Learn Hardcore Malay: Selepas mandi, saya menanggalkan tuala basah dan gantung tuala itu di dinding bilik mandi. - After bathing, I remove the wet towel and hang that towel on the bathroom wall.

Selepas mandi, saya menanggalkan tuala basah dan gantung tuala itu di dinding bilik mandi.

After bathing, I remove the wet towel and hang that towel on the bathroom wall.

Breakdown of Selepas mandi, saya menanggalkan tuala basah dan gantung tuala itu di dinding bilik mandi.

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Questions & Answers about Selepas mandi, saya menanggalkan tuala basah dan gantung tuala itu di dinding bilik mandi.

What does selepas mean here, and can I also say lepas?

Selepas means after (in time). In this sentence, Selepas mandi = After bathing / after taking a shower.

You can also say:

Lepas mandi, … (more casual / spoken)
Sesudah mandi, … (a bit more formal, similar to selepas)

In everyday conversation, lepas is very common. In writing or more formal speech, selepas and sesudah are preferred.

Is mandi a verb or a noun here? Why is it just mandi and not saya mandi?

Mandi can be both a verb (“to bathe / to shower”) and a verbal noun (“bathing / showering”).

In Selepas mandi, mandi is acting like a verbal noun: literally After bathing. Malay often uses the base verb like this after time words (sebelum, selepas, etc.):

Sebelum makan, saya basuh tangan. – Before eating, I wash my hands.
Selepas mandi, saya… – After bathing, I…

You can say Selepas saya mandi…, but Selepas mandi… is shorter and very natural.

What exactly does menanggalkan mean? How is it different from ambil or buka?

Menanggalkan means to remove / to take off something that is on you or attached to something. It comes from tangal (to come off) + the prefix/suffix meN-…-kan, which often makes a verb meaning “to cause something to be removed/come off”.

So:

menanggalkan tuala – to take off/remove the towel (from your body)
buka tuala – literally “open the towel”; sounds odd for “take a towel off your body”
ambil tuala – take/get the towel (pick it up), not “take it off”

For clothes, accessories, etc., menanggalkan or tanggalkan is the natural choice:

Saya menanggalkan baju. – I take off my shirt.

Why do we have saya menanggalkan but then just gantung, not menggantung?

In very formal Malay, you would often see both verbs with the meN- prefix:

Saya menanggalkan tuala basah dan menggantung tuala itu…

However, in everyday Malay, when you have two verbs with the same subject joined by dan, the second verb is often left in its base form:

Saya pergi beli makanan. (instead of pergi membeli)
Saya menanggalkan tuala basah dan gantung tuala itu…

So gantung here is the base verb to hang. It’s natural in speech and informal/neutral writing. If you want to be very textbook-formal, use menggantung.

What is the nuance of tuala basah vs tuala itu? Why is tuala repeated?

tuala basah = the wet towel (introducing it, adding the new detail “wet”)
tuala itu = that towel / the towel (just mentioned)

Repeating tuala keeps the reference clear and is completely normal in Malay. After you introduce a noun, you can refer back to it either by:

repeating the noun: tuala itu, baju itu, buku itu
or using a pronoun: menggantungnya (hang it)

So you could also say:

…saya menanggalkan tuala basah dan menggantungnya di dinding bilik mandi.
(…I take off the wet towel and hang it on the bathroom wall.)

Does itu here mean “that” or “the”? Why is it used with tuala?

Itu can mean both that and something like the, depending on context.

In tuala itu, it usually suggests:

a specific towel (the one just mentioned / the one you and the listener know about)
roughly that towel / the towel

Malay doesn’t have a direct equivalent of English the, so itu often fills that role for specific, known items:

buku itu – that book / the (specific) book
kereta itu – that car / the car

How would I say “my wet towel” in this sentence? Is tuala basah saya needed?

You can say:

Selepas mandi, saya menanggalkan tuala basah saya dan gantung tuala itu di dinding bilik mandi.

Literally: After bathing, I take off my wet towel…

But Malay often omits possessives when the owner is obvious from context. Since saya is the subject and it’s my towel on my body, tuala basah without saya is usually enough and sounds natural. Use tuala saya or tuala basah saya if you need to contrast:

Itu tuala dia, ini tuala saya. – That’s his/her towel, this is my towel.

Why do we use di in di dinding bilik mandi and not ke dinding or pada dinding?

di = at / in / on (location)
ke = to / towards (movement, destination)
pada = on / at, more abstract or for time, people, and some set phrases

In di dinding bilik mandi, the focus is on the final location of the towel: on the bathroom wall. So di is correct.

Use ke when you emphasize movement:

Saya berjalan ke dinding. – I walk to the wall.

Pada dinding is possible in some contexts (often more formal or written), but di dinding is the default for “on the wall”.

How should I understand the phrase dinding bilik mandi? Is it “bathroom wall” or “wall of the bathroom”?

Dinding bilik mandi literally means wall (dinding) of the bathroom (bilik mandi).

Malay noun phrases usually go head noun + modifier:

bilik mandi – bathroom (literally “room [for] bathing”)
dinding bilik mandi – bathroom wall / wall of the bathroom
pintu bilik tidur – bedroom door / door of the bedroom

So di dinding bilik mandi = on the bathroom wall.

What is the difference between bilik mandi and tandas? Both seem like “bathroom”.

bilik mandi = bathroom / bathing room, usually where you shower/bathe
tandas = toilet / restroom, focusing on the toilet function

In many Malaysian homes, the toilet and shower are together, so in practice people may say either depending on what they’re emphasizing. For public places:

tandas lelaki / perempuan – men’s / women’s toilet

In Indonesian, you’ll see kamar mandi instead of bilik mandi.

Why do we need saya? Can I say Selepas mandi, menanggalkan tuala basah…?

You generally need a subject in Malay clauses.

Selepas mandi, menanggalkan tuala basah… sounds incomplete/odd because we don’t know who is doing the action. You should keep saya:

Selepas mandi, saya menanggalkan tuala basah…

You can change saya to another pronoun (aku, dia, kami, etc.), but it’s unnatural to drop the subject entirely in standard Malay narrative sentences.

Is there any tense marker here? How do we know this is past (after I showered) and not future?

Malay does not change the verb form for tense. There is no past tense ending like in English.

In this sentence, the time relationship is shown by selepas (“after”). Whether it’s past, present, or future depends on context, or you can add time words:

Past: Semalam, selepas mandi, saya menanggalkan… – Yesterday, after showering, I took off…
Future: Nanti, selepas mandi, saya akan menanggalkan… – Later, after I shower, I will take off…

The verbs menanggalkan and gantung themselves stay the same.

Is saya the only option for “I” here? What about aku?

Saya is neutral and polite in most situations (with strangers, at work, in writing).

You can use aku instead:

Selepas mandi, aku menanggalkan tuala basah dan gantung tuala itu di dinding bilik mandi.

Aku is more informal/intimate, used with close friends, family, or in certain regional speech and songs. Grammatically both are fine; choose depending on how formal or close you are to your listener.