Learning Indonesian Urban slang

[kingwilly]

The Indo’s love their acronyms… they will often just use an acronym in conversation, rather than the whole saying. God forbid you ever try to read a text written by an Indo, because it will be full of shortened words and acronyms, most of it urban slang also. Eg: Sayang = 'darling' can be shortened to Sg and Tapi = 'but' however, in text phones they will just write Tp, I’ll see if I can find an example of an entire indo to indo text laterlater. Anyway back to the acronyms, here are a couple that I can think of to start with…..


SMP = Sudah Makan, Pulang. Eaten already, lets go home, usually said at weddings or birthday functions etc


ABCD = Adue Bor, Cape Dei. Oh my God, Girlfriend, So bored of that! Bor is a slang word that ladyboys use for each other.


NATO = No action, Talk only. Usually said by girls in relation to a guy boasting about his sexual prowess.

[NickA]

ABCD!

[Flora]

Yes, That's right Kingwilly. Indonesian People often use acronym when writting something like making a note or sending sms. And sometimes its confusing. There is no standard or particular rule to make the acronym, they just make it based on their assumptions convenient to them so that sometimes we can find a word can be shortened in different ways from different people. They do this because it's really time consuming to write full word whereas in fact they know the full meaning of the word they write. For example: Bagaimana (How),you can see that there are too many letters, Right? But it will be more efficient if you shorten by writting Bgmn, we understand the meaning is "bagaimana" so we don't have to write it for so long. Also "Bagaimana" itself is formal, we urban people use the informal word. We don't say "bagaimana" but say "Gimana" can be shortened as "Gmn". Dimana (where) is written as "dmn", there are still many.

There is no standard but we just make the acronyms based on our judgement convenient to us. Because of this reason, the words will be confusing sometimes the other people don't understand what you mean because you make it based on your assumption.

Not all of the acronyms in Indonesia are understood by the local Indonesian People, sometimes people just wanna become a CREATOR of something so they make the slang, but maybe only small group of people understand while the others are not familiar with it.

So to write shortened words in Indonesia, just write the common words that many people understand like Bagaimana (Bgmn), Dimana (dmn), tetapi (tp). All of these acronyms are understood.

Besides making a note, they use it while sending message (sms) by phone. But to write the shortened words when sending sms, you can make it by your own judgement and from the context you're talking about. For example:Besok pagi gua mau ke Vihara (Tomorrow morning, I wanna go to Temple) can be written as "Bsk pg, g mo k Vhr" No rule to write Vihara as Vhr,but if people know that you are a Buddhist and you are talking about Buddhism before, they will assume that the Vhr is Vihara.

Thank you,


Flora

[NickA]

Originally Posted by Flora

Bsk pg, g mo k Vhr

A KW post if ever I saw one

[kingwilly]

^^ - That's awesome Flora, Trims.

trims = terima kasih or thank-you

[Flora]

Originally Posted by kingwilly

^^ - That's awesome Flora, Trims.

trims = terima kasih or thank-you

Sama2 ya Kingwilly.

Notes: When someone say thank you, you should reply "Terima kasih kembali or Sama - sama". Both to express "you're welcome". You see how I write "sama-sama" the word. I just write only one word "sama" followed by 2. It means "Sama - sama" and people understand the acronym.

Other example like: Ramai-ramai (together with many people) we can write "Ramai2"
Orang-orang (people) can be written as "orang2" or "org2".

[buad hai]

It's called reduplication.

[Flora]

And as you have to know that learning Indonesian language is very easy. Unlike Thai or Chinese, Indonesian is not tonal language, and it uses Latin alphabets A-Z.

There's grammar in Indonesian language but easy to learn. Even you don't speak in the right grammar, people can still understand you. I can say that although you learn by yourself Bahasa Indonesia without any teacher, you still can have the result speaking with local people. Ya only by reading dictionary or other book. Once you know about how to read and pronounce the ABC, only that, you will be able to read and pronounce the whole words.

In Indonesia, many Thai monks can speak bahasa Indonesia fluently, Very Fluent and even they can speak the informal daily words.
I remember last year a Thai monk, just came to Indonesia, I remembered that he was little difficult to have conversation with me in Bahasa Indonesia. If I ask something in Indonesian, sometimes he didn't understand, but he always learned Indonesian. Surprisingly, now whatever I ask him in Indonesian, he can answer in Indonesian, and more surprising is he can send me sms uses the acronym or shortened words. That's very great.

Thanks,

Flora

[Wayne Kerr]

Originally Posted by kingwilly

NATO = No action, Talk only.

Sums up nearly all Indos I work with.

[Redneck]

HP = handphone

Spoken "HAHPAY"

[kingwilly]

Originally Posted by Flora

There's grammar in Indonesian language but easy to learn. Even you don't speak in the right grammar, people can still understand you. I can say that although you learn by yourself Bahasa Indonesia without any teacher, you still can have the result speaking with local people. Ya only by reading dictionary or other book. Once you know about how to read and pronounce the ABC, only that, you will be able to read and pronounce the whole words.

Asik dong!

[momo8]

M-may
W-Willy
A-always
H-hump

[kingwilly]

Originally Posted by Flora

Other example like: Ramai-ramai (together with many people) we can write "Ramai2" Orang-orang (people) can be written as "orang2" or "org2".

yup, also cepat2 = hurry up!

[good2bhappy]

AK KW

[Flora]

Ya emang asik bgt (banget) Kingwilly.

Sorry Kingwilly if you can not receive private message from me. I've replied to you but I can not send message because I'm not able to send private message until I have 20 posts to this forum. Tell me if you have received my message because I don't know if my message has been successfully sent to you.

If you have not received my message, please send me private message again indicating your email address. I'll reply to you through your email address not through this website forum.

Thanks,

Flora

[kingwilly]

Maaf, Sy tk lihat email flora. KW email kingwilly100 at hotmail.com

[Flora]

There are still several acronyms using this sign " / " , for example :
Untuk (For, To) can be written as "utk" or " u/ "
Oleh (By) can be written as "o/"
Sampai dengan (until) can be written as "s/d"

Thanks,

Flora

[Flora]

Originally Posted by kingwilly

Maaf, Sy tk lihat email flora. KW email kingwilly100 at hotmail.com

Now you may check your email, I've sent it to you. Let me know if it's not sent.

Thanks,

Flora

[kingwilly]

Udah. reply otw

[kingwilly]

And of course, the word Sudah, meaning already can be shortened in speech to Udah...