Learn Hardcore Malay: Guru kata bantuan kecil saya sangat membantu bajet yuran pelajar lain. - The teacher said my small help really supported the budget for other students’ fees.

kata (in this structure, [subject] + kata + [clause]) is a common, slightly informal way to report speech, especially in conversation or narrative:
- Guru kata… = The teacher said…
berkata is a bit more formal/literary:
- Guru itu berkata bahawa…
cakap is colloquial “to talk / to say”:
- Cikgu tu cakap… = The teacher said… (very informal / spoken)

So your sentence is neutral–informal. A more formal written version might use:
Guru itu berkata bahawa bantuan kecil saya…

Why is there no bahawa (“that”) after Guru kata?

In Malay, bahawa (that) is often optional in everyday speech, especially after verbs like kata, berkata, beritahu, fikir, etc.

Full form:
- Guru kata bahawa bantuan kecil saya sangat membantu…
Natural spoken form (your sentence):
- Guru kata bantuan kecil saya sangat membantu…

Both are correct. With bahawa it sounds a bit more formal or written. Without bahawa it’s more conversational and very common.

Why is the word order bantuan kecil saya and not saya bantuan kecil or kecil bantuan saya?

Malay noun phrases normally follow this order:

Noun + Adjective + Possessive pronoun

So:

bantuan = help / assistance (noun)
kecil = small (adjective)
saya = my (possessive pronoun here)

Putting them together: bantuan kecil saya = my small help / my small contribution.

The other orders are ungrammatical or unnatural:

saya bantuan kecil – wrong word order for possession.
kecil bantuan saya – sounds like “the small is my help”, not a normal noun phrase.

Could I also say bantuan saya yang kecil? Is there any nuance difference?

Yes, you can say bantuan saya yang kecil, and there is a slight nuance difference:

bantuan kecil saya
- Smooth, neutral: my small help / my little contribution.
- The whole phrase is just “my small help”, no special emphasis.
bantuan saya yang kecil
- Literally: my help which is small.
- Feels a bit more emphatic or reflective, often used when you are downplaying or being modest about your own help:
  - My help, which is (only) small, really helped…

In many contexts they are interchangeable, but bantuan kecil saya is more straightforward and natural as a basic description.

Is sangat membantu treating membantu as a verb or an adjective? Can I say sangat menolong instead?

In sangat membantu, membantu is still fundamentally a verb (“to help”), but it’s often used in a way that feels a bit like an adjective, similar to “very helpful” in English.

sangat membantu ≈ really helps / very helpful / extremely helpful
It’s a very common collocation:
- Itu sangat membantu. = That really helps / That’s very helpful.

About menolong:

membantu and menolong both mean “to help”, but:
- membantu is more general and neutral, suitable in formal or written contexts.
- menolong often feels more personal / direct, like helping someone physically or personally.

In your sentence:

sangat membantu bajet yuran pelajar lain sounds very natural.
sangat menolong bajet yuran pelajar lain is understandable, but less idiomatic; we more often say menolong seseorang (help a person) than menolong bajet.

Why is there no tense marker like sudah or akan for kata or membantu? How do I know if it’s past, present, or future?

Malay does not normally mark tense on the verb. One form like kata or membantu can cover past, present, and sometimes future. The time is understood from context or from time words.

Your sentence:

Guru kata bantuan kecil saya sangat membantu bajet yuran pelajar lain.

Possible readings depending on context:

Past: The teacher said (before) that my small help really helped the other students’ fee budget.
Present/general: The teacher says that my small help really helps the other students’ fee budget.

To make time explicit, you add particles/time adverbs, for example:

Past: Guru tadi kata…, Guru sudah kata…
Future: Guru akan kata…, Guru kata bantuan kecil saya akan sangat membantu…

How is the noun phrase bajet yuran pelajar lain structured? What exactly modifies what?

In Malay, the head noun comes first, and the modifiers follow it. Here:

bajet = budget (head noun)
yuran = fees (tuition fees, membership fees, etc.)
pelajar lain = other students

Structure:

bajet [yuran [pelajar lain]]

So it means roughly:

bajet (the budget)
of yuran (fees)
of pelajar lain (for other students)

Natural English: “the budget for the other students’ fees” or “other students’ fee budget”.

You could also make it more explicit with untuk:

bajet yuran untuk pelajar lain = budget for the fees for other students.

What is the difference between pelajar lain, pelajar‑pelajar lain, and pelajar yang lain?

All involve the idea of “other students”, but with nuance:

pelajar lain
- Default: other students (plural is understood from context).
- Most common and natural in your sentence.
pelajar‑pelajar lain
- Reduplication often marks plural more explicitly.
- Emphasis on plurality: “the (many) other students”.
- Slightly more formal or written; in many modern contexts, the reduplication is not necessary.
pelajar yang lain
- Literally: the students who are other / the other students.
- Often used to contrast with a specific group already mentioned:
  - Pelajar ini dapat biasiswa, pelajar yang lain perlu bayar yuran penuh.
    = These students get scholarships; the other students must pay full fees.

In your sentence, pelajar lain is the simplest and most natural choice.

What is the difference between yuran and bayaran, and could I say bajet bayaran pelajar lain instead?

yuran
- Specific meaning: fees, especially recurring or institutional ones:
  - yuran sekolah = school fees
  - yuran keahlian = membership fee
bayaran
- More general: payment (any kind of payment, not just formal fees):
  - bayaran sewa = rent payment
  - buat bayaran = make a payment

In your sentence:

bajet yuran pelajar lain = budget for the other students’ fees (very natural).
bajet bayaran pelajar lain is grammatical but a bit vague: budget for the other students’ payments (what payments exactly?).

Because this is about fees, yuran is the more precise and natural word.

Is bajet standard Malay? Are there more formal alternatives?

Yes, bajet is widely used in Malay and is understood everywhere. It is a loanword from English “budget” and is common in news, everyday speech, and even official contexts.

More formal or “native” alternatives:

belanjawan – very common in formal/government contexts:
- Belanjawan Negara = the National Budget
anggaran perbelanjaan – estimated expenditure (more technical/formal)

In your sentence, bajet yuran pelajar lain sounds natural and fine for neutral/formal or informal use.

Why isn’t there a preposition untuk (“for”) before bajet yuran pelajar lain? Can I say …membantu untuk bajet yuran…?

Malay often does not need a preposition where English would use “for”, especially when:

The verb is already about helping or affecting something directly, and
The thing helped is expressed as a direct object.

So:

sangat membantu bajet yuran pelajar lain
= literally really helps (the) budget for other students’ fees.

Adding untuk can sound a bit redundant or less natural here:

sangat membantu untuk bajet yuran pelajar lain – understandable, but not as smooth.

You could use untuk to rephrase more analytically, for example:

…sangat membantu dalam menguruskan bajet yuran untuk pelajar lain.
= really helps in managing the budget for other students’ fees.

But for your original structure, no preposition is the most idiomatic.

Is Guru kata… natural, or should it be Guru itu berkata… or Cikgu tu kata…?

All are possible, but they differ in formality and style:

Guru kata…
- Short, neutral, slightly informal.
- Feels like conversational or narrative style (e.g. telling a story).
Guru itu berkata…
- More formal/written.
- itu adds a sense of “that teacher” / “the teacher” specifically, and berkata is more formal than kata.
Cikgu tu kata…
- Clearly informal/colloquial (especially in Malaysia).
- cikgu = teacher (everyday word), tu (for itu) = informal “that”.

Your original Guru kata bantuan kecil saya… is fine and natural for a general, not-too-formal context.

Why is saya at the end of bantuan kecil saya instead of using something like punya, as in saya punya bantuan kecil?

Standard Malay shows possession by putting the possessor pronoun after the noun:

bantuan saya = my help
bantuan kecil saya = my small help

Using punya is more colloquial and usually has a different pattern:

bantuan kecil saya (standard, neutral)
bantuan kecil saya punya – odd / redundant here.
saya punya bantuan – literally my (one’s) help, but sounds very colloquial, often used in speech for emphasis or in disagreement:
- Ini saya punya. = This is mine.

So the normal, correct form in your sentence is bantuan kecil saya, with saya at the end of the noun phrase.

How could I change the sentence if I want to emphasize “my small help” or emphasize “other students”?

To emphasize “my small help”, you can:

Use ialah and front the phrase (more formal/written):
- Guru kata bahawa yang sangat membantu bajet yuran pelajar lain ialah bantuan kecil saya.
  = The teacher said that what really helps the other students’ fee budget is my small help.
Use lah for emphasis in informal style:
- Guru kata bantuan kecil sayalah yang sangat membantu bajet yuran pelajar lain.

To emphasize “other students”, you can:

Use pelajar‑pelajar lain (plural emphasis):
- Guru kata bantuan kecil saya sangat membantu bajet yuran pelajar‑pelajar lain.
Or contrast explicitly:
- Guru kata bantuan kecil saya sangat membantu bajet yuran pelajar lain, bukan bajet yuran saya.
  = …the other students’ fees, not my own fees.