Saya suka Indomie: Learning Indonesian. Also working on French & German.

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Adrianslont
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Re: Damn you Duo! Side quest: Indonesian.

Postby Adrianslont » Fri Aug 31, 2018 4:55 pm

I enjoy hanging out on r/Indonesia at times myself - though I haven’t really for a few months now and I don’t contribute much at all. Still it’s a good way to learn about Indonesia and practice a bit of Indonesian.

Be aware that there are demographic biases in that sub, it’s mostly reasonably affluent Indonesians who speak English and a disproportionate amount of Chinese-Indonesians. Not that there is any problem with that - but it explains some attitudes and discussions. It’s a good country sub because it is mostly locals - not expats. Although the predominate language is English be aware that the Indonesian used there is mostly Bahasa Gaul, ie very informal Indonesian, pronouns like gua, gue, lo and non-standard spellings, much like sms speak. Google translate can’t cope with much of it. In fact it’s a good place to get experience with Bahasa Gaul when you feel you want to do that - but you probably need some kind of Bahasa Gaul primer to get you started - Wikipedia is not a bad place to start. Cheers.
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Re: Damn you Duo! Side quest: Indonesian.

Postby MattNeilsen » Fri Aug 31, 2018 5:06 pm

Damn you and your fun descriptions of Danish and Indonesian...I'm trying to focus over here!! :D

If you don't mind me asking, where do you live? When I was looking into getting Pimsleur Hebrew, I found it at several different libraries across the country (USA). Assuming you live in the US, maybe you could get a membership at a library in another state and then download the course?

Regardless, I'm definitely a fan of Pimsleur + Duolingo, though I'm getting really addicted to Clozemaster (which has Bahasa Indonesian, by the way...).
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Re: Damn you Duo! Side quest: Indonesian.

Postby Deinonysus » Fri Aug 31, 2018 5:29 pm

Adrianslont wrote:I enjoy hanging out on r/Indonesia at times myself - though I haven’t really for a few months now and I don’t contribute much at all. Still it’s a good way to learn about Indonesia and practice a bit of Indonesian.

Be aware that there are demographic biases in that sub, it’s mostly reasonably affluent Indonesians who speak English and a disproportionate amount of Chinese-Indonesians. Not that there is any problem with that - but it explains some attitudes and discussions. It’s a good country sub because it is mostly locals - not expats. Although the predominate language is English be aware that the Indonesian used there is mostly Bahasa Gaul, ie very informal Indonesian, pronouns like gua, gue, lo and non-standard spellings, much like sms speak. Google translate can’t cope with much of it. In fact it’s a good place to get experience with Bahasa Gaul when you feel you want to do that - but you probably need some kind of Bahasa Gaul primer to get you started - Wikipedia is not a bad place to start. Cheers.
Thanks for the heads-up! I'm still not at the level where I can pick up on differences in dialect/register, but hopefully my level will be high enough soon. Do you think I would be able to start picking up Bahasa Gaul by osmosis with a high enough level of Bahasa Baku, or is it different enough that separate learning materials are needed?

MattNeilsen wrote:Damn you and your fun descriptions of Danish and Indonesian...I'm trying to focus over here!! :D

If you don't mind me asking, where do you live? When I was looking into getting Pimsleur Hebrew, I found it at several different libraries across the country (USA). Assuming you live in the US, maybe you could get a membership at a library in another state and then download the course?

Regardless, I'm definitely a fan of Pimsleur + Duolingo, though I'm getting really addicted to Clozemaster (which has Bahasa Indonesian, by the way...).
That's my evil plan. Soon everyone else will give into Wanderlust as much as I do. :twisted:

I'm in Massachusetts. I've been able to get just about anything within state, but usually only by hard copy. I haven't been able to find any downloads. But to be honest, I use Pimsleur so much and it's been about a year and a half since I actually bought anything from them, so I don't mind throwing some money at them so they can keep making their product.

I have used Clozemaster a bit, but I got frustrated with a high amount of beginner vocabulary because I don't usually start power-leveling vocabulary until I'm at least an advanced beginner. I ran into the same issue with Memrise. I generally prefer building Anki decks myself and adding unfamiliar words that I encounter. But maybe it's worth taking another look at it.
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Adrianslont
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Re: Damn you Duo! Side quest: Indonesian.

Postby Adrianslont » Fri Aug 31, 2018 8:06 pm

Learn Bahasa Gaul by osmosis? - maybe if you were in country and hanging out with young people. I think it’s worthwhile putting some hours into explicit learning but you don’t need a lot - just learn the Gaul pronouns, the common particles for emphasis, surprise etc, a couple of phonological and spelling variations and the little bit of alternative grammmar. If you want to learn all the cool slang vocabulary the cool kids use that will take an extra effort but maybe just learn a few dozen common terms that many people use.

When to learn it? When you feel frustrated by not understanding what you are reading and hearing and speak enough standard Indonesian to realise you have Bahasa Gaul issues. So it really depends on what native media you start to consume - a lot of comedy movies have a lot of Gaul. Serious talk shows don’t. The Indonesia sub Reddit does.

How to learn it? The Wikipedia article “Indonesian slang” is a really good start. The website bahasakita.com has good sections on colloquial language. Reading those and then rereading later will probably be enough - along with actually coming to grips with it in the Reddit sub and movies and some sitcoms. I like the Reddit sub because you get small chunks and can build gradually.

I should add that I am far from an expert but I feel comfortable with the basics of Gaul when I read it. A few times I have used BG when speaking to older people and they have corrected me, using the standard! When I try it with younger people they don’t correct me but seem surprised or amused or maybe even impressed - especially as I am not young!
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Re: Damn you Duo! Side quest: Indonesian.

Postby Axon » Sat Sep 01, 2018 8:16 am

Deinonysus wrote:Do you think I would be able to start picking up Bahasa Gaul by osmosis with a high enough level of Bahasa Baku, or is it different enough that separate learning materials are needed?


I'm also no expert in Bahasa Gaul, but I do think this is possible. The vast majority of my Indonesian education was formal (incidentally we always called it bahasa resmi, never baku). It took me several months of being in country before I started to be able to pick up new informal things from hearing them on the street. I never really had any long and casual conversations in Indonesian so I'm sure my production of gaul is trash.

In the Bahasa Indonesia Untuk Dunia thread I've linked some sources for subtitled Indonesian videos that strike a good middle ground between what you'll learn from textbooks and real Bahasa Gaul. I've also posted 400 sentences translated from English to Gaul, which Adrianslont has made some corrections to. Once you've gotten a good way through Duolingo, those videos and sentences shouldn't give you much trouble.

I like that you're tackling Kompas already. I recommend their Lifestyle section for more down-to-earth everyday language. They also have a general-interest section called Oh Begitu which is a way to say "Oh, I see, it's like that."
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Re: Damn you Duo! Side quest: Indonesian.

Postby Expugnator » Sun Sep 02, 2018 3:59 pm

Oh Begitu =原来是这样 ?
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Axon
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Re: Damn you Duo! Side quest: Indonesian.

Postby Axon » Sun Sep 02, 2018 4:08 pm

Expugnator wrote:Oh Begitu =原来是这样 ?


I mean, I'm no native speaker here, but in my mind it's closer to 这样啊. The meanings do overlap a bit.

原来是这样 to me has the connotation that you were legitimately wondering for a while and your question was answered. Maybe there was even a sense of deception, or someone withholding the full information. It can also be used sarcastically if someone reluctantly admits something - "Oh, now the truth comes out!" but in a joking way.

Oh begitu is something I heard often enough that it kind of became a private joke for some of us foreigners, though of course it can be used earnestly too. It's often a quick way to say "oh I see." The funny part is that it's also used when you understand something and find it relatively interesting, but it was over-explained and you'd like to move the discussion on, like "Oh neat, but by the way..." In that sense, it's closer to "How about that" in my dialect of English.
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Re: Damn you Duo! Side quest: Indonesian.

Postby Deinonysus » Tue Sep 04, 2018 1:43 pm

Interesting information!

I recognized the 原 character from Remembering the Kanji. I also recognized components of some of the other Chinese characters. Hopefully within the next couple of years I'll finally go through the whole book. Japanese and Mandarin are a bit far down on my list of languages to get to because of the time commitment.

I was away for the long weekend and didn't do any Duolingo or Pimsleur. I only do Pimsleur in the car, and Duolingo Indonesian is not available for mobile yet. However, I gave Clozemaster another try and I actually really liked it! I'm starting with the 100 most frequent words rather than the Fluency Fast Track. One issue I have with it is that a given cloze only has one acceptable answer, so if it could be one of a couple of synonyms you need to use the "select" option. If you choose the wrong synonym you will be marked wrong. For instance, I've learned that if it wants me to translate "want" I need to use the "select" option to see if it wants "mau" or "ingin", and the same is true for various versions of pronouns. But I am able to type in verbs where there may or may not be a "me-" prefix, because it doesn't mark a word wrong if it's only two letters off.

I think I'll start using it for German once I'm done with this Bahasa Indonesia side quest in a couple of months. I don't think I want to do the Fluency Fast Track there either. I would want to skip the 500 or 1000 most common words because I already know most of them and I'd get bored.

I left off part-way through Pimsleur lesson 9 on Friday, and that's the sexual harassment lesson. You practice numbers by asking an uninterested woman when she is available to go out with you and keep asking her if she's available at different times for like 10 minutes. It was kind of funny once but I've encountered it in almost every Pimsleur course I've done, and honestly it's really creepy. I think they removed it in the 2000s, so when I buy the latest version it should be gone and I can redo lesson 9.
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Re: Damn you Duo! Side quest: Indonesian.

Postby Deinonysus » Wed Sep 05, 2018 2:48 pm

I bought the full Pimsleur Indonesian course and burned the mp3s onto a CD (old fashioned, I know). I skipped around the early lessons and wanted to see how similar it is to the earlier version I was using. I wasn't really able to notice much of a difference. This version doesn't introduce reading practice until lesson 10, so the earlier lessons should be a bit longer. I decided to redo lessons 3 onward. Hopefully they got rid of the sexual harassment lesson.

The booklet said that the course teaches three pronouns, so I was hoping that it replaced "ibu" and "bapak" (basically "sir" and "ma'am") with the more standard pronouns of "Anda" (2nd person singular formal), "kamu" (2nd person singular informal), and "kalian" (2nd person plural). Unfortunately, it stuck with "ibu" and "bapak", so I'm guessing that the third pronoun will be "kalian". Or maybe they don't consider "ibu" and "bapak" to be pronouns and they'll teach all three? I've started saying "Anda" when prompted for "ibu" or "bapak" because that's what I use in Duolingo and I don't need to remember whom I'm supposed to be addressing, and it's still polite.

It's hard to stave off Wanderlust and Xhosa is looking mighty tempting, but I want to get my Indonesian to the level where I can enjoy extensive reading in native materials even if I don't understand every word. I'll carve out some time for Xhosa next year. I would also love to dive into a Maya language (probably Ch'orti', the closest living language to Classical Maya), but I'm sure I'll have access to much better materials once I've gotten my Spanish to a high intermediate or advanced level. That will probably take a couple of years, because I'm not even working on Spanish right now.

I start my German class tomorrow! I'm not sure quite what to expect but I guess we'll see. I haven't taken a college class in person in almost a decade. I hope I remember to bring my textbook! Maybe I should have brought it to work today.
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Adrianslont
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Re: Damn you Duo! Side quest: Indonesian.

Postby Adrianslont » Wed Sep 05, 2018 7:43 pm

Hey, don’t worry about using ibu and bapak - it’s been extremely common everywhere I’ve gone, actually more commonly it’s bu and pak. I can’t remember anyone ever saying anda to me although you hear it in interviews on tv and radio and where the announcer is addressing the audience. Everyone called me pak and i called them pak unless they were a young person. In places like five star hotels - I can actually afford them in Yogyakarta and Medan - they called me bapak.

I wonder what Axon’s experience was as a younger man. I imagine he got a mix of pak and mas. Axon?
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