Breakdown of Pada hujung minggu, kami menari bersama di ruang tamu sambil ketawa.
Questions & Answers about Pada hujung minggu, kami menari bersama di ruang tamu sambil ketawa.
Pada is a preposition often used with:
- Points/periods of time:
- pada hujung minggu – on/at the weekend
- pada pukul tiga – at three o’clock
- pada tahun 2020 – in the year 2020
You generally use pada before:
- Days: pada Isnin (on Monday)
- Dates: pada 5 Mei (on 5 May)
- Parts of the day: pada waktu malam (at night)
- Time phrases like pada hujung minggu (on weekends / at the weekend)
In casual speech, pada is sometimes dropped (for example, hujung minggu kami menari…), but using pada is safe and correct, especially in writing.
Hujung minggu is the standard, natural way to say weekend in Malay.
- hujung = end, tip
- minggu = week
- So hujung minggu = the end of the week → weekend
Akhir minggu is understandable (akhir = end), but it is not the usual phrase for “weekend” in everyday Malay. If you want to say weekend, use hujung minggu.
Yes, you can say:
- Pada hujung minggu, kami menari bersama di ruang tamu sambil ketawa.
- Kami menari bersama di ruang tamu pada hujung minggu sambil ketawa.
Both are grammatically correct and mean the same thing.
The difference is mainly emphasis:
- Starting with Pada hujung minggu puts a little extra focus on the time (“As for the weekend…”).
- Starting with Kami menari… is more neutral, like in English “We danced together in the living room at the weekend.”
Malay word order is flexible, especially for adverbials (time, place, manner), as long as the sentence remains clear.
Malay verbs usually do not change form for tense. Menari can mean:
- We dance (present)
- We danced (past)
- We will dance (future) – with context
Tense is understood from:
Time expressions:
- pada hujung minggu – suggests a specific weekend (often past or habitual)
- semalam (yesterday), tadi (earlier), nanti (later), etc.
Context or extra words:
- telah / sudah (already / has/have) for completed actions
- akan for future
So this sentence is understood as past because, in a typical story context, pada hujung minggu often refers to a previous weekend. If you wanted to be very explicit, you could say:
- Pada hujung minggu lepas, kami telah menari… – Last weekend, we danced…
Both kami and kita mean we / us, but:
- kami = we (not including the person being spoken to)
- kita = we (including the person being spoken to)
In this sentence:
- kami menari implies “we” refers to a group that does not include the listener.
Example: You are telling a friend what your family did last weekend.
If you want to include the listener (for example, reminding your friend of something you did together), you would say:
- Pada hujung minggu, kita menari bersama di ruang tamu sambil ketawa.
= On the weekend, we (you and I / all of us here) danced together…
Menari means to dance.
- Root word: tari (dance)
- Adding the prefix meN- forms the verb: menari
So:
- tari – dance (noun or root)
- menari – to dance (verb)
There is also berdansa (from Dutch/Portuguese/English influence), which can also mean “to dance”, often used in more specific or formal/ballroom contexts. Menari is the more general native Malay verb for dancing.
Bersama means together / with.
- menari bersama – dance together
- makan bersama – eat together
Bersama-sama also means together, but it can:
- Sound a bit more emphatic or collective:
- Kami menari bersama-sama – We really all danced together (emphasis on group action)
In everyday speech, bersama is enough. Bersama-sama is also correct; it just adds a sense of “all together” or slightly more emphasis.
In Malay:
di is used mainly for physical locations / places:
- di rumah – at home
- di sekolah – at school
- di ruang tamu – in/at the living room
pada is used more for:
- time: pada hujung minggu, pada pukul dua
- sometimes abstract / non-physical locations or “at” in a metaphorical sense
So here:
- di ruang tamu is correct because ruang tamu (living room) is a physical place.
- pada ruang tamu would sound wrong in this context.
Sambil means while / as / at the same time, and it is used when one subject is doing two actions simultaneously.
In this sentence:
- kami menari… sambil ketawa
= we danced while (we were) laughing
Key idea: one subject (kami) is doing both menari and ketawa at the same time.
Sementara also means while, but is usually used when there are two different subjects or two separate actions in parallel:
- Saya membaca sementara dia menulis.
I read while he/she writes.
So:
- sambil – same subject, two actions at once
- sementara – usually two different subjects, each doing an action
In Malay, when the subject is the same for both actions, you normally don’t repeat it after sambil.
Full underlying meaning:
- Kami menari bersama di ruang tamu sambil (kami) ketawa.
Because kami is already the subject of menari, and we know the same “we” are laughing, repeating kami is not necessary and sounds unnatural.
So the natural pattern is:
- Sub + Verb 1 … sambil Verb 2
- Dia makan sambil menonton TV. – He eats while watching TV.
- Kami menari sambil ketawa. – We danced while laughing.
Ketawa means to laugh.
- ketawa – common, neutral verb for laughing:
- Kami ketawa. – We laughed / we are laughing.
Related words:
- tertawa – more formal / literary, used more in written Malay or formal contexts. In many everyday situations, ketawa or gelak are more common.
- gelak or gelak ketawa – more colloquial, often used in casual speech, sometimes implying laughing out loud or laughing a lot:
- Mereka gelak kuat. – They laughed loudly.
In this sentence, sambil ketawa is neutral and natural: while laughing.
Yes, ruang tamu is the standard way to say living room in Malay.
- ruang = space / area
- tamu = guest
→ ruang tamu = guest area → the room where you receive guests = living room
Other related terms:
- bilik tetamu – guest room (a bedroom for guests), not the same as ruang tamu.
- ruang keluarga – family room (a separate informal family sitting area, if the house has one).
For a normal living room where you sit and talk with family or guests, ruang tamu is the usual phrase.