Malam tadi, bekalan elektrik terputus dua kali, jadi saya tidak dapat mengecas telefon sampai penuh.

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Breakdown of Malam tadi, bekalan elektrik terputus dua kali, jadi saya tidak dapat mengecas telefon sampai penuh.

• sampai: until
• tidak: not
• jadi: so

Questions & Answers about Malam tadi, bekalan elektrik terputus dua kali, jadi saya tidak dapat mengecas telefon sampai penuh.

What does malam tadi mean exactly? Why not just semalam?

Malam tadi means last night.

• malam = night
• tadi = earlier / a little while ago, and in time expressions it often helps point to something recent in the past

So malam tadi is a very natural way to say last night.

Semalam usually means yesterday. If you want to be specific about the nighttime, malam tadi is clearer and more natural here.

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Why is there no past tense marker in the sentence?

Malay does not usually mark tense on the verb the way English does.

Instead, time is often shown by context or time expressions. In this sentence, the past meaning comes from malam tadi.

So:

• terputus does not mean past by itself
• tidak dapat mengecas does not mean past by itself either
• the whole sentence is understood as past because of malam tadi

This is very common in Malay.

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What does bekalan elektrik mean? Is it just electricity?