Breakdown of Kalau asap terlalu tebal, kami tutup semua tingkap rumah.
Questions & Answers about Kalau asap terlalu tebal, kami tutup semua tingkap rumah.
Kalau here means “if” (and sometimes “when” in an if-type sense). It introduces a condition: “If the smoke is too thick, we close all the windows of the house.”
Differences in feel:
- kalau – very common in everyday spoken Malay; neutral in casual conversation, slightly informal in writing.
- jika – more formal and “bookish”; very common in written Malay (instructions, exams, official texts).
- sekiranya – also formal/polite, literally “in the event that”.
- apabila – closer to “when(ever)” something happens, but in many cases overlaps with kalau. Often used when the condition is expected or usual.
All of these work in your sentence:
- Kalau asap terlalu tebal, kami tutup semua tingkap rumah.
- Jika / Sekiranya / Apabila asap terlalu tebal, kami tutup semua tingkap rumah.
They all mean essentially the same thing; the main difference is level of formality and style.
Yes. You can say either:
- Kalau asap terlalu tebal, kami tutup semua tingkap rumah.
- Kami tutup semua tingkap rumah kalau asap terlalu tebal.
The meaning is the same.
Small differences:
- Putting kalau asap terlalu tebal at the front slightly emphasizes the condition.
- Putting it at the end sounds a bit more conversational and flows like English “We close all the windows if the smoke is too thick.”
In writing, if the kalau-clause comes first, a comma is usually written; if it comes second, the comma is often omitted.
Malay usually does not mark tense on the verb. So kami tutup can mean:
- “we close” (habitually / generally), or
- “we will close” (in the future), depending on context.
In this conditional sentence, both English translations are possible:
- “If the smoke is too thick, we close all the windows…” (habit / rule), or
- “If the smoke is too thick, we’ll close all the windows…” (future action).
To make the time explicit, Malay often adds time words:
- Future: nanti, kemudian, akan
- Kalau asap terlalu tebal, kami akan tutup semua tingkap rumah.
- Past: tadi, dulu
- Kalau asap tadi terlalu tebal, kami tutup semua tingkap rumah.
Without such markers, you rely on context to infer the time.
In Malay, adjectives often act like stative verbs, so you don’t need a separate “is/are” before them.
So:
- asap terlalu tebal literally functions like “smoke too thick” = “the smoke is too thick”.
The word adalah is not usually used before an adjective like this. It is more common:
- between two nouns:
- Rumah ini adalah rumah saya. – “This house is my house.”
- or in very formal written style.
Asap adalah terlalu tebal would sound unusual or overly stiff in normal speech, and most speakers would just say asap terlalu tebal.
Tutup is the base verb “to close”; menutup is the meN- form, also “to close”, more typical of standard/formal Malay.
In everyday spoken Malay, it’s very common to use the base verb after a pronoun:
- kami tutup semua tingkap rumah
- dia buka pintu – “he/she opens the door”
- saya makan nasi – “I eat rice”
More formal / textbook style would be:
- Kami menutup semua tingkap rumah.
Meaning is the same; menutup sounds more formal/standard, while tutup here is very natural in speech.
Malay distinguishes two kinds of “we”:
- kami – “we” excluding the person being spoken to (“we but not you”).
- kita – “we” including the person being spoken to (“you and I / all of us here”).
In your sentence:
- Kalau asap terlalu tebal, kami tutup semua tingkap rumah.
kami suggests the subject is the speaker’s group only, not including the listener. For example, talking to a neighbor:
“If the smoke is too thick, we (in our family) close all the windows of the house.”
If you say:
- Kalau asap terlalu tebal, kita tutup semua tingkap rumah.
then it sounds like you’re including the listener:
“If the smoke is too thick, we (you and I / all of us) close the windows.”
Both are correct; you choose depending on whom you include.
Both terlalu and sangat intensify adjectives, but they have different typical nuances:
- terlalu – literally “too (much)”, often implying excess or a negative situation:
- terlalu tebal = “too thick” (so thick that it’s a problem).
- sangat – “very”, strong but more neutral:
- sangat tebal = “very thick” (just describing intensity, not necessarily “too much”).
In casual speech, some people do use terlalu more loosely as “very”, but in this sentence, asap terlalu tebal naturally matches the idea that the smoke is too thick to be okay, which fits the reason for closing the windows.
You could say asap sangat tebal; it would sound like you’re just commenting on how thick it is, without the built-in “too much” feeling.
Malay usually does not mark plural with an ending like English “-s”. Plurality is indicated by:
- context, or
- words like semua (“all”), banyak (“many”), beberapa (“several”), etc.
In semua tingkap rumah:
- semua = “all”, so tingkap is automatically understood as plural: “(all) the windows”.
Reduplication tingkap-tingkap is another way to mark plurality or variety, but with semua, it’s optional and often omitted:
- semua tingkap rumah – perfectly natural
- semua tingkap-tingkap rumah – possible, but sounds heavier; not needed.
So semua tingkap rumah already clearly means “all the windows of the house”.
tingkap rumah is a noun–noun phrase meaning “the house’s windows” / “the windows of the house”.
- tingkap – window
- rumah – house
When two nouns are put together like this in Malay, the second noun often works like a possessor or classifier. So tingkap rumah = “house windows”.
Alternatives:
- semua tingkap di rumah – “all the windows at the house”
- semua tingkap rumah kami – “all the windows of our house” (explicitly “our”).
All are grammatical. Differences:
- tingkap rumah is concise and already implies “the windows belonging to the house mentioned in context”.
- Adding kami (or another possessor) makes it very clear whose house it is.
- di rumah highlights location (“at the house”), but in practice it often overlaps with rumah as a modifier.
You can say semua tingkap without rumah; the sentence is still correct:
- Kalau asap terlalu tebal, kami tutup semua tingkap.
The difference is specificity:
- semua tingkap – “all the windows” (which windows depends on context: the house, the office, the car, etc.).
- semua tingkap rumah – clearly “all the windows of the house”.
If it’s already obvious from context that you’re talking about the house, many speakers would naturally drop rumah and just say semua tingkap.
Yes, you can say:
- Kalau asap terlalu tebal, kami akan tutup semua tingkap rumah.
akan marks future more explicitly, similar to “will”:
- Without akan: future or habitual, depending on context.
- With akan: more clearly future intention or plan – “we will close all the windows”.
In this kind of conditional sentence, even without akan, many English speakers will still translate it with “will”, so adding akan doesn’t change the basic idea much; it just makes the future sense stronger or a bit more formal.
Without kami, the second part becomes an imperative (a command or instruction):
- Kalau asap terlalu tebal, tutup semua tingkap rumah.
- “If the smoke is too thick, close all the windows of the house.”
Here, the implied subject is “you” (singular or plural), not “we”. This style is common in:
- instructions,
- safety guidelines,
- spoken advice:
“If the smoke gets too thick, close all the windows.”
With kami, it was a statement about what we do; without kami, it’s an instruction to someone else to do it.