Bukankah kita sudah belajar bahawa kesihatan keluarga paling penting?

Haven’t we learned that family health is the most important?

Breakdown of Bukankah kita sudah belajar bahawa kesihatan keluarga paling penting?

• adalah: to be
• kita: we
• belajar: to learn
• penting: important
• sudah: already
• paling: most
• kesihatan: the health
• bahawa: that
• keluarga: family
• bukankah: isn't it (question marker)

Questions & Answers about Bukankah kita sudah belajar bahawa kesihatan keluarga paling penting?

What exactly does bukankah mean, and how is it different from just bukan?

Bukankah is a tag‑question / rhetorical‑question form meaning roughly “Isn’t it that…?” or “Didn’t we…?”

• bukan = “not” (used to negate nouns and as a general negator)
  
  • Example: Itu bukan buku saya. = That is not my book.
• -kah = a suffix that turns a statement into a question, often more formal or emphatic.

So:

• Bukan kita sudah belajar… = It’s not that we have learned… (odd as a normal sentence)
• Bukankah kita sudah belajar… = Didn’t we already learn…? / Haven’t we learned…?

It usually implies the speaker expects the listener to agree. It’s like checking or reminding the listener of something they should already know.

Can bukankah go at the end of the sentence, like English “…, isn’t it?”?

No, bukankah stays at the beginning of the sentence as part of the clause:

• Bukankah kita sudah belajar bahawa kesihatan keluarga paling penting? ✅

You can, however, make a similar “tag‑question” feeling at the end with kan or ya:

• Kita sudah belajar bahawa kesihatan keluarga paling penting, kan?
• Kita sudah belajar bahawa kesihatan keluarga paling penting, ya?

These are more colloquial, while bukankah is a bit more formal or literary and sits at the start.

What’s the difference between kita and kami? Why is kita used here?

Both kita and kami mean “we”, but:

• kita = we (including the person spoken to) → inclusive
• kami = we (excluding the person spoken to) → exclusive

In this sentence, the speaker is including the listener in the group who learned this:

• Bukankah kita sudah belajar…?
  = Didn’t we (you and I / all of us here) already learn…?

If you used kami, it would sound like:

• Didn’t we (some group that does not include you) already learn…?

which doesn’t fit the function of reminding the listener of a shared experience.

What does sudah add here? Is it necessary?

Sudah means “already”, but more broadly it marks that an action is completed or has taken place.

• kita sudah belajar = we have already learned / we learned (before now)

If you remove sudah:

• Bukankah kita belajar bahawa…?

it still can be understood, but it’s less clear that this refers to a past learning event. Sudah emphasizes:

• the action is in the past or completed, and
• the result is relevant now: “We already went through this, remember?”

So it’s natural and helpful in a sentence like this.

What’s the difference between sudah and telah in this kind of sentence?

Both can indicate a completed action:

• sudah – very common, neutral, used in both spoken and written Malay.
• telah – more formal, often used in writing, news reports, or formal speeches.

You could say:

• Bukankah kita sudah belajar…? (neutral, everyday)
• Bukankah kita telah belajar…? (sounds more formal / written)

In daily conversation, sudah is much more frequent.

What is the role of bahawa? Can it be left out?

Bahawa functions like English “that” when introducing a reported / content clause:

• kita sudah belajar bahawa…
  = we already learned that…

In many informal spoken contexts, bahawa can be dropped without changing the meaning:

• Kita sudah belajar kesihatan keluarga paling penting. (informal)

However:

• Including bahawa makes the sentence clearer and more standard / formal.
• In writing or more careful speech, bahawa is often preserved.

So yes, you often can leave it out in casual speech, but it’s very natural and correct to keep it here.

How does kesihatan keluarga work grammatically? Why is the order “health family” and not “family health”?

Malay normally places the main noun first and its modifier after it:

• kesihatan = health
• keluarga = family

So kesihatan keluarga literally is “health (of the) family”, i.e. family health. This noun + noun structure is like English “the health of the family”, but Malay doesn’t need “of”; it just puts the modifying noun after the main noun.

Other examples:

• baju sekolah = school uniform / school clothes (clothes of school)
• guru bahasa = language teacher (teacher of language)

Why is there no adalah before paling penting? Would …keluarga adalah paling penting be wrong?

In Malay, the copula (a linking verb like English “is”) is often omitted, especially when the predicate is an adjective or adjective phrase:

• Kesihatan keluarga paling penting.
  = Family health is the most important (thing).

You generally don’t put adalah directly before an adjective like paling penting:

• Kesihatan keluarga adalah paling penting. ❌ (unnatural)

Adalah is more natural when linking to nouns or noun phrases:

• Kesihatan keluarga adalah keutamaan kami.
  = Family health is our priority.

So in this sentence, no verb is needed; Malay simply says [subject] + [adjective phrase].

What does paling mean, and how is paling penting different from sangat penting?

Paling is a superlative marker meaning “most”.

• penting = important
• paling penting = most important

Difference:

• sangat penting = very important (high degree, but not necessarily the top)
• paling penting = the most important (of all) (superlative)

So kesihatan keluarga paling penting means this is the single most important thing, not just “very important.”

Is there a difference between paling penting and terpenting?

They are very close in meaning and often interchangeable:

• paling penting = most important
• terpenting = most important (using the ter- superlative prefix)

Subtle tendencies:

• paling penting is extremely common and works in almost any context.
• terpenting can sound a bit more formal or “compressed” (it’s a single word).

In your sentence, both are acceptable:

• …bahawa kesihatan keluarga paling penting. ✅
• …bahawa kesihatan keluarga terpenting. ✅ (slightly more formal feel)

Is this sentence formal, informal, or neutral? In what situations would it sound natural?

The sentence is fairly neutral but slightly leaning formal because of:

• bukankah (more formal / literary than kan or ya)
• bahawa (more common in careful speech and writing)

It would sound natural in:

• a classroom (teacher reminding students)
• a speech or presentation
• written text (articles, essays, books)

In very casual conversation, people might say:

• Kita dah belajar yang kesihatan keluarga paling penting, kan?
  (dah = colloquial sudah, yang replacing bahawa, kan as a tag)

How should I answer a bukankah…? question? Do I say ya or tidak?

This can be confusing because the question is negative.

Bukankah kita sudah belajar…?
= Didn’t we already learn…? (speaker expects “Yes, we did.”)

In practice, speakers usually respond based on what they agree with, not the grammar of the negation:

• If you agree that you did learn it:
  
  • Ya, kita sudah belajar. / Betul, kita sudah belajar.
• If you disagree (you think you did not learn it):
  
  • Tidak, kita belum belajar. / Rasanya kita belum belajar.

To avoid confusion, many people answer with a full sentence rather than just ya/tidak.

Could I omit kita and just say Bukankah sudah belajar bahawa…?

You can drop the subject in some informal spoken contexts if it’s very clear from context who is meant, but in this sentence:

• Bukankah kita sudah belajar bahawa…?

keeping kita:

• makes it clear the speaker is including the listener, and
• avoids ambiguity (who exactly “already learned” this?).

Bukankah sudah belajar bahawa…? is more likely in very casual speech after the subject has been mentioned just before. For a stand‑alone sentence, kita is natural and recommended.

Is there an English‑style word‑for‑word order I should remember for this sentence?

You can roughly map it like this:

• Bukankah → Isn’t it (that) / Didn’t / Haven’t
• kita → we (including you)
• sudah belajar → already learned / have learned
• bahawa → that (introducing the clause)
• kesihatan keluarga → (the) health (of the) family / family health
• paling penting → most important

So the structure is:

[Tag‑question negator] + [subject] + [aspect marker + verb] + [“that”] + [noun phrase] + [superlative adjective]

Which matches English quite closely:
“Didn’t we already learn that family health is the most important (thing)?”