Learn Hardcore Malay: Adakah bos tahu bahawa awak kerja sambilan di kafe? - Does the boss know that you work part-time at the café?

Statement: Bos tahu bahawa awak kerja sambilan di kafe.
→ The boss knows that you work part‑time at the café.
Yes–no question (standard/written):
Adakah bos tahu bahawa awak kerja sambilan di kafe?
→ Does the boss know that you work part‑time at the café?

Is it necessary?

In formal/written Malay: Adakah is quite natural and correct.
In everyday spoken Malay, people very often omit it and just use intonation or other particles (like tak, ke).

So, you don’t have to use Adakah in normal conversation, but it’s good to understand it and be able to recognise or use it in more formal contexts (writing, speeches, exams, news, etc.).

How else could I ask the same question in more natural spoken Malay?

For normal, everyday speech, Malaysians are more likely to use these patterns:

Bos tahu tak awak kerja sambilan di kafe?
– Very common, friendly, conversational.
– tak at the end works like a yes–no question marker.
Bos dah tahu ke awak kerja sambilan kat kafe?
– Even more colloquial:
- dah = already
- ke = informal question particle
- kat = colloquial for di
Drop both Adakah and any particle, just rely on intonation:
Bos tahu awak kerja sambilan di kafe? (with rising tone)
– Also possible in speech, but less “marked” as a question; context and tone do the work.

So:

Adakah bos tahu... → more formal/standard.
Bos tahu tak... / Bos dah tahu ke... → everyday spoken Malay.

Is awak formal, informal, or rude? Can I use anda or kamu instead?

Awak is:

Common in Malaysia
Generally neutral–informal
Often used:
- Between friends
- Between partners/spouses
- Sometimes between strangers of similar status/age

However, for someone older or higher status (like a boss), many people would avoid awak, especially in more traditional or formal settings.

Alternatives:

anda
- Formal, “safe”, and impersonal.
- Common in writing, advertising, instructions, official notices.
- Sounds a bit distant in everyday speech, but polite.
- Example: Adakah bos tahu bahawa anda kerja sambilan di kafe?
kamu
- In Malaysia, often used:
  - To people younger than you
  - In plural (“you all”: kamu semua)
- Can sound a bit harsh or “teacher talking to pupil” if used to adults of equal/higher status.
Very common real-life strategy: avoid “you” entirely and use the person’s name or title. For example, instead of awak:
- Adakah bos tahu bahawa saya kerja sambilan di kafe?
  (Drop “you” altogether; the speaker is “I”, the boss is just “bos”.)

For a boss, a polite and natural option would be to say something like:

Bos dah tahu ke yang saya kerja sambilan di kafe?
or in more formal style:
Adakah bos sudah maklum bahawa saya bekerja sambilan di sebuah kafe?

Why is bos used here? Isn’t there a more “Malay” word?

Bos is a very common loanword from English “boss”, and it’s widely used in Malaysia.

Nuances:

bos
- Informal–neutral.
- Very common in speech.
- Can mean “boss”, “manager”, “person in charge”.
Other options:
- majikan – “employer” (more formal, legal / HR context).
- ketua – “chief/head” (e.g. ketua jabatan = head of department).
- pengurus – “manager”.
- tuan/puan/encik/cik + name – polite titles.

So you might see:

Adakah majikan tahu bahawa awak kerja sambilan di kafe?
→ More formal, “Does your employer know…?”

In casual speech, bos is perfectly normal.

Why is it kerja sambilan, not bekerja sambilan?

In Malay:

kerja can be both:
- a noun: work, job
- a verb (colloquial): to work
bekerja is the standard verb form: to work.

In everyday speech, people often say:

Awak kerja di kafe.
→ You work at a café. (colloquial verb usage)

In more formal/standard style, you’d expect:

Awak bekerja di kafe.

So, in your sentence:

awak kerja sambilan di kafe → colloquial but widely accepted.
awak bekerja sambilan di kafe → more standard/“textbook” style.

Both are understandable; bekerja sambilan sounds a bit more formal/standard.

What exactly does kerja sambilan mean? Is it the same as “part‑time job”?

Kerja sambilan literally means “supplementary/additional work” and is commonly used for:

part‑time work (beside your main job or studies)
side jobs / side gigs

So in this context, kerja sambilan di kafe = a part‑time job at a café / working part‑time at a café.

Other similar expressions:

kerja separuh masa – literally “half‑time work”; also means “part‑time job”.
Some people simply use part time as a loanword in speech:
- Kerja part time di kafe.

All of these will be understood, but kerja sambilan and kerja separuh masa are more “Malay”.

Do I have to use bahawa here? Can I say the sentence without it?

Bahawa is a conjunction meaning roughly “that” (for reported or embedded clauses), like:

I know *that you work part‑time at a café.*

In Malay, after verbs like tahu (know), fikir (think), kata (say), etc., bahawa is:

Common in formal or careful writing
Often dropped in speech

So you can say:

Adakah bos tahu bahawa awak kerja sambilan di kafe?
(more formal)

or (very natural in speech):

Adakah bos tahu awak kerja sambilan di kafe?

Both are grammatical. In day-to-day conversation, people usually omit bahawa.

How is tense expressed here? It looks like there’s no “do/does/is/are/was/were” in Malay.

Malay does not change the verb form for tense the way English does. There’s no separate form for “work / worked / working / will work”, etc.

In Adakah bos tahu bahawa awak kerja sambilan di kafe?, the time reference is understood from context. Depending on context, it could mean:

Does the boss know that you work part‑time at the café? (present)
Did the boss know that you worked part‑time at the café? (past)
Will the boss know that you’ll be working part‑time at the café? (future, with supporting context)

To be more explicit, Malay uses time words or aspect markers:

sudah / dah – already
sedang – in the middle of doing (currently)
akan – will

Examples:

Adakah bos sudah tahu bahawa awak kerja sambilan di kafe?
→ Has the boss already found out that you work(ed) part‑time at the café?
Adakah bos tahu bahawa awak sedang bekerja sambilan di kafe?
→ Does the boss know that you are currently working part‑time at the café?

The base form kerja doesn’t change; time/aspect is shown by extra words.

Why is it di kafe and not ke kafe or just kafe?

Malay prepositions:

di = at / in / on (location, no movement)
ke = to / towards (movement, destination)
dari = from

Here, the meaning is “work at a café”, describing location, so di is correct:

kerja sambilan di kafe → part‑time work at a café

Comparisons:

Saya pergi ke kafe.
→ I go to the café. (movement, so ke)
Saya duduk di kafe.
→ I sit at the café. (location, so di)

You usually don’t drop di in standard Malay; di kafe is the natural form.

In very casual speech, people may say kat kafe instead of di kafe; kat is a colloquial form of di.

Why is the word order bos tahu bahawa awak kerja... and not something else?

The sentence follows normal Malay S–V–O/complement order:

bos – subject (the boss)
tahu – verb (knows)
bahawa awak kerja sambilan di kafe – object/complement (what the boss knows)

So, structurally:

[Adakah] [bos] [tahu] [bahawa awak kerja sambilan di kafe]?
= [Q‑marker] [Subject] [Verb] [Clause]

You cannot move tahu in front of bos the way you might in English questions, because Malay doesn’t invert subject and verb for questions:

✅ Bos tahu...?
❌ Tahu bos...? (wrong as a simple question in standard Malay)

Instead of inversion, Malay uses:

question particles: Adakah, ke, tak, kah
intonation
to signal that it’s a question.

Is this sentence polite enough to use about my boss? How would I make it more polite?

As written, Adakah bos tahu bahawa awak kerja sambilan di kafe? is:

Grammatically fine.
Neutral in tone.
But “awak” + “bos” can sound a bit casual, depending on culture and workplace.

To sound more polite/respectful, you can:

Avoid awak, use saya for yourself and no “you”:
- Adakah bos tahu bahawa saya kerja sambilan di kafe?
Use a more formal style and vocabulary:
- Adakah bos sudah maklum bahawa saya bekerja sambilan di sebuah kafe?
  - sudah maklum = is already informed/aware
  - bekerja sambilan = more standard
  - sebuah kafe = “a café” (with classifier sebuah)
Use a respectful title instead of bos, if appropriate:
- Adakah Encik / Puan / Tuan tahu bahawa saya bekerja sambilan di sebuah kafe?

In a casual modern office where everyone says bos and awak, the original sentence might be fine. In a more traditional or formal environment, the more polite versions are safer.

Is there a more colloquial (very casual) version that friends or coworkers might actually say?

Yes, in very casual, everyday Malaysian speech, you might hear versions like:

Bos dah tahu ke yang kau kerja part time kat kafe?
Bos tahu tak kau buat kerja sambilan kat kafe?

Features of this more colloquial style:

Bos → stays the same.
dah = already (short for sudah).
ke or tak → question particles.
kau = very informal “you” (use only with close friends / equals).
part time = English loan used in speech.
kat = colloquial for di.
yang used instead of bahawa.

Your original sentence:

Adakah bos tahu bahawa awak kerja sambilan di kafe?

is a good standard base. From it, you can move:

more formal (bekerja, sudah maklum, majikan, anda, etc.)
or more casual (bos tahu tak, kau, part time, kat, etc.), depending on the situation.