How to Read Indonesian Words

In reading Indonesian words, you need to break down the words based on the sound of each syllable that forms the word. This method will ease you in reading any word.

Syllable

Dispart a word based on the sound of syllables are great to train your speaking in Bahasa Indonesia. It will ease you in determining how a word should be read.

The way to dispart Indonesian words is actually totally easy. Once you are familiar with this method, you will be able to dispart any word into syllables you want to say. Meaning that you will be able to say any Indonesian word. Take a look on table containing some examples below.

Word	Syllable	Meaning
Aku	a - ku	I / me
Makan	ma - kan	Eat / to eat
Minum	mi - num	Drink / to drink
Tidur	ti - dur	Sleep
Duduk	du - duk	Sit
Membaca	mem - ba - ca	Read
Bertanggungjawab	ber - tang - gung - ja - wab	To be responsible
Mempertanggungjawabkan	mem - per - tang - gung - ja - wab - kan	Account for

Tricks

To master this course, you need to be familiar with prefix and suffix in Bahasa Indonesia. Once you are familiar with prefix and suffix, it must be easier to read any word. In breaking any word into syllable, prefix and affix should be in one syllable. Let’s check the following examples.

Root	Affix	Suffix	Syllable	Meaning
men_	Jalan	_kan	men - ja - lan - jan	To run / to perform
me_	Laksana	_kan	me - lak - sa - na - kan	Implement
mem_ & per_	Taruh	_kan	mem - per - ta - ruh - kan	Stake
mem_	Beli	_kan	mem - be - li - kan	Buy for
men_	Jual	_kan	* men - ju - wal - kan	Trade off

(Note: Look at the last example in row ‘syllable’ above. When ‘u’ meets ‘a’, you should read it as ‘wa’.)

In breaking down root word into syllables, it commonly consists of two or three letters - depends on the vocal-consonant. The most common practice in forming syllable is by placing consonant as the first letter on each syllable. When you are confused with the spelling of double-vocal letter such as ‘ua’, ‘eo’, ‘io’, etc., read the discussion about “Diphtong in Bahasa Indonesia”.

Also consider reading “Digraph in Bahasa Indonesia” to ease you in reading Indonesian words.