Learn Hardcore Malay: Selepas hujan lebat, pelangi besar muncul di atas bukit. - After the heavy rain, a big rainbow appears above the hill.

selepas and sesudah:
- Both mean after and are usually interchangeable.
- selepas is slightly more common in everyday speech and writing.
- sesudah can feel a bit more formal or literary, depending on context, but you will hear both.
lepas on its own can also mean after in informal speech:
- Lepas hujan lebat, pelangi besar muncul… – more casual.
- In formal writing, selepas is preferred.

So you can often replace selepas with sesudah (and with lepas in informal contexts) without changing the meaning.

Why is it hujan lebat and not lebat hujan?

In Malay, adjectives normally come after the noun they describe.

hujan lebat = rain (hujan) + heavy (lebat) → “heavy rain”
If you said lebat hujan, that would sound wrong or at least very unnatural.

This pattern is very regular:

rumah besar – big house
bukit tinggi – tall hill
air panas – hot water

So: Noun + Adjective, not Adjective + Noun as in English.

There is no word for a or the in pelangi besar. How do articles work in Malay?

Malay usually does not use separate words for a/an or the. Context tells you whether something is definite or indefinite.

pelangi besar can be understood as:
- a big rainbow, or
- the big rainbow, depending on context.

If you really need to emphasize one item, you can sometimes add a classifier like sebuah:

Sebuah pelangi besar muncul di atas bukit. – “A big rainbow appeared on the hill.”

But in normal sentences, Malay often just omits any article, like in your example.

What exactly does muncul mean, and how is it used grammatically?

muncul means to appear, to emerge, or to show up.

In the sentence, pelangi besar is the subject, and muncul is the verb:
- pelangi besar muncul – the big rainbow appeared.

Key points:

muncul is intransitive here: it does not take a direct object.
- You cannot say muncul sesuatu (“appear something”) in the same way English says “appear something”; you say sesuatu muncul (“something appeared”).
Common synonyms:
- kelihatan – became visible, could be seen
- tampak – appeared / looked

So the core structure is: [Subject] + [intransitive verb] → Pelangi besar muncul.

Why is there a comma after Selepas hujan lebat? Can I put that part at the end instead?

Selepas hujan lebat is a time phrase (“After the heavy rain”). It is placed at the beginning as an introductory clause, so a comma is natural:

Selepas hujan lebat, pelangi besar muncul di atas bukit.

You can also move it to the end without changing the meaning:

Pelangi besar muncul di atas bukit selepas hujan lebat.

Both are correct. Starting with Selepas hujan lebat puts extra emphasis on the timing; putting it at the end is a bit more neutral.

What’s the difference between di atas bukit, atas bukit, and just di bukit?

di atas bukit – literally on top of / above the hill.
- Suggests the rainbow is over the hill or in the sky above it.
atas bukit (without di)
- In speech, people sometimes drop di and just say atas bukit, especially informally.
- In careful or formal Malay, di atas bukit is preferred.
di bukit – at/on the hill (more general location).
- This can mean the rainbow is “at the hill area” rather than explicitly above it.

In this sentence, di atas bukit is chosen because a rainbow is naturally above or over the hill.

Can I say pelangi yang besar instead of pelangi besar? Is there a difference?

You can say pelangi yang besar, but the nuance is a bit different.

pelangi besar – neutral way to say a big rainbow.
pelangi yang besar – more like the rainbow that is big or the one which is big.

yang often introduces a relative or identifying clause:

pelangi yang besar itu cantik – “the rainbow that is big is beautiful” / “that big rainbow is beautiful.”

In your sentence:

pelangi besar muncul di atas bukit is the most natural.
pelangi yang besar muncul di atas bukit sounds more “marked”, like you’re contrasting it with something else (for example, a smaller rainbow), or emphasizing the bigness in a more deliberate way.

How do we know this sentence is in the past? There’s no past tense marker like in English.

Malay verbs do not change form for tense (no -ed, no conjugation). Time is usually understood from:

Time expressions: selepas hujan lebat already sets a past context (“after the heavy rain”).
Context of the conversation.

So muncul can mean:

appears (present),
appeared (past), or
will appear (future),

depending on context and other words.

If you really want to emphasize the past, you can use a particle like:

telah – Pelangi besar telah muncul di atas bukit. (The big rainbow has/ had appeared.)
tadi (just now) – Tadi, pelangi besar muncul di atas bukit.

But in natural Malay, your original sentence is perfectly clear as past from context.

Is lebat used only for rain, or can it describe other things too?

lebat literally means dense / intense / heavy and is often used with:

hujan lebat – heavy rain
salji lebat (in contexts talking about snow) – heavy snow
rambut lebat – thick hair
daun yang lebat – dense foliage / thick leaves
trafik lebat – heavy traffic (less common; often sesak or padat is used)

So lebat is common with things that come or grow in large quantity or density. With hujan, hujan lebat is a very standard collocation: “heavy rain.”

What exactly does bukit mean? How is it different from gunung?

bukit = hill
gunung = mountain

In everyday usage:

bukit is smaller and lower than gunung.
Some place names use Bukit or Gunung according to their traditional naming, not always strict height.

So di atas bukit = “above the hill.” If you said di atas gunung, it would be “above the mountain.”

Could I say Selepas hujan yang lebat instead of Selepas hujan lebat?

Yes, you can say Selepas hujan yang lebat, and it is grammatically correct.

hujan lebat – heavy rain (simple description).
hujan yang lebat – “the rain that is heavy”; slightly more explicit or formal.

In most everyday speech and writing, hujan lebat is more natural and concise. yang often adds a feeling of extra emphasis or formality, so it’s not needed here.

How do you pronounce the words in this sentence, especially pelangi and hujan?

Approximate English-based pronunciation (Malay is mostly phonetic):

Selepas – suh-LEH-pas
hujan – HOO-jahn (the j like in jam)
lebat – luh-BUT (final t is a soft stop)
pelangi – puh-LAH-ng-ee
- ng as in sing, not like n + g in finger.
besar – buh-SAR
muncul – MOON-chool (short u as in put)
di – dee
atas – AH-tas
bukit – BOO-kit (again, soft final t)

Stress is usually fairly even, often slightly stronger on the second-to-last syllable (e.g. pe-LA-ng i, le-BAT, bu-KIT), but not as strong as English stress.