Learn Hardcore Malay: Dia menutup televisyen kerana rancangan itu terlalu membosankan. - He/She turns off the television because that program is too boring.

Dia is a third‑person singular pronoun meaning he, she, or they (one person). It is gender‑neutral; Malay pronouns do not mark gender.

Dia menutup televisyen...
= He turned off the TV / She turned off the TV

Whether it’s he or she is understood only from context, not from the word dia itself.

Capitalisation:

Dia is not normally capitalised (except at the start of a sentence).
It may be capitalised (Dia) in religious contexts when referring to God, but that’s a special use.

Why is it menutup televisyen and not just tutup televisyen? What’s the difference between tutup and menutup?

The base word is tutup (close / shut / turn off). Menutup is the meN- prefixed form, which makes it a standard active transitive verb “to close/shut (something)”.

tutup – base form, often used in casual speech and imperatives
- Tutup pintu. = Close the door.
- Dia tutup TV. (casual) = He/She turned off the TV.
menutup – more formal, commonly used in writing and careful speech
- Dia menutup televisyen. = He/She turned off the television.
- Dia menutup pintu. = He/She closed the door.

Both tutup televisyen and menutup televisyen are grammatically fine.
Differences are mainly:

Register:
- tutup televisyen ≈ more casual / spoken
- menutup televisyen ≈ more neutral/formal, typical in written examples
Structure:
- menutup clearly behaves like a standard verb taking an object, which is why textbooks often use it.

Could I also say Dia mematikan televisyen for “He/She turned off the TV”? What’s the difference between menutup and mematikan?

Yes, you can say:

Dia mematikan televisyen kerana rancangan itu terlalu membosankan.

Mematikan comes from mati (dead/off) + meN- + -kan, so it literally means to make (something) dead/off, i.e. to switch off, to turn off, to kill.

Typical uses:

mematikan lampu = turn off the lights
mematikan enjin = shut off the engine
mematikan telefon = switch off the phone

For a TV, both are acceptable:

menutup televisyen – literally “close/shut the television”; very common in Malay usage.
mematikan televisyen – literally “turn off the television (power)”; also natural.

Nuance:

mematikan focuses more on cutting power / stopping operation.
menutup is a bit broader (close/shut/turn off), but in context everyone understands it as “turn off”.

There’s no word for the before televisyen or rancangan. How do you say a and the in Malay?

Malay does not have articles like a/an and the. Nouns appear without articles, and definiteness is understood from context or from other markers.

In the sentence:

Dia menutup televisyen
This can mean He/She turned off the TV (the one in the room, the known TV). It could also, in another context, mean a TV.
rancangan itu
The word itu (that) marks it as specific/definite:
- rancangan itu ≈ that programme / that show / the programme

Ways Malay marks something as more “definite”:

Using itu (that) or ini (this):
- buku itu = that book / the book
- kucing ini = this cat / the cat
Using possessives:
- rumah saya = my house / the house I own
Using context (previously mentioned or obvious things).

So Malay does not have direct equivalents of a/an/the; it uses context and demonstratives like itu/ini instead.

What exactly does televisyen mean here? Is it the device or the show?

Televisyen refers to the device (the TV set) or the medium in general, not the specific show.

In this sentence:

Dia menutup televisyen
= He/She turned off the television set.

The show itself is rancangan (itu):

rancangan itu = that programme / that show.

So:

televisyen → the machine
rancangan → the programme being shown on the machine

What is the function of kerana here? How is it different from sebab and untuk?

Kerana is a conjunction meaning because or since (cause/reason).

In this sentence:

Dia menutup televisyen kerana rancangan itu terlalu membosankan.
= He/She turned off the television because the programme was too boring.

Comparisons:

kerana
- Meaning: because, since
- Register: slightly more formal/neutral, very common in both speech and writing
- Example:
  - Saya lewat kerana jalan sesak.
    I’m late because the road is jammed.
sebab
- As a noun: cause, reason
  - Itu sebab utama. = That’s the main reason.
- As an informal conjunction: because
  - Dia tak datang sebab dia sakit. = He/She didn’t come because he/she is ill.
- In everyday speech, sebab is extremely common instead of kerana.
untuk
- Means: for, to (in order to)
- Not used for “because”
- Example:
  - Saya belajar untuk lulus peperiksaan. = I study to pass the exam.

So in your sentence, kerana means because, and you could very naturally say in casual speech:

Dia tutup TV sebab rancangan itu terlalu membosankan.

Why does the sentence say rancangan itu instead of just rancangan? What difference does itu make? Can I omit it?

Rancangan means programme/show/plan, and itu means that.

rancangan itu = that programme / the programme (that we both know about)

Including itu:

Makes the programme specific and known to both speaker and listener.
Suggests “that particular show we were just watching”.

If you say:

Dia menutup televisyen kerana rancangan terlalu membosankan.

This is grammatically possible but sounds incomplete/unnatural in standard Malay; we usually expect either:

rancangan itu (that programme), or
rancangan di TV (the programme on TV), etc.

So the natural options are more like:

kerana rancangan itu terlalu membosankan
kerana rancangan di televisyen itu terlalu membosankan (more detailed)

Does rancangan only mean a TV programme?

No. Rancangan is a general noun that can mean:

TV / radio programme or show
- rancangan berita = news programme
- rancangan hiburan = entertainment show
Plan / scheme / arrangement
- rancangan pelajaran = lesson plan
- rancangan perjalanan = travel plan / itinerary
- rancangan pembangunan = development plan

In this sentence, the context (televisyen) makes it clear that rancangan itu = that TV programme/show.

What does terlalu add to the meaning? How is terlalu membosankan different from sangat membosankan or just membosankan?

Terlalu means too / too much / excessively.

terlalu membosankan ≈ too boring (to the point that it’s a problem or unacceptable)

Comparisons:

membosankan
- boring
- Neutral intensity.
- Rancangan itu membosankan. = That programme is boring.
sangat membosankan
- very boring (strong, but not necessarily “too much”)
- Rancangan itu sangat membosankan. = That programme is very boring.
terlalu membosankan
- too boring (excessively boring, more than acceptable)
- Rancangan itu terlalu membosankan. = That programme is too boring (so I don’t want to watch it).

In your sentence, terlalu explains the reason more strongly:
He/She turned off the TV because the show was excessively boring, not just mildly boring.

What’s the difference between bosan and membosankan?

They are related but not the same:

bosan – usually describes a person’s feeling (bored)
- Saya bosan. = I’m bored.
- Dia berasa bosan. = He/She feels bored.
membosankan – describes something that causes boredom (boring), or to bore someone
- Rancangan itu membosankan. = That programme is boring.
- Kuliah itu sangat membosankan. = The lecture is very boring.

Grammar-wise:

bosan is an adjective (“bored”).
membosankan is formed from bosan with meN-
- -kan, which often makes a causative verb/adjective: “to cause X / causing X”.

So in your sentence:

The programme is membosankan (boring),
As a result, the person becomes bosan (bored), so they turn off the TV.

There is no word for past tense like “turned”. How do we know this sentence is in the past?

Malay verbs usually do not change form for tense. The verb menutup can mean:

turns off / is turning off / turned off

Tense is understood from:

Time expressions (e.g. tadi, semalam, sekarang, nanti)
Context in the conversation.

Examples:

Dia menutup televisyen tadi.
He/She turned off the TV earlier. (past marked by tadi)
Sekarang dia menutup televisyen.
He/She is turning off the TV now. (present marked by sekarang)

In your isolated sentence, an English speaker would normally translate it as past (“turned off”) simply because that’s the most natural interpretation when giving a reason with kerana. But grammatically it could be present or future depending on added context.

Is the word order in kerana rancangan itu terlalu membosankan fixed? Could I say kerana terlalu membosankan rancangan itu?

The natural word order is:

kerana
- [subject] + [predicate]
kerana rancangan itu terlalu membosankan
= because that programme (subject) is too boring (predicate)

Breaking it down:

rancangan itu – subject
terlalu membosankan – predicate (adjective phrase)

Malay usually keeps:

Subject before predicate in such clauses.

Kerana terlalu membosankan rancangan itu is not natural in standard Malay. It sounds awkward and ungrammatical in normal prose. You might only see unusual orders in poetry or song lyrics, but for standard language you should keep:

kerana rancangan itu terlalu membosankan

Does itu always mean that, or can it also work like the in English?

Itu is primarily a demonstrative, meaning that (distal).

However, in real usage it also often functions like a definiteness marker, similar to the:

rancangan itu
- literally: that programme
- often: the programme (already known to both speakers)

So itu can:

Point to something physically or contextually “there”:
- Rumah itu cantik. = That house is beautiful.
Mark a specific, known thing:
- Masalah itu sudah selesai. = The problem has been solved.

In your sentence:

rancangan itu is best translated as that programme, but the programme is also a good natural translation in English.

How would this sentence sound in very casual spoken Malay?

In casual conversation, people often shorten and relax the sentence:

Standard-ish:

Dia menutup televisyen kerana rancangan itu terlalu membosankan.

Very casual:

Dia tutup TV sebab rancangan tu terlalu bosan.
or even
Dia tutup TV sebab rancangan tu bosan gila. (slangy, “crazy boring”)

Typical changes:

menutup televisyen → tutup TV
kerana → sebab
itu → tu (colloquial pronunciation)
terlalu membosankan → terlalu bosan / bosan gila (informal intensifier)

The core structure and meaning stay the same, but vocabulary and formality shift to match everyday speech.