Adik saya kena marah apabila dia ponteng latihan bola tanpa beritahu jurulatih.

My younger sibling gets scolded when he/she skips football practice without telling the coach.

Breakdown of Adik saya kena marah apabila dia ponteng latihan bola tanpa beritahu jurulatih.

• dia: he/she
• saya: my
• apabila: when
• adik: the younger sibling
• tanpa: without
• jurulatih: the coach
• kena marah: to be scolded
• ponteng: to skip
• latihan bola: the football practice
• beritahu: to tell

Questions & Answers about Adik saya kena marah apabila dia ponteng latihan bola tanpa beritahu jurulatih.

Why is it adik saya and not saya adik for “my younger sibling”?

In Malay, possessive pronouns usually come after the noun they modify, not before it like in English.

• adik saya = my younger sibling
  
  • adik = younger sibling (younger brother/sister)
  • saya = I / me (here: my)

Putting saya after the noun marks possession: adik saya, rumah saya, kawan saya, etc.

Saya adik would mean “I am (a) younger sibling” or “I (am) younger,” depending on context, not “my younger sibling.”

What exactly does adik mean? Does it specify gender?

Adik means “younger sibling” and is:

• Age-specific: it refers to someone younger than you.
• Gender-neutral: it doesn’t tell you whether it’s a younger brother or younger sister.

If you need to specify gender, you can say:

• adik lelaki – younger brother
• adik perempuan – younger sister

By default, adik saya just means “my younger sibling,” or in many contexts simply “my little brother/sister” without specifying which.

What does kena mean in kena marah? It doesn’t look like “was” or “got.”

Kena literally means something like “to be hit/affected by” or “to get (something done to you).”

In everyday Malay, kena + [bad thing] is widely used to mean “to suffer / receive that bad thing.”

Common patterns:

• kena marah – get scolded
• kena denda – get fined / punished
• kena tipu – be cheated / tricked
• kena pukul – get beaten / hit
• kena hujan – get caught in the rain / get rained on

So adik saya kena marah is “my younger sibling got scolded / was scolded.” The “passive” or “got” meaning is carried by kena, not by a separate word like “was.”

Is kena marah a passive form? How is it different from dimarahi?

Functionally, kena marah behaves like a passive (“got scolded”), but it’s not the same as the formal passive built with di-.

• kena marah

  • Very common, conversational.
  • Focuses on the fact that something unpleasant happened to the subject.
  • Often has a slightly emotional feel: “ugh, I got scolded.”

• dimarahi (from di-

  • marah
    • -i)
  • More formal, typical in writing or more careful speech.
  • Also means “was scolded.”
  • Example: Adik saya dimarahi jurulatih. = My younger sibling was scolded by the coach.

Both are correct; kena marah sounds more casual and is extremely common in speech.

How is past tense shown here? There’s no word for “was” or “got.”

Malay doesn’t have verb conjugations for tense like English does. Instead, it relies on:

• Context (very important)
• Optional time words or aspect markers like sudah, telah, tadi, semalam, akan, etc.

In the sentence:

Adik saya kena marah apabila dia ponteng latihan bola…

The context tells you it’s a past event. You could make it explicitly past by adding words:

• Adik saya sudah kena marah… – My younger sibling already got scolded.
• Semalam adik saya kena marah… – Yesterday my younger sibling got scolded.

But it’s perfectly normal in Malay to leave the tense implied.

What is the difference between apabila, bila, and masa for “when”? Why use apabila here?

All three can relate to “when,” but their typical uses and formality differ:

• apabila

  • Conjunction meaning “when” (for clauses).
  • More formal / neutral.
  • Common in writing and careful speech.
  • Example: Saya akan telefon awak apabila saya sampai.

• bila

  • Question word: “when?”
  • In everyday colloquial Malay, often also used as a conjunction meaning “when,” replacing apabila.
  • Example (colloquial): Saya telefon awak bila saya sampai.

• masa / semasa

  • Literally “time”, but used as “when/while” in many contexts.
  • Example: Masa saya kecil, saya suka main bola. – When I was small, I liked to play football.

In a textbook-style or neutral sentence, apabila fits well:

…kena marah apabila dia ponteng latihan bola…
“…got scolded when he/she skipped football practice…”

In casual speech, people might say instead:

…kena marah bila dia ponteng latihan bola…

Why is dia used again after adik saya, when they refer to the same person? Can dia be omitted?

Yes, dia can be omitted here, and many speakers would drop it:

• Adik saya kena marah apabila ponteng latihan bola tanpa beritahu jurulatih.

In Malay, when the subject of the second clause is the same as the subject of the first clause, the pronoun is often optional.

So both are acceptable:

• With pronoun:
  Adik saya kena marah apabila dia ponteng latihan bola…
  (More explicit; extra clarity.)

• Without pronoun:
  Adik saya kena marah apabila ponteng latihan bola…
  (More compact; still clear because there’s no other possible subject.)

The version with dia is not wrong; it just explicitly repeats the subject.

What does ponteng mean, and is it formal or informal?

Ponteng means “to skip (something you’re supposed to attend) on purpose,” such as:

• ponteng sekolah – skip school
• ponteng kelas – skip class
• ponteng kerja – skip work
• ponteng latihan bola – skip football practice

It usually implies deliberate absence, not just being sick or late.

Register:

• Very common and natural in everyday Malay.
• Generally acceptable in normal writing (e.g. newspapers), though in very formal or official documents you might see something like tidak hadir ke latihan (“did not attend the training”) instead.

Does latihan bola specifically mean football/soccer training? Why not latihan bola sepak or latihan sepak bola?

Literally:

• latihan – training / practice
• bola – ball

So latihan bola is literally “ball training,” which could theoretically be any ball sport.

In practice, context matters:

• In Malaysia, bola often implies bola sepak (football/soccer), especially among students, unless another sport is clearly meant.
• latihan bola sepak is the clearer, more explicit way to say “football training” in Malay.
• In Indonesian, you’re more likely to see sepak bola instead of bola sepak.

So all of these are possible, with slightly different levels of explicitness/region:

• latihan bola – ball practice (often understood as football practice from context)
• latihan bola sepak – clearly “football/soccer practice” (Malaysian usage)
• latihan sepak bola – “football/soccer practice” (Indonesian word order)

What is tanpa doing here in tanpa beritahu jurulatih?

Tanpa means “without.”

The phrase:

tanpa beritahu jurulatih

literally means “without telling the coach.”

Structure:

• tanpa – without
• beritahu – to tell / to inform
• jurulatih – coach

So the whole sentence part:

…ponteng latihan bola tanpa beritahu jurulatih.
“…skipped football practice without telling the coach.”

You could also expand it more formally:

• tanpa memberitahu jurulatih terlebih dahulu – without informing the coach first.

Why is it beritahu and not memberitahu? Are both correct?

Both beritahu and memberitahu are used, but they differ slightly in formality and style.

• memberitahu

  • More formal, morphologically clear (meN- + beri + tahu).
  • Common in writing, news reports, official contexts.
  • Example: Dia memberitahu jurulatih tentang perkara itu.

• beritahu

  • Shortened, very common in everyday speech.
  • Also seen in informal or semi-formal writing.
  • Example: Dia beritahu jurulatih pasal perkara itu.

In your sentence, the shorter beritahu fits the conversational tone:

tanpa beritahu jurulatih – without telling the coach

A more formal version could be:

tanpa memberitahu jurulatihnya terlebih dahulu – without informing his/her coach first.

Should there be a kepada in beritahu jurulatih? Like beritahu kepada jurulatih?

Both patterns are used and accepted:

1. beritahu jurulatih
2. beritahu kepada jurulatih

Difference:

• beritahu [person] – perfectly normal, especially in speech.

  • Dia beritahu jurulatih. – He/She told the coach.

• beritahu kepada [person] – sounds a bit more formal or explicit.

  • Dia beritahu kepada jurulatih. – He/She told (it) to the coach.

In your sentence, tanpa beritahu jurulatih is natural and grammatical. A slightly more formal alternative would be:

• tanpa memberitahu kepada jurulatih (though many would omit kepada even here).

Can the order of the clauses be changed, like starting with apabila?

Yes, you can front the apabila clause, just like in English:

Original:

• Adik saya kena marah apabila dia ponteng latihan bola tanpa beritahu jurulatih.

Reordered:

• Apabila dia ponteng latihan bola tanpa beritahu jurulatih, adik saya kena marah.

Both are correct. The meaning is the same; the difference is just which part you want to emphasize first. In speech, the original order (main clause first) is slightly more common, but both are natural.