Indonesian for Serious Language Learners
Beginner
- Are you a beginner without any previous knowledge? — We have the material to get you started.
- Do you know the basics but need to further improve your knowledge of Bahasa Indonesia? — We have plenty of resources for intermediate speakers of Indonesian and offer the best way to learn Bahasa Indonesia—the language of Indonesia, one of the most fascinating countries on earth.
Advanced & Special Needs
- Are you a fluent speaker of Indonesian but have difficulties in reading formal Indonesian? — We offer a Formal Indonesian course.
- Do you speak standard Indonesian, but have difficulties comprehending colloquial Indonesian? — We do have an advanced level course to learn Jakarta-style colloquial Indonesian!
Fun & Engaging
- Are you in need to improve your listening and writing skills? — We have the right course for you, too!
- Do you want your language learning to be fun and engaging? Our eLearning courses are interactive with relevant, and meaningful activities.
Beginner
$90
2 years
Advanced
$140
5 years
Beginner & Advanced
$195
5 years*
User Reviews
Blog
Fore more articles on Indonesian language and culture, please visit our partner site BahasaKita
From bhāṣā to bahasa5 (1)
The word bahasa is derived from Sanskrit bhāṣā and it has the same meaning as language, Sprache, taal, langue, la lengua etc. In most Indian languages the word bhāṣā still has the same meaning. In Hindi, हिन्दी भाषा (Hindi bhāṣā) means ‘Hindi language’, but in English we typically simply call it ‘Hindi’, just as we call bahasa Indonesia ‘Indonesian’. From the first milenium onwards, Southeast Asia underwent a strong Indian influence. Today, about 5% of all Indonesian words are of
Dodol0 (0)
Dodol is a sweet, toffee-like treat made from sticky rice flour (tepung ketan), coconut milk (santan), and palm sugar (gula merah) derived from the sap of the Arenga pinnata sugar palm known as aren or enau. Dodol is sometimes enhanced with durian flavor. This rich and sweet snack is highly popular in Indonesia, where it originated. Historically, dodol has been enjoyed for over a thousand years, as evidenced by its mention in the Masahar inscription from East Java dating back to 930 CE. Nowadays, dodol is closely associated with the city of Garut in West Java, which
Is Indonesian Difficult to Learn?0 (0)
For a native speaker of English, learning Indonesian is harder than learning any Romance of Germanic language. This is because English is a Germanic language which has borrowed about half of its vocabulary from Romance languages, mainly French. But is Indonesian more difficult to learn than a Slavonic language such as Russian or Polish? I don’t think so. And it is definitely easier to learn than Arabic, Turkish, Hindi, Chinese, or Vietnamese. Of course, when you are a speaker of
Syukur0 (0)
The word syukur is a loan word from Arabic shukran (شكراً) ‘thank you’. So, how is it different from terima kasih, which is the standard Indonesian phrase for ‘thank you’? You never use syukur to say ‘thank you’. ‘Thank you’ is always terima kasih. But when you want to say ‘I am grateful’, then you may either say saya berterima kasih or saya bersyukur. The main difference between the two is that syukur has a religious undertone. Some examples: Syukur.
How to Express Numbers, Times, and Measures in Indonesian?0 (0)
Decimal Place and Thousands Separator Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States (along with possibly some former British and American colonies) are among the few countries globally that use a full-stop (period) to indicate the decimal place. In contrast, most other countries opt for a comma. Similarly, while many English-speaking nations employ a comma to separate thousands, many other countries use a period instead. Indonesia adheres to the European system: 1.5 kg Satu koma lima kilogram. Alternatively, you
A Review of BahasaKita.com0 (0)
The website BahasaKita.com, translating to ‘our language’, is managed by Wieke Gur, an Indonesian citizen currently residing in Perth, Australia. Coinciding with the establishment of Indonesian Online, Wieke launched bahasakita.com, marking the beginning of a close and collaborative partnership between Indonesian Online and BahasaKita. The website boasts a comprehensive section on grammar explanations, with a noteworthy highlight being the extensive coverage of colloquial Indonesian by Dr. Tim Hassell, a Senior Lecturer in Indonesian (Associate Professor in US terminology) at the
Selamat0 (0)
Of course you have heard the greeting Selamat Pagi, which simply means “Good Morning”. And you may also have heard Selamat Tidur which is ‘Good Night; Sleep Well’. Yet, it does not mean ‘good’! Do you know what ‘Happy Birthday’ or ‘Happy Anniversary’ is in Indonesian? It is Selamat Ulang Tahun There is also Selamat Tahun Baru or ‘Happy New Year.’ But it also does not mean ‘happy’! And how do you say ‘good bye’? Most textbooks will teach you
New Serba-Serbi Nusantara Lesson0 (0)
A new lesson was added to Serba Serbi Nusantara, our reader for advanced Indonesian, which now has 35 lessons. In this lesson, and in the next few lessons that we plan to develop, we are focusing on Indonesia, its people, languages, and cultures. The lesson is entitled “Mengenali Keragaman Suku Bangsa di Indonesia” (Recognising Indonesia’s Ethnic Diversity). According to the 2010 Population Census, Indonesia has more than one thousand ethnic groups. That alone is already astonishing. But what is really
New Intermediate to Advanced Lessons0 (0)
«Indonesian Online» is under constant development. In 2019, the intermediate course «Baca Yuk!» and the advanced reader «Serba Serbi Nusantara» consisted of 23 lessons each. Now, each course has 33 lessons, meaning that we added 20 lessons during the last three years. Developing one lesson is time consuming. One of the most daunting tasks is to find suitable raw material, usually texts from a newspaper or an online journal, and a short video with good audio sound and little or
Where is Indonesian taught?0 (0)
Each time when you log in to Indonesian Online account, the IP from where you log on is recorded, and hence we know from what country you accessed Indonesian Online. We don’t consistently keep track from where our customers log in, but within the last four days, we had log-ins from 14 countries: 6 from Asia: Brunei Darussalam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Viet Nam; 4 from Europe: Spain, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom; 2 from the Americas: Canada, USA. We also
A wonderful Indonesian Online Testimonial0 (0)
We are very pleased that the Indonesian language textbooks in indonesian-online.com have received almost exclusively good to excellent reviews. A few months ago we were absolutely thrilled. After having received about 50 user-written testimonials within about five years, our rating stood at 5.0. Yes, five point zero. Over years and years we had only positive review but we knew that one day we would receive a not-so-stelar testimonial. And then it came. It was not a four, three, or a
3 New «BacaYuk!» Lessons0 (0)
We have just finished creating three more lessons for «Baca Yuk!» . All three lessons are based on videos available on YouTube. In order to expose the Indonesian language learning community to a wide variety of texts, «Baca Yuk!» texts embrace a wide range of topics. It is difficult finding YouTube videos that we deem suitable to become the base of a lesson and it took us many hours of viewing before we finally found three videos that met the