Learn Hardcore Malay: Dompet saya berisi resit dan sedikit wang. - My wallet contains receipts and a little money.

Putting the pronoun first (saya dompet) is incorrect for possession and sounds ungrammatical. Saya dompet would just sound like two separate words, I, wallet, with no clear relationship.

What exactly is berisi? Is it a verb like contains, an adjective, or something else?

Berisi comes from the root isi (contents / filling) plus the prefix ber- (roughly “to have / to be with”).

It’s usually treated as a stative verb meaning to contain / to be filled with / to have contents.

So:

Dompet saya berisi resit
= Literally: My wallet is-content-with receipts
= Idiomatic: My wallet contains receipts

You can use berisi with things that have contents:

Botol itu berisi air.
That bottle contains water.
Kotak ini berisi buku.
This box contains books.

In English you’d normally call it a verb (contains), but it has a “state” flavour (like is full of).

Could I say Dompet saya ada resit dan sedikit wang instead of berisi? What’s the difference between berisi and ada here?

Yes, you can say:

Dompet saya ada resit dan sedikit wang.

Both are correct, but there is a nuance:

berisi – focuses on the wallet as a container and what is inside it.
ada – simply states that something exists / is there in the wallet.

In practice:

Dompet saya berisi resit dan sedikit wang.
= My wallet contains receipts and a little money. (container perspective)
Dalam dompet saya ada resit dan sedikit wang.
= In my wallet there are receipts and a little money. (existence/location)

All are natural; berisi just sounds a bit more like you’re describing its contents as a whole.

Why doesn’t resit have a plural ending? How do I know it means receipts and not a receipt?

Malay normally does not mark plural on nouns. There is no -s like in English.

So:

satu resit = one receipt
banyak resit = many receipts
resit by itself can mean receipt / receipts, depending on context.

If you really want to emphasise plurality, you can use:

resit-resit (reduplication)
or a quantity word: banyak resit, beberapa resit (several receipts).

In Dompet saya berisi resit, the default interpretation is receipts, because people usually have more than one receipt in a wallet, and Malay relies heavily on context for singular vs plural.

I’ve heard duit for money. Why is this sentence using wang? Is there a difference?

Both wang and duit mean money, but they differ in style:

wang
- More formal, used in writing, official contexts, banking, government, etc.
- Common in Standard Malay.
duit
- More colloquial / everyday speech.
- Very common in daily conversation.

So you could say:

Dompet saya berisi resit dan sedikit wang. (more formal/neutral)
Dompet saya ada resit dan sikit duit. (more casual spoken style)

They are interchangeable in meaning; the choice is about formality and tone, not grammar.

What does sedikit add here? Could I just say wang without sedikit?

Sedikit means a little / a small amount.

wang = money
sedikit wang = a little money / a small amount of money

You can say just wang, but it changes the meaning:

Dompet saya berisi resit dan wang.
= My wallet contains receipts and money. (no comment on how much)
Dompet saya berisi resit dan sedikit wang.
= My wallet contains receipts and a little money. (emphasises small amount)

So sedikit is important for the nuance “not much money”.

Is there any difference between sedikit and sikit?

They are very closely related:

sedikit
- More standard / formal.
- Common in writing and careful speech.
sikit
- More colloquial; everyday spoken Malay.
- Often sounds more casual.

Examples:

Saya ada sedikit masa. (standard / neutral)
Saya ada sikit masa. (more casual speech)

In your sentence, you could say in casual speech:

Dompet saya ada resit dan sikit duit.

Grammar-wise they function the same; it’s mainly a difference in style and register.

Why is it sedikit wang, not wang sedikit? Does word order matter here?

Yes, word order affects the nuance.

sedikit wang
- Sedikit comes before the noun.
- Means a little money / a small amount of money (quantity word).
wang sedikit
- Sedikit comes after the noun.
- Usually interpreted as the money is small (in amount), often more descriptive or contrastive.

In this sentence, sedikit wang is the natural way to express a little money as a quantity.

So:

Dia ada sedikit wang. = He has a little money.
Wang yang dia ada sedikit. = The money he has is little (in amount).

Why is there no word like some or any before resit? In English we’d say some receipts.

Malay usually does not use articles (a, an, the) or obligatory words like some / any. Bare nouns are very common.

So:

resit by itself can cover:
- a receipt, the receipt, some receipts, the receipts
  depending on context.

If you really need to show the idea of some, you can use:

beberapa resit = several receipts
beberapa helai resit = several pieces of receipt (more precise, with classifier)
sedikit resit = a few receipts (less common, but understandable)

But in most everyday contexts, just resit is enough and naturally understood as some receipts.

Can I say saya punya dompet berisi resit dan sedikit wang instead of dompet saya? Is there a difference?

Yes, you can say:

Saya punya dompet berisi resit dan sedikit wang.

The differences:

dompet saya
- The standard, neutral possessive form.
- Very widely used in all registers.
saya punya dompet
- More colloquial / spoken, and can sound a bit more emphatic:
  like saying my wallet (not someone else’s).

In careful writing or formal speech, dompet saya is preferred.
In casual conversation, both are possible, but dompet saya is still more common and natural.

Could I drop saya and just say Dompet berisi resit dan sedikit wang?

You can, but the meaning changes.

Dompet saya berisi…
= My wallet contains…
Dompet berisi…
= The wallet / a wallet contains… (no owner specified)

Malay often drops pronouns when they are obvious from context, but here:

If you want to clearly say it is your wallet, keep saya.
If you are talking about some wallet (for example in a story or report), you might say dompet itu (that wallet) or just dompet if it’s already clear.

How do we know if the sentence is present or past tense? Could it mean contained instead of contains?

Malay verbs generally do not change form for tense. Berisi is the same whether you mean contains, contained, or will contain.

Tense is understood from context or from time words:

Semalam dompet saya berisi resit dan sedikit wang.
Yesterday my wallet contained receipts and a little money.
Sekarang dompet saya berisi resit dan sedikit wang.
Now my wallet contains receipts and a little money.

Without extra time information, Dompet saya berisi resit dan sedikit wang is usually understood as present (contains now), but it could be past if the surrounding context is in the past.