Learn Hardcore Malay: Pengawal keselamatan di pintu taman tasik mengingatkan kami supaya jangan menjerit. - The security guard at the entrance of the lake park reminded us not to shout.

Pengawal keselamatan di pintu taman tasik mengingatkan kami supaya jangan menjerit.

The security guard at the entrance of the lake park reminded us not to shout.

Breakdown of Pengawal keselamatan di pintu taman tasik mengingatkan kami supaya jangan menjerit.

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Questions & Answers about Pengawal keselamatan di pintu taman tasik mengingatkan kami supaya jangan menjerit.

What does pengawal keselamatan literally mean, and why is it keselamatan and not selamat?

Pengawal keselamatan is usually translated as security guard, but literally it breaks down as:

pengawal = guard / someone who guards
- root: kawal (to guard, control)
- prefix peN- forms an agent noun → pengawal = person who guards
keselamatan = safety / security
- root: selamat (safe)
- prefix ke-
  - suffix -an forms an abstract noun → keselamatan = the state of being safe

So pengawal keselamatan is literally “guard (of) safety”, i.e. a person whose job is to guard safety.

Using pengawal selamat would be wrong here; it would sound like “a guard who is safe”, not “security guard” as a job.

How should I understand di pintu taman tasik? What is the structure here?

di pintu taman tasik literally means “at the gate of the lake park”. Structurally:

di = at
pintu = door / gate / entrance
taman tasik = lake park (a park with a lake)

Malay noun phrases usually have the main noun first, then the modifier:

taman tasik = taman (park) + tasik (lake)
→ “park (of the) lake” → lake park

Then you get a bigger noun phrase:

pintu taman tasik = pintu (gate) + taman tasik (lake park)
→ “gate of the lake park”

With di in front:

di pintu taman tasik = at the gate of the lake park

Why is it di pintu taman tasik and not something like di pintu di taman tasik?

You only use di for the overall location phrase, not between nouns inside the noun phrase.

di pintu taman tasik
- one preposition di → “at [the gate of the lake park]”

If you say di pintu di taman tasik, it splits into:

“at the gate, at the lake park” – which is grammatical but sounds like two separate locations, and is less natural here.

Within pintu taman tasik, the relationships (“gate of the lake park”) are understood from the noun order, so extra di is not needed between the nouns.

What does supaya do in this sentence, and could it be left out or replaced?

In this sentence, supaya introduces the content or purpose of the reminder:

mengingatkan kami supaya jangan menjerit
≈ “reminded us (so that / that we should) not scream”

Functions of supaya here:

Links the main clause to the following clause
Often means so that / in order that, but in this kind of sentence it’s very close to that in English:
“reminded us that we must not scream”

Alternatives:

agar – very similar, a bit more formal:
mengingatkan kami agar jangan menjerit
supaya kami tidak menjerit – using tidak instead of jangan, a bit less like a direct command and more like “so that we would not be screaming”
untuk tidak menjerit – possible but more like “to not scream”, slightly more written or careful style.

If you completely drop supaya, the sentence starts to feel cut off:

✗ Pengawal keselamatan … mengingatkan kami jangan menjerit.
This is heard in casual speech but is less standard; supaya (or agar) makes it sound more complete and correct.

Why is jangan used here instead of tidak? Aren’t they both “not”?

Malay has different negation words for different functions:

tidak – negates verbs and adjectives in statements
- Saya tidak menjerit. = I am not screaming.
bukan – negates nouns or equatives
- Dia bukan pengawal. = He is not a guard.
jangan – used in negative commands / prohibitions
- Jangan menjerit! = Don’t scream!

In the sentence:

… mengingatkan kami supaya jangan menjerit.

The guard is effectively telling us “Don’t scream.” That’s a prohibition, so jangan is correct.

You can see versions like:

mengingatkan kami supaya kami tidak menjerit
= reminded us so that we would not scream

But supaya jangan menjerit keeps the feeling of a direct quoted command, like:

reminded us: “don’t scream.”

What is the difference between menjerit, jerit, and menjerit-jerit?

All are related to screaming / shouting, but they differ in form and nuance:

jerit
- Root word: “scream / yell / shriek”
- Often appears in dictionaries and fixed phrases
menjerit
- meN-
  - jerit → active verb
- Normal way to say to scream / to shout in a sentence:
  - Dia menjerit. = He/She screamed.
menjerit-jerit (reduplication)
- Suggests repeated or continuous screaming, or screaming a lot
- More intense or prolonged:
  - Anak kecil itu menjerit-jerit. = That small child was screaming and screaming / screaming repeatedly.

In your sentence, menjerit is neutral and appropriate: “not to scream” in general.

What exactly is mengingatkan? How is it formed, and how is it different from ingat or ingatkan?

The root is ingat = remember.

From that, you get:

ingat – to remember
- Ingat nama saya? = Do you remember my name?
ingatkan – to remind (often in more casual speech or as an imperative)
- Ingatkan saya esok. = Remind me tomorrow.
mengingatkan – to remind (full meN- … -kan form in a sentence)

Morphology:

meN- (verbal prefix) + ingat
- -kan (causative / object marker)
  → mengingatkan = “to cause (someone) to remember” → to remind

In your sentence:

Pengawal … mengingatkan kami…
= The guard reminded us…

mengingatkan is the typical formal/neutral form in a full sentence with an object (kami).

What is the difference between kami and kita here? Could the sentence use kita instead?

Both kami and kita mean “we / us”, but:

kami = we (excluding the listener)
- Used when the person you’re talking to is not part of the group.
kita = we (including the listener)
- Used when the person you’re talking to is part of the group.

In the sentence:

… mengingatkan kami supaya jangan menjerit.

This implies the speaker is telling someone not included in the group that was reminded:

e.g. You’re telling a friend: “The guard at the park gate reminded us (my family and I, not you) not to scream.”

If you said:

mengingatkan kita supaya jangan menjerit,

you’d be implying the listener was also part of the group being reminded (e.g. “The guard reminded all of us (you and me) not to scream”).

So yes, kita is grammatically possible, but the meaning changes.

Could this sentence be turned into the passive voice in Malay, and how would the nuance change?

Yes. A common passive version is:

Kami diingatkan oleh pengawal keselamatan di pintu taman tasik supaya jangan menjerit.
= We were reminded by the security guard at the gate of the lake park not to scream.

Differences:

Active (original):
Pengawal keselamatan … mengingatkan kami…
- Focus on the guard as the doer.
Passive:
Kami diingatkan oleh pengawal keselamatan…
- Focus on us as the ones who were reminded.
- The doer (oleh pengawal keselamatan) is optional and can be dropped:
  - Kami diingatkan supaya jangan menjerit.

Both are correct; choice depends on whether you want to highlight the guard or the group (kami).

Is jangan menjerit polite enough for a security guard to say, or would something else be more polite?

Jangan menjerit by itself is a plain prohibition: “Don’t scream.” It’s not rude, but it’s quite direct.

In real life, a security guard might soften it with polite markers:

Tolong jangan menjerit. = Please don’t scream.
Minta jangan menjerit. = We request that you don’t scream.
Boleh tak jangan menjerit? (more informal) = Could you not scream?

Your sentence is reporting the content of the reminder in a neutral way, so supaya jangan menjerit is fine grammatically. The actual spoken sentence by the guard might have included tolong or a more polite phrasing, but Malay often omits that detail when summarizing what someone said.