Learn Hardcore Malay: Kami cuci pinggan mangkuk kotor di singki.

In the sentence, kami shows that the speaker is talking about their group only, not including the person they’re talking to.
If you wanted to include the listener (e.g. “We (you and I) wash the dirty dishes in the sink”), you would use kita instead of kami.

Why is the verb just cuci and not mencuci? Are both correct?

Both cuci and mencuci come from the same root and both mean “to wash / clean”:

cuci – bare verb form, very common in everyday spoken Malay.
mencuci – with the prefix meN-, often a bit more formal or “complete”.

In ordinary conversation, Kami cuci pinggan mangkuk kotor di singki sounds completely natural.
In more formal writing (e.g. a school essay), you might see Kami mencuci pinggan mangkuk kotor di singki. The meaning is essentially the same here.

What is the difference between cuci and basuh? Which one should I use?

Both cuci and basuh can mean “to wash”, and in many daily situations they can be swapped:

cuci pinggan / basuh pinggan – both are understood as “wash the dishes”.
cuci tangan – “wash (clean) your hands” (more common than basuh tangan).
basuh baju – “wash clothes” (heard a bit more often than cuci baju in some areas).

In this sentence, cuci pinggan mangkuk is perfectly normal. If you said Kami basuh pinggan mangkuk kotor di singki, it would also be acceptable in casual conversation.

Why is there no word for “the” in the Malay sentence?

Malay does not use articles like “the” or “a/an”.
Whether something is definite (the dishes) or indefinite (some dishes) is usually understood from the context, not from a specific word.

So:

pinggan mangkuk kotor can mean “dirty dishes” or “the dirty dishes”, depending on the situation.

If you really need to emphasize “those specific dishes”, you can add words like:

pinggan mangkuk kotor itu – “those dirty dishes / the dirty dishes (that we’re talking about)”
pinggan mangkuk kotor tadi – “the dirty dishes from just now / earlier”

Why is it pinggan mangkuk? Does that literally mean “plates and bowls”? Why not just say “pinggan”?

Yes, pinggan = plates, mangkuk = bowls.

Putting them together as pinggan mangkuk is a common way to refer to all the dishes / crockery (plates, bowls, etc.) as one group. It’s a fixed pairing, similar to saying “pots and pans” in English to mean kitchen cookware in general.

You can say just pinggan in casual speech and people will understand, but pinggan mangkuk sounds more complete and natural when you mean all kinds of dishes.

Why isn’t there any plural marker like “-s”? How do I know it means more than one dish?

Malay usually does not mark plural with an ending like English -s. Number is often clear from context:

pinggan can be “plate” or “plates”
mangkuk can be “bowl” or “bowls”

pinggan mangkuk kotor naturally suggests more than one item, especially with the idea of washing dishes. If you need to be very explicit:

banyak pinggan mangkuk kotor – “many dirty dishes”
beberapa pinggan mangkuk kotor – “several dirty dishes”
dua pinggan dan tiga mangkuk kotor – “two dirty plates and three dirty bowls”

You can use repetition (pinggan-pinggan) as a plural form, but it’s less common in this kind of everyday sentence and can sound slightly more formal or emphatic.

Why is kotor (dirty) after pinggan mangkuk? Can I put it before, like in English?

In Malay, descriptive words (adjectives) usually come after the noun:

pinggan kotor – “dirty plate(s)”
baju baru – “new clothes”
rumah besar – “big house”

So pinggan mangkuk kotor literally is “plates bowls dirty”, which corresponds to “dirty dishes”.
Putting kotor before the noun (e.g. kotor pinggan mangkuk) is incorrect in standard Malay.

What exactly does di singki mean? Is it “at the sink” or “in the sink”? Why no word for “in”?

di is a general location preposition that can often be translated as “at / in / on”, depending on context.
di singki literally = “at (the) sink”, but in this context it can naturally be understood as “in the sink”, because dishes are normally washed in the sink.

If you want to be very explicit about “inside”, you can say:

di dalam singki – literally “in the inside of the sink”

But in everyday speech, di singki is usually enough and sounds more natural.

Is the word order always Subject–Verb–Object like in Kami cuci pinggan mangkuk?

The most common neutral word order in Malay is indeed:

Subject – Verb – Object – (Adjectives) – (Place / Time)

So your sentence follows a typical pattern:

Kami (Subject)
cuci (Verb)
pinggan mangkuk kotor (Object + Adjective)
di singki (Place)

You can move the place phrase for emphasis (e.g. Di singki, kami cuci pinggan mangkuk kotor), but that sounds more marked. The given sentence is the most natural basic order.

How do I show that this is happening now (present continuous) versus in the past or future?

Malay verbs do not change form for tense. The basic sentence Kami cuci pinggan mangkuk kotor di singki could mean:

“We wash the dirty dishes in the sink.” (habitual)
“We are washing the dirty dishes in the sink.” (right now)
“We washed the dirty dishes in the sink.” (past) – if the context is clearly past.

To be more specific, you can add time or aspect words:

sedang – ongoing right now:
Kami sedang cuci pinggan mangkuk kotor di singki. – “We are (currently) washing…”
tadi / tadi tadi – just now / earlier:
Kami cuci pinggan mangkuk kotor di singki tadi. – “We washed the dirty dishes just now.”
akan – will (future, more formal):
Kami akan cuci pinggan mangkuk kotor di singki. – “We will wash the dirty dishes.”

Can I drop kami and just say Cuci pinggan mangkuk kotor di singki?

Yes, in many real conversations the subject pronoun can be left out if it’s obvious from context or from who is being addressed.

Cuci pinggan mangkuk kotor di singki. – could be a command: “(You) wash the dirty dishes in the sink.”

If you remove kami, it no longer clearly means “we”; it’s more likely interpreted as an instruction.
To clearly say “we”, it’s better to keep kami in a neutral statement like the original sentence.

What is singki? Is this a Malay word or borrowed from English?

singki is a loanword from English “sink” (and can also be spelled sinki). Malay frequently adopts English words with spelling adjusted to Malay phonetics:

bas – from “bus”
tren – from “train”
telefon – from “telephone”

So singki/sinki is just the common Malay word for a kitchen/bathroom sink. Both spellings are used; you’ll see sinki quite often in Malaysia.