk kat hujung bangku tu, but in proper written Malay, di is required.

Is di hujung bangku more like “at the end of the bench” or “on the end of the bench”? How should I think of it?

Di hujung bangku literally means “at the end of the bench”. It indicates position at that end section.

In English, you could translate it either as:

We sat *at the end of that long bench.*
We sat *on the end of that long bench.*

Malay doesn’t make that distinction here; di hujung just says you are located at that end part of the bench.

Is there any difference between Malay in Malaysia and Indonesian for this sentence, like hujung vs ujung?

Yes, there’s a small difference in vocabulary and spelling:

In Malay (Malaysia/Singapore/Brunei): hujung
In Indonesian: ujung

So the Indonesian equivalent would typically be:

Kami duduk di ujung bangku panjang itu.

The structure and meaning stay the same; only hujung/ujung changes according to the standard of the language variety.