Intermediate Lesson 1
From The Indonesian Language for Foreigners
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Active and passive forms
Just like English, Indonesian sentences have active and passive forms. Compare this English example:
- Active: I opened the window.
- Passive: The window was opened by me.
So by changing some constructs, we can reverse the order of subject and object to mean the same thing, albeit with different nuances. In Indonesian, the process is similar: change some constructs and switch the subject with the object.
Constructing the passive form
For a sentence to have a passive form, the verb must be transitive, i.e.: it must at least have an object (whether direct or indirect is irrelevant). This is how you form the passive (remember that all active-transitive verbs must start with me-):
- Active: A me-V B
- Passive: B di-V oleh A
So the rules are:
- Start with the object
- Change the verb prefix from me- to di- (keep the rest as it is)
- (optional) add oleh before mentioning the subject
- any other adverbs stay where they are
Usage of passive form
If passive form tells exactly the same thing as the active, it has no need to exist in the first place, so it must have a purpose (well, it does). The main difference between active and passive forms is that in a passive sentence the subject (the doer) need not be mentioned. Indonesians like to make things impersonal (see also: Impersonal_-nya), and not needing to mention the subject fits this purpose very well. Due to this reason, Indonesians use passive sentence much more than English speakers.
Consider this:
- in English one might ask: "Have you locked the door?"
- translated to Indonesian: "Sudahkah kau mengunci pintunya?"
- what Indonesians usually say: "Pintunya sudah dikunci?" (literally: "Have the door been locked?")
Whether in talking about oneself or others, or whether asking or simply telling about something, the general rule is that: "If it can be made into passive, do it!" This also serve the function of topic fronting (for the moment, see this wikipedia article).
Problems
There is a subtle difference between "passive construct" and "active construct with object fronting". Topic fronting put focus on a specific part of a sentence, while active-passive distinguish between whether "subject is doing something" and "something is being done to object".
To further complicate matter, Indonesian is also a Pro-drop language, meaning that Indonesian tend not to mention the subject, although often times the subject is readded to a sentence after everything else.
