Learn Hardcore Malay: Saya lambat buat pendaftaran, jadi saya hampir kena tunggu tahun depan. - I registered late, so I almost had to wait until next year.

buat pendaftaran
- buat = do/make
- pendaftaran = registration (noun)
- Sounds more conversational / neutral.
- Very common in everyday speech: buat bayaran (make a payment), buat tempahan (make a booking), etc.
mendaftar
- A single verb that means to register.
- Slightly more formal or concise.

You could say:

Saya lambat buat pendaftaran.
Saya lambat mendaftar.

Both are correct; mendaftar might sound a bit more formal or “textbook-y,” while buat pendaftaran is extremely common in spoken Malay.

Is lambat the same as lewat? Could I say Saya lewat buat pendaftaran?

lambat and lewat overlap but have slightly different typical uses.

lambat
- often “slow” or “late in doing something”
- can imply delay or slowness in action
- very natural in lambat buat pendaftaran (late in registering)
lewat
- often used for being late for a time: lewat 10 minit (10 minutes late), saya lewat sampai (I arrived late)
- can sometimes sound a bit more tied to a scheduled time

Saya lewat buat pendaftaran is understandable and not “wrong,” but Saya lambat buat pendaftaran is more idiomatic for “I was late doing the registration.”

What exactly does jadi mean here? Is it like “so” or “therefore”?

Yes. In this sentence, jadi functions as a conjunction meaning “so / therefore / as a result”.

Structure:

Saya lambat buat pendaftaran, jadi saya hampir kena tunggu tahun depan.
→ I registered late, so I almost had to wait until next year.

Other similar connectors:

oleh itu – therefore (more formal)
sebab itu – that’s why / because of that

Spoken Malay very often uses jadi where English uses so:

Saya penat, jadi saya nak rehat.
→ I’m tired, so I want to rest.

What is the function of hampir in saya hampir kena tunggu tahun depan?

hampir means almost / nearly.

Here it modifies the whole idea kena tunggu tahun depan:

saya hampir kena tunggu tahun depan
→ I almost had to wait until next year.

The implication is: in the end, you did not have to wait until next year, but it was close.

You can use hampir like this with many verbs:

Saya hampir terjatuh. – I almost fell.
Kami hampir menang. – We almost won.

What does kena mean here, and why does it seem like “have to”? I thought kena was “to get hit / to be affected”.

kena is very flexible and quite colloquial. It can mean:

to be affected / to get (something happen to you)
- kena hujan – got rained on
- kena denda – got punished / got a fine
- kena tipu – got cheated
to have to / be forced to / end up having to (especially in informal speech)
- Saya kena kerja malam. – I have to work at night.
- Dia kena bayar sendiri. – He/she has to pay by himself/herself.

In your sentence:

saya hampir kena tunggu tahun depan
→ I almost had to wait until next year
(i.e. I almost ended up in the situation of having to wait)

More neutral/formal alternatives:

saya hampir perlu tunggu tahun depan
saya hampir terpaksa tunggu tahun depan

But kena is very common in everyday spoken Malay and sounds natural in this context.

Is kena here informal or non-standard? Can I use it in formal writing?

In this “have to / end up having to” sense, kena is:

very common and natural in spoken Malay
widely used in informal writing (messages, social media)
less preferred in formal or official writing, where you’d usually choose:
- perlu (need to)
- harus (must/should)
- wajib (compulsory)
- terpaksa (forced to)

So in a formal document you might write:

Saya lewat membuat pendaftaran, jadi saya hampir terpaksa menunggu sehingga tahun depan.

In relaxed conversation, saya hampir kena tunggu tahun depan is perfectly fine.

Can I drop the second saya and just say …jadi hampir kena tunggu tahun depan?

Yes, you can.

Malay often drops pronouns when the subject is clear from context. These are both acceptable:

Saya lambat buat pendaftaran, jadi saya hampir kena tunggu tahun depan.
Saya lambat buat pendaftaran, jadi hampir kena tunggu tahun depan.

Sentence 2 still clearly refers to the same saya as the subject.
Including the second saya makes the sentence slightly more explicit and is also very common, especially for learners or in careful speech/writing.

Why is it tunggu tahun depan without a preposition like “until” or “until next year”?

Malay often omits prepositions where English requires them, especially with time expressions.

tunggu tahun depan
literally: wait (until) next year

The “until” meaning is understood from the context. You can add an explicit word for “until”:

tunggu sampai tahun depan
tunggu hingga tahun depan
tunggu sehingga tahun depan

All mean “wait until next year”.
In everyday speech, tunggu tahun depan is short and natural.

Is the word order hampir kena tunggu tahun depan fixed, or could I move hampir somewhere else?

The most natural word order is:

hampir kena tunggu tahun depan

Here are some possibilities:

Saya hampir kena tunggu tahun depan. – Very natural.
Saya kena hampir tunggu tahun depan. – Sounds odd; usually not said this way.
Hampir saya kena tunggu tahun depan. – Possible for emphasis, but more marked/unusual.

So, treat hampir as coming right before what you “almost” did or had to do:

Saya hampir terjatuh. – I almost fell.
Kami hampir batal perjalanan. – We almost cancelled the trip.
Dia hampir kena buang kerja. – He/she almost got fired.

How do we know the sentence is talking about past events if there are no tense changes on the verbs?

Malay verbs do not change form for tense (no -ed, -s, etc.).
Time is shown by:

Time expressions
- tahun depan – next year (future)
- tadi – earlier
- semalam – yesterday
Context and world knowledge

In Saya lambat buat pendaftaran, you know it refers to a past action because:

You’re describing when you did the registration, which is already over.
It links to hampir kena tunggu tahun depan (almost had to wait until next year), implying a decision point that has already passed.

In context, this is understood as:

“I registered late, so I almost had to wait until next year.”

But grammatically, the verbs themselves (buat, tunggu) do not change form for past/future; Malay relies on context and time words.

Does hampir here imply that in the end I did NOT have to wait until next year?

Yes, that is the usual implication.

Saya hampir kena tunggu tahun depan.
Typically means:
- You almost ended up having to wait until next year,
- but in the end, you didn’t. Something happened that prevented that outcome (e.g. they still allowed your registration).

If you did actually have to wait until next year, you would say:

Saya kena tunggu tahun depan.
→ I have to wait until next year.
or
Akhirnya saya kena tunggu tahun depan.
→ In the end, I had to wait until next year.

Is there a more formal version of the whole sentence?

A more formal or written-style version could be:

Saya lewat membuat pendaftaran, jadi saya hampir terpaksa menunggu sehingga tahun depan.

Changes:

lewat instead of lambat – slightly more formal feel (though both are ok).
membuat pendaftaran instead of buat pendaftaran – full verb with prefix mem- is more formal.
terpaksa menunggu instead of kena tunggu – “forced to wait”, more standard/formal.
sehingga tahun depan instead of tahun depan – adds an explicit “until.”

Meaning is essentially the same, just with a more formal register.