Invitation Letter - Itu: Fill & Download for Free

As a native Indonesian, I’d say that formal Indonesian is quite a bit hard. No, not because of pronunciation, nor conjugation either. It’s because of these things1. Affixes.To a native Indonesian, the affixation system is easy. To make a verb in the active voice, you add me- or ber-. To make passive voice, add di-. To derive a meaning you can add -an or ke-an. Simple, right?To an extent. Each affix has their own uses.However, just like conjugation or declination, things aren’t so simple. The same affix can function differently depending on the class of word it’s attached to. Or the same function can use different affixes depending on the word. Affixes can also change shape depending on the first letter of a word.For example, take the prefix me-, the most used one. It’s used to make a verb an active one. For example, melukis “to paint” is from the root lukis that means “paint”. The construction is easy, just add me- in front of lukis. Simple.But there is one thing, the prefix me- “mutates” the letters at the beginning of a word if it’s followed by a vowel. From bakar “burn” you don’t get mebakar, but membakar. From cari “search, look for” you don’t get mecari, but mencari. From sikat “brush” you don’t get mesikat, but menyikat. This can be confusing for beginners. This rule only applies to some letters, but it’s enough of a headache. And then there are rules about when and how to mutate the first letter if it’s followed by another consonant. You get mempraktikkan from praktik “practice” but memrogram from program. Actually, in the KBBI (Grand Dictionary of the Indonesian Language), the entry is memprogram, but by rules, it should be memrogram, based on pemrograman “programming”.But there’s more, this prefix only works in active/action verbs. We have another prefix for stative verbs: ber-. Santai “relax” is not menyantai, but bersantai. Ubah “change” is not mengubah, but berubah. Mengubah is a valid verb but it needs an object. “I change my uniform” is aku mengubah seragamku, but “that machine changes to be better” is mesin itu berubah menjadi lebih baik.Of course, there are exeptions, like berjalan “to walk”, being an action verb but prefixed with ber-, and tertawa “to laugh”, that resembles a passive verb despite being an active one.But wait, there’s still more. Most of these verbs change form again when they’re used as transitive verbs, e.g. they have an object. Mengubah is an example of this. Another example is mendekat “to come closer/be closer”. “He’s coming closer” is dia mendekat but “he’s coming closer to that car” is dia mendekati mobil itu, but again “he’s making that car closer” is dia mendekatkan mobil itu. Notice the addition of the suffix -i and -kan. With the addition of these suffix to the prefix me-, it becomes the circumfix me-i and me-kan.This is just the beginning. There are still more rules to derive verbs from adjectives, adjective from verbs, nouns from verbs, nouns from adjectives, and adjectives from nouns.Do you think these verbs changes to mark the tenses? Nope. We don’t play with tenses, we play with transitivity, accidentality, and voices, all can be done in one prefix. Instead of tenses, we have aspects. “He eats cakes” and “he ate cakes” both translate to dia memakan kue, “he eats” and “he ate” both translate to dia makan*, but “he has eaten” translates to dia sudah/telah makan. And then “the milk is drunk” and “the milk was drunk” both means susu itu diminum*. Susu itu terminum can be translated into English as “the milk is/was accidentally drunk”.Also, don’t think that native Indonesians get these rules right all the time. People here sometimes confuse peduli “to care about” and perduli, a broken form of it. People think that perduli is duli prefixed with per-, which is not a prefix used to derive verbs. Merubah and mengubah are also often confused when people want to say “to change smth.”. Mengubah is the correct form, while merubah means “to fox, to become a fox, to act like a fox”. People confuse them because they think that the root of berubah is rubah, which actually means fox.But don’t worry, these rules are high-level Indonesian, although they appear all the time. If you get them wrong, you’ll still be understood by the locals.2. Spoken IndonesianTo put it simply, it’s hard to get a grip on spoken Indonesian. It has different rules, different wordstock, and slightly different grammar and syntax. Even as a native Indonesian I can’t really understand what are my friends saying if I’m not up to date with latest trends and words, like mantul which rather than “to bounce”, it means mantap betul “very good/cool/dope”.For example, those transitive circumfixes above, me-kan and me-i, and their intransitive verb counterparts in Jabodetabek dialect they combine into [nasal]-in. Both the verbs in “he’s coming closer” and “he’s coming closer to that car” are translated to ngedeketin (mostly western Jabodetabek) or ndeketin (mostly eastern Jabodetabek)** instead of mendekat and mendekati. Other verbs also get this treatment.There are also other affixational differences. Some of ber- prefixed words change into -an affixed words; berlibur changes into liburan, both means “to go on a holiday”. Some of them treated like me- prefixed words; bersantai changes to nyantai. Some of them even lose the prefix entirely; berjalan becomes jalan, “to walk, to go (to)”.Oh, hey, do you ever notice that when speaking spoken Indonesian (still Jabodetabek dialect), people tend to slip in small particles like lah, dih, tuh, sih, etc.? They’re used to change the nuances and senses of the sentence. Lah can indicate surprise, confusion, willingness, invitation, and much more. Tuh is used to indicate pointers. Sih conveys confusion, agitation, and interest. Confusing? Yes. To add the krim on the kue, these particles are untranslatable to Standard Indonesian.And it doesn’t help that there are a lot of dialects of spoken Indonesian, depending on the geography. Indonesia is not a small country, the dialect of Semarang is not the same as those in Medan, Palangka Raya, or Sofifi. For example, Jakarta and Bandung are only ~130 km apart, yet if you say gua and lu in Bandung, you’ll be immediately considered as very rude and arrogant. But in Jakarta, these words are perfectly fine; they’re just an informal version of aku and kamu, “I” and “you”. The Indonesian spoken in Sundanese lands also has the particle euy, while in Batak lands they have bah. Remember, Indonesian is not the only language of Indonesia; there are over 700 languages spoken throughout the archipelago.Standard Indonesian is used as a bridge connecting these numerous dialects and languages, which can be a kind of chore. But if the result is being able to connect with the rest of Indonesia, I’m all for it. Actually, there are instances where the situation demands us to speak in Standard Indonesian (Standard and Formal Indonesian are two different things, you can be standard without being formal) even if the person/people you’re speaking to perfectly understand/s your dialect.For more explanation about the spoken version of Indonesian, here is a link to my answer to an article Andrean Romanky's answer to What do you think of "Why no-one speaks Indonesia's language"? To quote the answer:There are times when I speak Standard Indonesian. I present my papers in Standard Indonesian, even when I know that my classmates and lecturer perfectly understand Bekasi dialect. In this sense, spoken Indonesian is referred to as Informal Indonesian in contrast to Formal Indonesian. There is of course Poetic Indonesian that uses words that are not used in both formal and informal variant of the language. Aside from that, when I speak to my lecturers or campus staff, I tend to use a dialect closer to Standard Indonesian.In my opinion, these are the things that make Indonesian challenging for learners.*The past tense in English can be translated to Indonesian with sudah/telah to indicate the past. In practice, people figure out the tense from the context, so we don’t really mention the words often.**Not sure about the west-east division since there’s no research about it. This is based on my experience travelling around Jabodetabek.I was kind of surprised that this answer has already been posted. I think I pressed the wrong button (Answer instead of Save Draft). I guess having bubur (porridge) at 16 isn't really the best choice.EDIT: Added about informal Indonesian, fixed some translations, fixed answer structure.

I would like to direct your attention to my post on this subject: Peter Yan's answer to How does the Chinese government view Vietnam and the Philippines in the South China Sea dispute?In that post, I stated from Pre-WWII Period with this paragraph from Battle of the Paracel Islands - Wikipedia:““China first asserted sovereignty in the modern sense to the South China Sea’s islands when it formally objected to France’s efforts to incorporate them into French Indochina during the Sino-French War (1884–1885). Initially, France recognized Qing China's sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos, in exchange for Chinese recognition of Vietnam as a French territory. Chinese maps since then have consistently shown China’s claims, first as a solid and then as a dashed line. In 1932, one year after the Japanese Empire invaded northeast China, France formally claimed both the Paracel and Spratly Islands. China and Japan both protested. In 1933, France seized the Paracels and Spratlys, announced their annexation, formally including them in French Indochina. They built several weather stations on them, but they did not disturb the numerous Chinese fishermen found there. In 1938 Japan took the islands from France, garrisoned them, and built a submarine base at Itu Aba (now Taiping / 太平) Island. In 1941, the Japanese Empire made the Paracel and Spratly islands part of Taiwan, then under its rule”.From there, I took the story all the way to modernity.I certainly have seen a lot of maps here backing up Vietnam’s claim. The questions in my mind are the following:If Vietnam’s claim went so far back as indicated, why did the French go to China to discuss sovereignty issues of both Paracel and Spratly archipelagos? Why did Vietnam not protest when France recognized Chinese sovereignty over these island instead of Vietnam?2. China first drew the dash-line, “first as a solid and then as a dashed line” in the 1884–1885 time period. Why was any protest not shown in any of the responses to this question backing up Vietnam’s claim?3. Why did Vietnam not protest, as both China and Japan did, when France incorporated these islands?4. Why did France not return these archipelagos to Vietnam when it exited Vietnam as its colonial master? Why was Vietnam not able to convince its former colonial master of its “historical” claim?5. Why did the US navy took the Chinese to recover all these islands, and not the Vietnamese?6. Why was it stated, in Battle of the Paracel Islands - Wikipedia, that “In 1956 North Vietnam formally accepted that the Paracel and Spratly islands were historically Chinese”? If this information is incorrect, why did Vietnam not provide information to have this sentence edited?7. Why did UNESCO invited China to put up observation posts in 1987 in the Spratlys, instead of Vietnam? Johnson South Reef Skirmish - Wikipedia8. In the answer from Mr. Tung Mahn Tung Manh's answer to Are Vietnam’s bases to claim islands in South China Sea reliable?, he mentioned the letter from Mr. Pham Van Dong, but failed to translate the first part of the letter. Please allow me to do so. The first part of said letter stated:“The government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam recognizes and agrees to the declaration, of September 4, 1958, of the government of the Socialist Republic of China, deciding on the territorial sea of China”.So why is this important passage not translated by Mr. Tung? Please allow me to clarify:“The Declaration dated September 4th, 1958 mentioned in this written document referred to the Chinese “Declaration on Territorial Waters” which specifically stated that the Paracel (Xisha) and Spratly (Nansha)_ islands were Chinese territories. (p 274 of the book by Bruce Elleman et al “Beijing’s Powers and China’s Borders”). The Chinese spokesperson was its then premier Zhou Enlai, the “Comrade Prime Minister” referred to in the Vietnamese letter”. Peter Yan's answer to How does the Chinese government view Vietnam and the Philippines in the South China Sea dispute?The part that Mr. Tung did not translate is the part that Mr. Dong specifically acknowledged, albeit indirectly, Chinese sovereignty over both Paracel and Spratly islands!There is quite a bit more information in my aforementioned article. Please take a look if you are interested. Peter Yan's answer to How does the Chinese government view Vietnam and the Philippines in the South China Sea dispute?