Learn Hardcore Malay: Pasukan sekolah saya kalah dalam pertandingan bola semalam. - My school team lost in the football competition yesterday.

If you just mean a casual group of people, you might also hear kumpulan (“group”) instead of pasukan, but for a sports team, pasukan is very natural and common.

Why is it pasukan sekolah saya and not sekolah saya pasukan, like “my school team” in English?

Malay noun phrases are typically ordered head + modifier, the opposite of English in many cases.

pasukan = head noun (“team”)
sekolah saya = modifier (“my school”)

So:

pasukan sekolah saya
literally: team [of] my school
natural English: my school team

Compare:

guru sekolah saya = the teacher of my school / my school’s teacher
baju adik saya = my younger sibling’s shirt

We do not say ✗ sekolah saya pasukan. The possessed thing (team, teacher, shirt) comes first, and the possessor comes after.

What’s the role of saya here? Does it mean “I” or “my”?

Saya is the first-person singular pronoun. It can mean “I” or indicate “my”, depending on position:

When used alone as the subject:
Saya = I
- Saya lapar. = I’m hungry.
When it comes after a noun, it makes the noun possessive (my):
sekolah saya = my school
pasukan sekolah saya = my school’s team / my school team

So saya works like “I / me / my”, but Malay doesn’t change the form; position tells you the function.

Could I say pasukan sekolah aku instead of pasukan sekolah saya?

Yes, grammatically you can, but the register (formality level) changes.

saya = neutral, polite, standard
aku = casual, intimate, sometimes poetic

So:

pasukan sekolah saya
– polite/neutral, good for speaking to teachers, strangers, in writing, etc.
pasukan sekolah aku
– more casual, used with close friends, siblings, or in songs/poetry.

In formal or standard Malay (especially in class, exams, or writing), saya is safer and more appropriate.

Is kalah a verb (“to lose”) or an adjective (“lost”) in this sentence?

In Malay, kalah functions mostly like an intransitive verb meaning “to lose (a game/contest/fight)”, but you can also think of it as “to be in a losing state”.

Here:

Pasukan sekolah saya kalah…
= My school team lost…

Key points:

It doesn’t take a direct object the way English lose does.
You don’t normally say ✗ kalah pertandingan (“lose the match”) directly.

Instead, you use prepositions:

kalah dalam pertandingan = lose in the competition
kalah kepada pasukan lawan = lose to the opposing team

So treat kalah as its own complete predicate: “(they) lost”.

Why do we say dalam pertandingan bola? Could we use di or pada instead?

Dalam here roughly means “in (the context of)” or “during”.

kalah dalam pertandingan bola
= lost in the ball game / in the match

Alternatives:

pada pertandingan bola – also possible, more like “in / at the match”
di pertandingan bola – also heard, but di is more literally “at (a place)”, so some speakers prefer dalam or pada for events and competitions.

Natural options:

kalah dalam pertandingan bola ✅
kalah pada pertandingan bola ✅
kalah di pertandingan bola ✅ but slightly more colloquial/regional in feel

Dalam is very common and safe in standard Malay for “in (a competition)”.

What exactly does pertandingan bola mean? What kind of “ball” is this?

Literally:

pertandingan = competition / contest / match
bola = ball

So pertandingan bola = ball game / ball match / ball competition.

In everyday context, especially in Malaysia, bola often implies football (soccer), because that’s the most popular “ball” sport. But it can be ambiguous.

More specific forms:

pertandingan bola sepak = football / soccer match
pertandingan bola jaring = netball match
pertandingan bola keranjang (or bola bakar in some places) = basketball game

If you need clarity, it’s better to say pertandingan bola sepak, etc.

How is past tense shown here? There’s no word like “did” or “was”.

Malay usually does not change the verb for tense. There are no verb endings for past, present, or future.

Past time is usually shown by:

Time words:
- semalam = last night / yesterday night
- tadi = just now / earlier
- kelmarin = the day before yesterday (in some regions simply “yesterday”)
Optional particles like sudah or telah (both roughly “already” / past marker), which are often omitted in casual speech.

In this sentence:

semalam is enough to show the action was in the past.
If you wanted to make the past very explicit, you could say:
Pasukan sekolah saya telah/sudah kalah dalam pertandingan bola semalam.
(My school team has already lost / lost in the ball match last night.)

But in normal conversation, the original sentence is perfectly natural for past tense.

Can I move semalam to the front: Semalam, pasukan sekolah saya kalah…?

Yes. Time expressions are flexible in Malay. Both are correct:

Pasukan sekolah saya kalah dalam pertandingan bola semalam.
Semalam, pasukan sekolah saya kalah dalam pertandingan bola.

Differences:

Starting with semalam puts extra emphasis on when it happened.
Putting semalam at the end is the most common, neutral word order.

Both are natural and grammatical.

If I want to say “My school team did not lose in the match yesterday night”, how do I negate kalah?

Use tidak (often shortened to tak in casual speech) to negate kalah:

Pasukan sekolah saya tidak kalah dalam pertandingan bola semalam.
= My school team did not lose in the ball game last night.

Casual/colloquial:

Pasukan sekolah saya tak kalah dalam pertandingan bola semalam.

Position:

tidak/tak goes right before the verb/adjective being negated:
- tidak kalah = did not lose
- tidak menang = did not win
- tidak sedih = not sad

How would I say “My school team won the match last night” instead?

You replace kalah (lose) with menang (win):

Pasukan sekolah saya menang dalam pertandingan bola semalam.
= My school team won in the ball game last night.

Again, you could also use pada instead of dalam:

Pasukan sekolah saya menang pada pertandingan bola semalam.

Does pasukan mean one team or multiple teams? How do you make it plural?

Pasukan by itself is number-neutral: it can mean “team” or “teams” depending on context.

In this sentence, because we’re talking about my school team, it’s clearly one team.

To emphasize plurality, you can:

Reduplicate:
- pasukan-pasukan = teams (many teams)
Add a number or quantifier:
- dua pasukan = two teams
- banyak pasukan = many teams

Examples:

Dua pasukan sekolah saya kalah semalam.
= Two of my school’s teams lost last night.

But pasukan alone is fine when the context makes it clear.

Is this sentence Malay or Indonesian? Would Indonesian say it differently?

The sentence is in Malay, and it’s perfectly natural in Malaysian usage.

A very natural Indonesian version would typically be:

Tim sekolah saya kalah dalam pertandingan bola kemarin.

Main differences:

pasukan (Malay) → tim (Indonesian common word for sports team)
semalam (last night) → kemarin (yesterday)
- Indonesian normally uses kemarin for “yesterday” (all day),
  while Malay semalam is more specifically “last night”.

You can hear pasukan and semalam in Indonesian, but they sound less typical or a bit formal/poetic in everyday Indonesian.