Breakdown of Di rumah, saya susun poskad zoo dalam bukuku yang tebal.
Questions & Answers about Di rumah, saya susun poskad zoo dalam bukuku yang tebal.
Di is a preposition that usually means at / in / on when talking about location.
- Di rumah = at home / in the house
- It marks a static location (no movement).
Compare:
- di rumah – at home (location)
- ke rumah – to the house (movement towards)
- dari rumah – from the house (movement away)
In the sentence, Di rumah tells us where the action (arranging the postcards) happens.
The comma is mainly for clarity in writing. It separates the place phrase from the main clause:
- Di rumah, saya susun poskad zoo dalam bukuku yang tebal.
You can also move the place phrase to the end:
- Saya susun poskad zoo dalam bukuku yang tebal di rumah.
Both are grammatically correct. Differences:
- Di rumah, saya…
– sounds a bit more like you are setting the scene first, then telling what you do there. - … di rumah at the end
– sounds more neutral, just adding the location as extra information.
Spoken Malay often doesn’t pause much, but in writing the comma is standard when you front a phrase like Di rumah.
The base verb is susun, meaning to arrange / to put in order / to stack.
- menyusun is the meN- verb form (more formal or standard):
- Saya menyusun poskad. – I arrange the postcards.
- susun without meN- is very common in informal or neutral Malay:
- Saya susun poskad.
In many everyday sentences, especially in conversation and simple writing, speakers drop the meN- prefix:
- Saya baca buku. (standard: Saya membaca buku.)
- Dia tulis surat. (standard: Dia menulis surat.)
Your sentence is perfectly natural in everyday Malay with susun.
Susun means to arrange / to organize / to put in order, usually with some sense of:
- sequence (e.g. arranging by date, size, type), or
- neatness (stacking, lining things up).
In this sentence:
- saya susun poskad zoo dalam bukuku yang tebal
= I arrange the zoo postcards in my thick book.
So it implies you are not just putting them anywhere, but organizing them in some orderly way (for example, placing them neatly between the pages or in pockets).
Malay often uses noun + noun to form a compound, without extra words:
- poskad zoo
literally “zoo postcard(s)”, understood as postcard(s) of/from the zoo.
No word like of is needed. Similar patterns:
- baju sekolah – school uniform (lit. school shirt/clothes)
- tiket bas – bus ticket
- kad bank – bank card
So poskad zoo is a natural way to say zoo postcards in Malay.
On its own, poskad is number-neutral in Malay:
- poskad can mean a postcard or postcards, depending on context.
If you want to be explicit:
- sehelai poskad – one postcard (using a classifier)
- beberapa poskad – several postcards
- banyak poskad – many postcards
- semua poskad – all the postcards
In your sentence, poskad zoo could easily be understood as more than one, because the action susun (arrange) usually involves multiple items.
Dalam means in / inside.
- dalam bukuku – in my book / inside my book
Comparison:
- di – at / in / on (general location)
- di rumah – at home
- dalam – inside (emphasizes being inside something)
- dalam beg – inside the bag
- di dalam – literally “at in”, often used to emphasize “inside” or in more formal style:
- di dalam buku – inside the book
In many everyday sentences:
- dalam buku and di dalam buku can both mean in/inside the book.
- dalam bukuku here sounds natural and not overly formal.
-ku is a possessive suffix meaning my.
- buku – book
- bukuku – my book
There are two common ways to say my book:
- bukuku – book-my (attached suffix)
- buku saya – book I (possessive pronoun after the noun)
Differences:
- bukuku
- slightly more literary / written vibe
- can sound more personal / intimate in some contexts
- buku saya
- very common in everyday speech and writing
- feels more neutral
In your sentence, you could also say:
- dalam buku saya yang tebal – perfectly correct, just a slightly different style.
Yang is a linking word used:
- to introduce adjectives that describe a noun, and
- to introduce relative clauses (like that / which / who in English).
Here it links bukuku (my book) with tebal (thick):
- bukuku yang tebal – my book that is thick / my thick book
Structure:
- buku – noun
- ku – my
- yang – that/which (linker)
- tebal – thick
So yang is required here to connect the noun bukuku to the descriptive word tebal.
Normally, no. In Malay, adjectives almost always come after the noun (often with yang when the structure is a bit longer or more specific).
Patterns:
- buku tebal – thick book
- bukuku yang tebal – my book that is thick / my thick book
- rumah besar – big house
- kereta merah – red car
Putting the adjective before the noun (like tebal buku) is not standard Malay for this meaning.
So:
- buku tebal – correct
- tebal buku – incorrect for “thick book” (it could appear in other grammatical patterns, but not as a simple noun phrase).
Yes, that is also correct:
- Di rumah saya susun poskad zoo dalam buku tebal saya.
Differences from the original:
bukuku yang tebal → buku tebal saya
- both mean my thick book.
- bukuku yang tebal has a slightly more written/literary feel.
- buku tebal saya is very natural and common in speech.
No comma after Di rumah
- In spoken language, that’s normal.
- In careful writing, many would still add a comma:
- Di rumah, saya susun…
So your alternative sentence is grammatically fine and natural.
Saya and aku both mean I, but they differ in formality:
- saya
- polite / neutral
- used in most situations: with strangers, at work, with teachers, in writing.
- aku
- informal / intimate
- used with close friends, siblings, sometimes with romantic partners.
- can sound rude or too casual in formal situations.
Your sentence with aku:
- Di rumah, aku susun poskad zoo dalam bukuku yang tebal.
This is fine if you are talking about yourself to friends in a casual context. For learners, saya is the safest default.