Learn Hardcore Malay: Di pasar raya, jurujual muda itu bercakap dengan pelanggan dalam Bahasa Jepun. - At the supermarket, that young salesperson talks with customers in Japanese.

Di pasar raya means At the supermarket.
Placing it at the start is very common to set the scene:
- Di pasar raya, jurujual muda itu bercakap dengan pelanggan dalam bahasa Jepun.

You can also move it:

Jurujual muda itu bercakap dengan pelanggan dalam bahasa Jepun di pasar raya.

Both are grammatical.
Difference is mostly about emphasis and flow:

Sentence-initial Di pasar raya: focuses first on where it happened.
Sentence-final di pasar raya: focuses more on the action and adds where at the end.

What exactly does di mean here, and how is it different from pada?

Di is a preposition meaning at / in / on for physical locations:

di pasar raya – at the supermarket
di rumah – at home
di sekolah – at school

Pada is used more for:

time: pada pukul tiga (at three o’clock), pada hari Isnin (on Monday)
more abstract locations/targets: bergantung pada keadaan (depends on the situation)

So:

Di pasar raya (at the supermarket) ✅
Pada pasar raya ❌ (unnatural in this context)

Here, di pasar raya is the only natural choice.

How is jurujual muda itu structured? Which word is the noun, which is the adjective, and what does itu do?

The phrase jurujual muda itu breaks down like this:

jurujual – noun: salesperson / shop assistant
muda – adjective: young
itu – determiner: that / the

Word order in Malay:

Noun + Adjective + itu
So jurujual muda itu literally = salesperson young that → that young salesperson / the young salesperson

itu marks the noun as specific/definite, similar to the or that in English.
Without itu, it’s less specific:

jurujual muda – a young salesperson / young salespeople (in general)
jurujual muda itu – that specific young salesperson / the young salesperson (already known to speaker and listener)

Why does muda (young) come after jurujual (salesperson)? In English we say “young salesperson”.

In Malay, descriptive adjectives usually come after the noun:

jurujual muda – young salesperson
rumah besar – big house
budak nakal – naughty child

So the pattern is:

[Noun] + [Adjective]

Putting muda before jurujual (muda jurujual) would be wrong in standard Malay for “young salesperson”.

Could I say seorang jurujual muda itu or seorang jurujual muda? What does seorang do?

Seorang is a classifier/measure word meaning one (person).

seorang jurujual – one salesperson / a salesperson (person-counting)
seorang jurujual muda – one young salesperson / a young salesperson

About your options:

seorang jurujual muda ✅
- Neutral: “a young salesperson” / “one young salesperson”.
seorang jurujual muda itu ⭘
- Grammatically possible but sounds a bit heavy; you’d more often hear either:
  - jurujual muda itu – the young salesperson (definite), or
  - seorang jurujual muda – a young salesperson (indefinite).

So, in your sentence:

Jurujual muda itu bercakap… → The young salesperson spoke…
Seorang jurujual muda bercakap… → A young salesperson spoke…

Both are grammatical; they differ in definiteness.

What is the difference between bercakap and cakap?

Both are related to speaking/talking, but:

cakap is the root word (base verb / word).
bercakap is formed with the prefix ber-, making a regular intransitive verb.

Usage:

bercakap – more standard/formal:
- Dia sedang bercakap dengan pelanggan.
  She is talking with the customer.
cakap – often used in spoken/informal Malay, especially in certain regions:
- Dia tengah cakap dengan pelanggan.

In your sentence:

… jurujual muda itu bercakap dengan pelanggan …
uses the more standard form.

You wouldn’t usually say jurujual muda itu cakap dengan pelanggan in formal writing, but it’s common in everyday speech.

Why is it bercakap dengan pelanggan and not bercakap kepada pelanggan? What’s the difference between dengan and kepada here?

Both dengan and kepada can appear with verbs of saying, but they feel different:

dengan = with
- Emphasizes interaction / two-way communication.
- bercakap dengan pelanggan – talk with the customer (a conversation).
kepada = to
- Emphasizes direction / one-way (speaker → listener).
- bercakap kepada pelanggan – speak to the customer (more like addressing someone, giving a speech, or formal talking).

In this supermarket context, bercakap dengan pelanggan is more natural, because it implies a normal back-and-forth conversation.

There’s no word for “was” or any past tense marker. How do we know bercakap is “was speaking / spoke” and not “is speaking / speaks”?

Malay verbs usually do not change form for tense. Bercakap by itself is tenseless:

bercakap can mean speak / speaks / is speaking / was speaking / will speak, depending on context.

To show time more clearly, Malay uses extra words:

Past: tadi, semalam, kelmarin, telah, sudah
Present/ongoing: sedang, tengah
Future: akan, nanti, esok

Examples:

Jurujual muda itu sedang bercakap dengan pelanggan.
The young salesperson is speaking with the customer (right now).
Tadi, jurujual muda itu bercakap dengan pelanggan.
Earlier, the young salesperson was speaking / spoke with the customer.

In your isolated sentence, English learners often choose past (was speaking / spoke) because that’s a common narrative style, but in Malay the verb itself doesn’t show tense.

How can I tell if pelanggan is singular (customer) or plural (customers)?

Pelanggan is number-neutral by default:

It can mean customer or customers, depending on context.

To make the number explicit, you add quantifiers:

seorang pelanggan – one customer
seorang pelanggan tetap – a regular customer
beberapa pelanggan – several customers
ramai pelanggan – many customers

So:

jurujual muda itu bercakap dengan pelanggan
could be:
- the young salesperson spoke with a customer
- the young salesperson spoke with (the) customers

Only context or added words will clarify singular vs plural.

Why do we say dalam Bahasa Jepun? Could we use dengan instead, like dengan Bahasa Jepun?

Here, dalam is used in the sense of “in (the medium/language of)”.

bercakap dalam bahasa Jepun – speak in Japanese (using Japanese as the language)

We do not normally say:

✗ bercakap dengan bahasa Jepun – this sounds wrong/unnatural.

Compare:

dalam – in (inside, in terms of medium/language/style):
- menulis dalam bahasa Melayu – write in Malay
- bercakap dalam bahasa Jepun – speak in Japanese
dengan – with (accompanied by / together with a person/thing):
- datang dengan kawan – come with a friend
- bercakap dengan pelanggan – talk with the customer

So your sentence correctly separates them:

bercakap dengan pelanggan (talk with the customer)
dalam bahasa Jepun (in Japanese).

Should it be Bahasa Jepun or bahasa Jepun? Which word gets capitalized?

In modern standard Malay:

bahasa (language) is a common noun → usually not capitalized.
Jepun (Japan/Japanese) is a proper noun → capitalized.

So the recommended form in the middle of a sentence is:

dalam bahasa Jepun

At the start of the sentence you’d capitalize the first word anyway:

Bahasa Jepun ialah…

You will often see Bahasa Melayu, Bahasa Inggeris capitalized in some official/older materials, but many style guides now prefer:

bahasa Melayu (Malay language)
bahasa Inggeris (English language)
bahasa Jepun (Japanese language)

Can I leave out dalam and just say bercakap bahasa Jepun?

You will hear and see both patterns:

bercakap dalam bahasa Jepun ✅ (very common, standard)
bercakap bahasa Jepun ✅ (also used, a bit shorter / more colloquial in feel)

The most “textbook” version is:

Dia bercakap dalam bahasa Jepun.

But this is also understandable and used:

Dia bercakap bahasa Jepun.

What you cannot do is insert dengan there:
✗ bercakap dengan bahasa Jepun – incorrect.

What is the difference between jurujual muda itu and jurujual itu muda?

They look similar but function differently:

jurujual muda itu
- A noun phrase: the young salesperson
- Used as the subject of a sentence:
  - Jurujual muda itu bercakap dengan pelanggan.
jurujual itu muda
- A full sentence: the salesperson is young
- Here muda is a predicate adjective describing jurujual itu.
- Rough English equivalent: The salesperson is young.

So:

jurujual muda itu = “the young salesperson” (as one unit)
jurujual itu muda = “the salesperson is young” (statement about age)

Is the comma after Di pasar raya necessary?

The comma is optional but common in writing:

Di pasar raya, jurujual muda itu… ✅
Di pasar raya jurujual muda itu… ✅

Writers often add a comma after a fronted time/place phrase to make the sentence easier to read. In speech, you’d naturally pause there. Grammatically, both forms are fine.

Is pasar raya one word or two? I’ve seen pasaraya as well.

In standard contemporary Malay:

pasar raya (two words) is the recommended spelling for supermarket.

You may still see:

pasaraya – an older or brand-style spelling, common in shop names and signage.

Meaning:

pasar – market
raya – big/great/main

So pasar raya literally = big/main market, which corresponds to supermarket.

Which words in this sentence are absolutely necessary, and which could be omitted without making it ungrammatical?

Original:

Di pasar raya, jurujual muda itu bercakap dengan pelanggan dalam bahasa Jepun.

Core skeleton:

Jurujual itu bercakap dengan pelanggan.
The salesperson spoke with the customer.

Optional/modifying elements:

Di pasar raya – adds where; optional but informative.
muda – adds young; can be removed if age is unimportant.
dalam bahasa Jepun – adds in Japanese; remove it and you just say they talked, without specifying which language.
Even itu can be dropped:
- Jurujual muda bercakap dengan pelanggan. – a (some) young salesperson spoke with the customer.

So various shorter versions are still grammatical; they just lose some detail:

Jurujual muda itu bercakap dengan pelanggan.
Jurujual itu bercakap dengan pelanggan dalam bahasa Jepun.
Di pasar raya, jurujual itu bercakap dengan pelanggan.