Learn Hardcore Malay: Di universiti, kami belajar bahawa kebebasan akademik datang bersama tanggungjawab menjaga kualiti kerja. - At university, we learn that academic freedom comes with the responsibility of maintaining the quality of work.

You cannot leave di out here if you want to say "At university" as a place.
Without di, universiti would sound like just the noun "university", not specifying location.

So:

Di universiti, kami belajar... = At university, we learned... ✅
Universiti, kami belajar... ❌ (unnatural; feels like “University, we learned…” without a preposition)

Why is it kami and not kita for “we” in this sentence?

Malay has two common words for "we":

kami = we (not including the listener) → exclusive
kita = we (including the listener) → inclusive

In this sentence:

Di universiti, kami belajar... implies:
- The speaker and their group learned this at university,
- but the listener is not part of that university group.

If the speaker wants to include the listener as part of the same group (for example, talking to classmates who were also there), they could say:

Di universiti, kita belajar bahawa...
= At university, we (you and I) learned that...

So kami is used because the “we” being talked about does not include the listener.

What does bahawa do here, and can it be omitted?

Bahawa is a conjunction meaning roughly "that" in English, introducing a clause:

kami belajar bahawa... = we learned that...

Function: It marks the start of a reported / content clause—what exactly was learned.

In modern, natural Malay:

Bahawa is often optional in speech, especially if the sentence is short or clear from context.
In more formal or written Malay (like academic or official writing), bahawa is common and sounds more precise.

So both are possible:

Kami belajar bahawa kebebasan akademik datang bersama tanggungjawab... ✅ (formal, clear)
Kami belajar kebebasan akademik datang bersama tanggungjawab... ✅ (more conversational; still acceptable)

It’s not wrong to omit bahawa here, but keeping it makes the sentence slightly more formal and explicit.

How is kebebasan akademik formed, and why is the order “kebebasan akademik” and not “akademik kebebasan”?

Kebebasan akademik literally breaks down as:

bebas = free
ke-...-an = a noun-forming prefix + suffix
→ kebebasan = freedom (the state of being free)
akademik = academic

In Malay noun phrases, the main noun usually comes first, and the describing word (adjective or classifier) comes after it:

kebebasan (freedom) + akademik (academic)
→ kebebasan akademik = academic freedom

This is similar to:

buku merah = red book
kebebasan bersuara = freedom of speech

You do not say akademik kebebasan; that would sound wrong, like saying “academic freedom” as “academic of freedom” with the words reversed.

Does datang bersama literally mean “come together with”? Is this a fixed expression?

Yes, datang bersama literally means “comes together (with)” or “comes along with”.
In this sentence:

kebebasan akademik datang bersama tanggungjawab...
≈ academic freedom comes with the responsibility...

Here:

datang = come
bersama = together (with)

The combination datang bersama is not a strict idiom, but it’s a very natural way to say that one thing is accompanied by another.

Alternatives with similar meaning:

...disertai tanggungjawab... = is accompanied by responsibility
...datang dengan tanggungjawab... = comes with responsibility
...seiring dengan tanggungjawab... = goes in line with responsibility

All are acceptable, but datang bersama is simple, clear, and natural.

What is the structure of tanggungjawab menjaga kualiti kerja? How is a noun followed by a verb like this working?

Let’s break it down:

tanggungjawab = responsibility
menjaga = to look after / to maintain / to guard
kualiti kerja = quality of (the) work

In Malay, a noun + verb can form a noun phrase meaning "the responsibility to (do something)" or "the duty of (doing something)":

tanggungjawab menjaga kualiti kerja
= the responsibility of maintaining the quality of work
= the responsibility to maintain the quality of work

This is similar to English structures like:

“the obligation to pay”
“the duty to protect”

So tanggungjawab menjaga... can be read as:

tanggungjawab (untuk) menjaga...
The word untuk (to) is often understood and not needed explicitly.

You could say:

tanggungjawab untuk menjaga kualiti kerja
This is also correct and a bit more explicit, but the original without untuk is very natural.

What exactly does menjaga mean here? Is it “keep”, “protect”, or “maintain”?

Menjaga is quite flexible and can mean:

to look after
to guard / protect
to keep / maintain
to take care of

In this context:

menjaga kualiti kerja
→ to maintain the quality of (one’s) work

So the best English equivalents here would be:

“to maintain the quality of work”
“to uphold the quality of work”

All the ideas of care, protection, and maintaining standards are wrapped into menjaga.

Why is it kualiti kerja and not something like kualiti kerja itu or with a preposition for “of”? How does “quality of work” work structurally?

Kualiti kerja is a standard noun + noun structure:

kualiti = quality
kerja = work

In Malay, you often express “X of Y” just by putting the two nouns together:

kualiti kerja = quality (of) work
harga rumah = price (of the) house
masalah bahasa = problems (of) language / language problems

You don’t need a word like “of” here. The relationship is shown by word order.

You could add more detail:

kualiti kerja itu = the quality of that work
kualiti kerja kami = the quality of our work
kualiti kerja para pensyarah = the quality of the lecturers’ work

But for a general statement about the idea of “quality of work” as a concept, kualiti kerja is the natural minimal form.

There’s no tense marker like “did learn” or “have learned”. How do we know the time of kami belajar? Could we make it clearly past?

Malay verbs do not change form for tense (past / present / future).
So belajar can mean:

learn / are learning / learned, depending on context.

In this sentence, the time is understood from:

The context “at university” (often a specific period in the past)
Real-world knowledge (you usually talk about what you learned there)

If you want to make the past time explicit, you can add time markers:

Dulu di universiti, kami belajar bahawa...
= In the past, at university, we learned that...
Semasa di universiti, kami belajar bahawa...
= While at university, we learned that...
Di universiti, kami telah belajar bahawa...
= At university, we have learned that... (telah is formal; used for completed actions)

But even without these markers, kami belajar is perfectly normal; the time reference comes from context, not verb endings.

Can the word order be changed, for example: Kami belajar di universiti bahawa...? Is the comma after Di universiti important?

Yes, the word order can be changed, and the meaning stays basically the same.

Original:

Di universiti, kami belajar bahawa kebebasan akademik...
Focuses slightly on the location/time first (“At university, …”).

Alternative:

Kami belajar di universiti bahawa kebebasan akademik...
Puts the subject first (“We learned at university that …”).
This is also natural and grammatical.

About the comma:

In writing, “Di universiti, ...” is treated as a fronted phrase (a prepositional phrase giving context), so a comma is usually added.
In speech, you would naturally pause after “Di universiti”, which the comma represents.

If you move di universiti to the middle (after kami belajar), you usually don’t put a comma:

Kami belajar di universiti bahawa... (no comma needed)

So:

Changing word order is allowed here.
The comma is mostly about natural pause and clarity in writing, not about changing the meaning.