Saya minum teh panas semasa ibu memasak di dapur.

In Malay, adjectives usually come after the noun they describe.

• teh panas = hot tea
• rumah besar = big house
• budak kecil = small child

So teh panas is the normal Malay word order, even though English says hot tea.

It can mean any of those, depending on context.

Malay verbs do not change form for tense the way English verbs do. So minum itself does not tell you past, present, or future.

Context tells you the time:

• Saya minum teh panas semasa ibu memasak di dapur could mean I drank / was drinking hot tea while mother was cooking in the kitchen
• If you want to be more explicit, Malay can add time/aspect words:
  • sedang = in the middle of / currently
  • telah / sudah = already
  • akan = will

For example:

• Saya sedang minum teh panas = I am drinking hot tea
• Saya sudah minum teh panas = I drank / have drunk hot tea

This is a very common question.

Malay has a verb-forming prefix meN- that often appears on active verbs. In this sentence:

• masak can mean cook or cooked
• memasak clearly means to cook / cooking

But some verbs are very commonly used in their base form without the prefix, especially in everyday speech and simple sentences. Minum is one of them.

So:

• Saya minum teh = very normal
• Saya meminum teh = possible, but less common in casual everyday speech and often sounds more formal or stylistically marked

In short:

• memasak is the normal active verb form here
• minum is also normal as a bare verb

Semasa means while, during the time when, or at the time when.

In this sentence, it connects two actions happening at the same time:

• Saya minum teh panas
• ibu memasak di dapur

So semasa tells you the tea-drinking happened while the cooking was going on.

Similar words include:

• ketika = while / when
• sewaktu = while / at the time
• masa = time, sometimes used less formally in expressions like masa saya belajar

Malay often leaves out possessive words when the relationship is obvious from context.

So ibu here naturally means mother / my mother, especially if the speaker is talking about their own family situation.

Compare:

• ibu = mother / mom
• ibu saya = my mother

Both are possible.
Using just ibu is very natural if it is already clear whose mother is meant.

Yes, ibu is completely normal, but its tone depends on context.

As a word for mother, ibu is:

• polite
• neutral
• common in writing and speech

Other family words may sound more casual or regional:

• mak
• emak
• mama

So ibu is a safe, standard choice for learners.

Di here is a preposition meaning in / at / on, and prepositions are written separately from the following word.

So:

• di dapur = in the kitchen

This is important because Malay also has di- as a passive verb prefix, and that one is written attached to the verb.

Compare:

• di dapur = in the kitchen → separate, because di is a preposition
• dimasak = cooked / is cooked → attached, because di- is a verb prefix

This spelling difference is very important in Malay.

Malay does not have articles like English a/an/the.

So teh panas could mean:

• hot tea
• a hot tea
• the hot tea

The exact meaning depends on context.

Malay usually leaves this unstated unless there is a reason to specify it with other words, such as:

• itu = that / the one
• segelas = a glass of
• teh panas itu = that hot tea / the hot tea

It can mean both.

Malay adjective phrases are often flexible in that way. Teh panas can simply describe the tea as being hot.

Depending on context, it may mean:

• hot tea as a type of drink
• tea which happens to be hot right now

Usually the context makes the intended meaning clear.

You certainly can say that, especially if you want to emphasize the ongoing action.

• ibu memasak di dapur = mother cooks / was cooking / is cooking in the kitchen
• ibu sedang memasak di dapur = mother is in the middle of cooking in the kitchen

Likewise, you could also say:

• Saya sedang minum teh panas semasa ibu sedang memasak di dapur

But Malay often leaves out sedang when the context already shows that the actions overlap. So the original sentence is perfectly natural.

The sentence has this structure:

• Saya = subject
• minum = verb
• teh panas = object
• semasa ibu memasak di dapur = time clause

So the pattern is roughly:

Subject + Verb + Object + Time clause

A very literal breakdown is:

• Saya = I
• minum = drink
• teh panas = hot tea
• semasa = while
• ibu = mother
• memasak = cooking
• di dapur = in the kitchen

Yes. Malay allows that.

You can say:

• Semasa ibu memasak di dapur, saya minum teh panas.

This puts the time/background part first, a bit like English:

• While mother was cooking in the kitchen, I drank hot tea.

Both orders are natural. The choice depends on what you want to emphasize first.

No.

Malay nouns and pronouns generally do not mark grammatical gender, and nouns are often not marked for plural unless needed.

In this sentence:

• saya = I
• ibu = mother

There is no grammatical gender system like in some other languages, and nothing special is added for number here.

So Malay is often simpler than English in that respect.