Learn Hardcore Malay: Kami berjalan melalui lembah kecil itu pada waktu petang. - We walk through that small valley in the evening.

In Kami berjalan melalui lembah kecil itu pada waktu petang, the speaker is saying “we” in a way that does not include the listener. If the speaker wanted to include the listener, it would be:

Kita berjalan melalui lembah kecil itu pada waktu petang.
→ We (you and I) walked through that small valley in the evening.

How do we know this sentence is in the past (“walked”) when there is no past tense marker?

Malay verbs don’t change form for tense. Berjalan can mean:

walk / are walking / were walking / walked

The time is understood from:

Context (what you’re talking about), and
Time expressions like pada waktu petang.

If you really want to make the past explicit, you can add:

Kami telah berjalan melalui lembah kecil itu pada waktu petang.
Kami tadi berjalan melalui lembah kecil itu pada waktu petang.

But in everyday Malay, the original sentence is enough; context usually makes it clear that it means “walked” here.

What exactly does berjalan mean? Is it just “to walk”?

Berjalan literally means “to walk”, but it can have a couple of nuances:

Physical walking on foot
- Kami berjalan ke sekolah. → We walk to school.
To move / proceed / function (more figurative)
- Mesyuarat berjalan dengan lancar. → The meeting went smoothly.

In your sentence, it is clearly the literal sense: “We walked” (on foot).

Why do we say melalui here? Is it a verb or a preposition, and how is it different from lewat or melintasi?

Melalui comes from meN- + lalu and behaves like a preposition-like verb meaning “to go through / via / pass through”.

In this sentence:

berjalan melalui lembah kecil itu
→ walk through that small valley

Comparison:

melalui – through, via, passing the interior or main part of something
- Kami berjalan melalui hutan. → We walked through the forest.
lewat – by way of / passing by, often more about route or “via”
- Kami pergi ke bandar lewat kampung itu. → We went to town via that village.
melintasi – to cross over/through, often suggests crossing from one side to the other
- Kami melintasi sungai. → We crossed the river.

Here, melalui is natural because you are moving through the valley as a route.

Why is the phrase lembah kecil itu ordered like that? Why not itu lembah kecil?

Malay noun phrases usually follow this order:

[Noun] + [Adjective] + [Demonstrative (ini/itu)]

So:

lembah = valley (noun)
kecil = small (adjective)
itu = that / the (demonstrative)

Correct natural order: lembah kecil itu
→ literally “valley small that”

The form itu lembah kecil is not the normal way to say “that small valley” as a noun phrase. It can occur in some special structures (like after a verb: itu lembah kecil yang saya maksudkan), but as a simple “that small valley”, you want:

lembah kecil itu

Does kecil mean “small” or “little”? Is there any nuance?

Kecil is the basic word for small / little / minor, and covers most uses:

lembah kecil → small valley
rumah kecil → small house
adik kecil → little/young younger sibling

Context decides whether English should be “small” or “little”; Malay doesn’t sharply separate those the way English sometimes does. There is no special emotional nuance in kecil here; it’s just describing the size of the valley.

What does itu add here? Is it “that” or “the”?

Itu literally means “that” (as opposed to ini = this), but in practice it also works like “the” to refer to something specific or known.

In lembah kecil itu:

It can mean “that small valley” (physically or contextually “over there” or previously mentioned).
In many contexts, it will just be understood as “the small valley” (a specific valley both speaker and listener know).

So itu signals that it’s a particular, known valley, not just any small valley.

Could lembah kecil itu mean “the small valleys” (plural), or is it definitely singular?

Grammatically, lembah kecil itu is singular: “that/the small valley”.

Malay usually doesn’t mark plural on the noun unless it needs to be made explicit. To clearly say “small valleys”, you’d use:

lembah-lembah kecil itu → those/the small valleys
beberapa lembah kecil → several small valleys
banyak lembah kecil → many small valleys

Without such markers, lembah kecil itu is best understood as one valley.

In pada waktu petang, what does waktu mean, and is it necessary?

Waktu means “time” or “time period”.
So pada waktu petang literally is “at the time of evening”.

You have options:

pada waktu petang – at (the time of) evening
pada petang – in the evening
waktu petang – in the evening (more like a time phrase)
petang alone – often fine in casual speech

All of these can be used depending on style and context. Pada waktu petang sounds a bit more complete or slightly formal, but it’s very natural.

Can we omit pada and just say Kami berjalan melalui lembah kecil itu waktu petang?

Yes, in spoken and informal Malay you will often hear waktu petang without pada:

Kami berjalan melalui lembah kecil itu waktu petang.

This is acceptable and commonly used. In more careful or formal writing, pada waktu petang is often preferred, but both forms are understood and natural.

Does petang mean “afternoon” or “evening”?

Petang covers roughly late afternoon to early evening, typically around 3 p.m. to around sunset or a bit after. There isn’t a perfect one-word English match.

Depending on context, you might translate it as:

afternoon (late afternoon)
early evening
sometimes simply evening

So pada waktu petang can be understood as “in the (late) afternoon / in the evening”. The exact English choice depends on what feels more natural for the situation.

Could we drop kami and just say Berjalan melalui lembah kecil itu pada waktu petang?

Grammatically, you can drop the subject in Malay when it’s clear from context. People do that in casual speech and narrative styles:

Berjalan melalui lembah kecil itu pada waktu petang.
→ (We) walked through that small valley in the evening.

However:

Without kami, the subject becomes ambiguous. It could be I / we / they / he / she depending on context.
In ordinary descriptive sentences like this, it is more common and clearer to keep kami.

So the original sentence with kami is the safest and clearest form.