Learn Hardcore Malay: Lagi banyak ikan dan telur saya masak di kuali, lagi kuat bau minyak di hidung saya. - The more fish and eggs I cook in the pan, the stronger the smell of oil is at my nose.

Lagi banyak ikan dan telur saya masak di kuali
→ The more fish and eggs I cook in the pan
lagi kuat bau minyak di hidung saya
→ the stronger the smell of oil is in my nose.

So the pattern is:

Lagi + adjective/quantity/verb phrase, lagi + adjective/verb phrase

Other near-equivalents of this structure are:

Semakin ... semakin ...
Makin ... makin ...

All three are used in everyday Malay. Lagi is very common in speech; semakin/makin often feel a bit more neutral or textbook-like, but all are understandable and acceptable in many contexts.

2. Should there be a yang after ikan dan telur (i.e. "ikan dan telur yang saya masak")?

In more careful or standard Malay, you would very often see:

Lagi banyak ikan dan telur yang saya masak di kuali, lagi kuat bau minyak di hidung saya.

Here, yang marks "ikan dan telur" as the thing being described by the clause "saya masak di kuali" → the fish and eggs that I cook in the pan.

In the original sentence:

Lagi banyak ikan dan telur saya masak di kuali ...

the yang is simply dropped, which is common in everyday spoken Malay when the meaning is clear. So:

With yang → more explicit, clearer, slightly more formal/standard.
Without yang → more casual/colloquial, still understandable in context.

For a learner, it's safer and clearer to include yang, but knowing that native speakers often drop it will help you understand real-life speech.

3. Why is the word order "Lagi banyak ikan dan telur saya masak di kuali" instead of "Saya masak lagi banyak ikan dan telur di kuali"?

Both are grammatical, but they have slightly different focus:

Lagi banyak ikan dan telur saya masak di kuali, ...
- Fronts "lagi banyak ikan dan telur" to line up with the second clause:
  - Lagi banyak ..., lagi kuat ...
- This makes the comparison structure (“the more X, the more Y”) stand out.
- It emphasizes the amount of fish and eggs.
Saya masak lagi banyak ikan dan telur di kuali, ...
- More neutral subject-first order: subject (saya) + verb (masak) + object (lagi banyak ikan dan telur).
- Still understandable as “I cook more fish and eggs in the pan…”.

Malay is quite flexible with word order, especially when you want to emphasize something. In this comparative pattern, pulling the "lagi ..." phrase to the front is very natural because it mirrors the English pattern "The more X, the more Y", just with lagi instead of "the more".

4. What is the difference between masak and memasak, and why is masak used here?

Both come from the same root, but they differ in formality and nuance:

masak
- Base/root form.
- Can be a verb: to cook
  - Saya masak ikan. – I cook fish.
- Can be an adjective: cooked, ripe
  - Nasi dah masak. – The rice is cooked.
memasak
- The meN- form of the verb (me- + masak → memasak).
- More explicitly verbal, often slightly more formal or written.
- Used when you want a clear transitive verb:
  - Saya sedang memasak ikan. – I am cooking fish.

In everyday spoken Malay, the root form "masak" is extremely common and sounds very natural:

Lagi banyak ikan dan telur saya masak di kuali ...

You could say:

Lagi banyak ikan dan telur yang saya memasak di kuali – but this sounds awkward; you’d normally keep masak there, or move memasak into a different structure:
Lagi banyak ikan dan telur yang saya *memasaknya di kuali, ...* (still a bit clunky in normal speech)

So in this exact sentence, masak (root form) is the most natural choice.

5. What exactly does kuali mean, and why is di used (which often means "in") when we might say "in/on the pan" in English?

kuali in Malay usually refers to:

A wok or frying pan, especially one that sits on the stove.

It doesn’t distinguish strongly between “wok” and “frying pan” the way English does; context fills in the image.

The preposition di is a general location preposition meaning "at / in / on" depending on context. Malay does not have separate basic prepositions for "in" vs. "on" like English.

di kuali literally: at/in/on the pan/wok
→ understood as in the pan / in the wok.

Some rough correspondences:

in the pan → di dalam kuali / dalam kuali
on the pan (if you really need on the surface) → di atas kuali

But in cooking contexts, di kuali is both natural and sufficient.

6. In bau minyak di hidung saya, is bau a noun ("smell") or a verb ("to smell")?

Here, bau is a noun meaning "smell" or "scent":

bau minyak → the smell of oil

So the structure is:

lagi kuat (more/stronger)
bau minyak (smell of oil)
di hidung saya (in my nose)

→ the smell of oil in my nose gets stronger / is stronger.

If bau were a verb, you’d have something like:

Saya bau minyak. – I smell oil.
Saya membau minyak. – (more formal/marked) I smell oil.

In the given sentence, bau clearly behaves as a noun phrase (modified by kuat, minyak, and di hidung saya), not as a verb.

7. Why is kuat used for a smell? I thought kuat meant "strong" (like a strong person) or "loud".

kuat is a versatile adjective meaning "strong / intense" in many senses:

Physical strength:
- Dia sangat kuat. – He/She is very strong.
Loudness:
- Suara dia kuat. – His/Her voice is loud.
Smell or taste:
- Bau durian ini kuat. – The durian smell is strong.
- Rasa kopi ini kuat. – The taste of this coffee is strong.

So lagi kuat bau minyak means:

the smell of oil is stronger / more intense.

Malay often uses kuat where English uses "strong", "intense", or even "heavy" (e.g. a heavy smell). There is no separate adjective just for “strong smell”; kuat covers that meaning.

8. Why don’t we see any plurals or words like "a/the" with ikan and telur? How do we know it means multiple fish and eggs?

Malay generally:

does not use articles like "a/an/the".
does not mark plural nouns the way English does.

Number is often understood from context or from quantifiers. In the first clause:

lagi banyak ikan dan telur
- banyak = many/much
- Together, this implies more than one fish and egg.

If you want to be very explicit about countable units, you can use classifiers:

ekor – classifier for animals (fish, chicken, etc.)
biji – classifier for small roundish things, including eggs.

Examples:

Lagi banyak *ekor ikan dan biji telur saya masak di kuali ...
– The more *fish (by piece) and eggs (by egg) I cook in the pan ...

In normal speech, just ikan dan telur with banyak is enough to convey “fish and eggs (plural)” without needing articles like "some" or "the".

9. Could we use semakin, makin, or lebih instead of lagi here? Are they interchangeable?

In this paired comparative structure, the most natural options are:

Lagi ... lagi ...
Semakin ... semakin ...
Makin ... makin ...

So you could say:

Semakin banyak ikan dan telur saya masak di kuali, semakin kuat bau minyak di hidung saya.
Makin banyak ikan dan telur saya masak di kuali, makin kuat bau minyak di hidung saya.

All three are understandable. Nuance:

lagi – very common in everyday speech; feels casual/neutral.
makin – common in spoken Malay; slightly shorter/slangier feel.
semakin – often slightly more formal or “textbook”, but still common in speech.

lebih works differently; it usually appears as a single comparative:

Ikan ini *lebih besar.* – This fish is bigger.
Lagi banyak ikan saya masak, *lebih kuat bau minyak di hidung saya.*
– The more fish I cook, the stronger the smell of oil in my nose.

So:

Use lagi/semakin/makin ... lagi/semakin/makin ... for the “the more X, the more Y” pattern.
Use lebih inside one clause if you just want "more / -er" (stronger, bigger, etc.).

10. Is this sentence natural Malay, and how might a native speaker also say it?

The sentence is understandable and acceptable, especially in a casual or spoken context:

Lagi banyak ikan dan telur saya masak di kuali, lagi kuat bau minyak di hidung saya.

A few tweaks would make it sound a bit more standard/natural to many native speakers:

Add yang after ikan dan telur:
- Lagi banyak ikan dan telur yang saya masak di kuali, lagi kuat bau minyak di hidung saya.
Optionally make the second clause slightly more explicit:
- Lagi kuat bau minyak yang saya hidu. – the stronger the smell of oil that I inhale/smell.
- Lagi kuat bau minyak masuk hidung saya. – the stronger the smell of oil entering my nose.

Possible very natural variant:

Lagi banyak ikan dan telur yang saya masak dalam kuali, lagi kuat bau minyak yang saya hidu.

But your original structure with lagi ... lagi ... is perfectly fine as a learning example and matches what many people would say in informal speech.