Cost of Bahasa Indonesian Lesson .
- Thread starter Anton
- Start date
I suggest just talking with locals and learning that way. I came to Bali without enough money for Indonesian courses, but I eat at warungs daily, and converse with locals and my Indonesian is already very good after 7 months. I have a friend who has been here for years and taken courses, and in the long run, he ends up speaking too formally for the situation and it sounds funny. I know not everyone learns in the same way, so I can't totally discredit the lessons, but Indonesians are usually very willing to teach a foreigner some Bahasa Indonesia, for free. If you want to study one on one with a tutor of sorts, but want to save money, why not trade Indonesian lessons for English lessons with a local with no money exchanged. I've thought of doing that a couple of times, but in the end, having an Indonesian girlfriend is enough.
calitobali said:
The problem with this is that when you do start to understand b/i you may find that your new girlfriend isnt quite what you bargained for :shock:
Is probably cheaper to take paid lessons than to employ your girlfriend :!:
For me i dont want to learn kasar indo as learning from scratch gives you the chance to learn it as it should be spoken it may be boring to those who prefer to speak only slang but im sure many indonesians would respect a foreigner for learning their language it its correct national form you could still learn other dialects if you choose .
Anyway just being able to learn b/i in any form is a fun thing to do :mrgreen:
I would like to point out the following: bahasa Indonesia is practically a foreign language to every and all Indonesians, at least at this present time. Eventually, it will be THE language of Indonesia, but now it is not.
I have found over the years that if you want to learn bahasa Indonesia, Bali is surely not the place to be. I don't mean that some educated Balinese do not speak bahasa Indonesia well: of course some do. But if you talk to the "average Joe" Balinese in a warung, forget it. And it's not a question of intelligence. I have made the experiment myself, and found out that a becak driver in Yogya speaks a correct Indonesian, what would be considered almost formal in Bali, and what a pleasure that is.
I have found over the years that if you want to learn bahasa Indonesia, Bali is surely not the place to be. I don't mean that some educated Balinese do not speak bahasa Indonesia well: of course some do. But if you talk to the "average Joe" Balinese in a warung, forget it. And it's not a question of intelligence. I have made the experiment myself, and found out that a becak driver in Yogya speaks a correct Indonesian, what would be considered almost formal in Bali, and what a pleasure that is.
Anton wrote:
"For me i dont want to learn kasar indo as learning from scratch gives you the chance to learn it as it should be spoken it may be boring to those who prefer to speak only slang but im sure many indonesians would respect a foreigner for learning their language it its correct national form you could still learn other dialects if you choose"
Sorry Anton, but speaking only formal Indonesian will only achieve isolating yourself from many and most conversations amongst locals
If you wish to connect with Indonesians through language, you must be able to converse in either their dialect fluently (for example, in Central Java Indonesians tend to speak very refined Javanese and very little Indonesian, when conversing amongst themselves), or be able to speak "marketplace" Indonesian - which is not a "slang" version or Bahasa Indonesia, but more-so a colloquial version. Most Indonesians converse amongst themselves in a mixture of "marketplace Indonesian" and their own dialect (be it Balinese, Javanese, Sundanese, etc). When they travel or converse with other Indonesians who do not speak their own dialect, they revert to pure "marketplace" Indonesian, and generally not Bahasa Indonesia.
When an official is interviewed or a reporter reads the news, they are speaking Bahasa Indonesia - that language, will be fine if you plan on doing all the talking, because yes, most Indonesians understand it - but if that's all you speak and understand, the person you are speaking to will need to answer you in a language that they would only otherwise speak in a very formal setting (e.g. Perhaps being interviewed). And as a participant in a casual conversation with a group of Indonesians, you'll understand but a mere fraction of what is being said (unless you don't mind making everyone speak Bahasa Indonesia for the benefit of yourself).
As for being respected for making the effort to "learn their language", as Tintin alluded to, most Indonesians see their own dialect as their language and formal Bahasa Indonesian as the written / media language.
Troy F.
"For me i dont want to learn kasar indo as learning from scratch gives you the chance to learn it as it should be spoken it may be boring to those who prefer to speak only slang but im sure many indonesians would respect a foreigner for learning their language it its correct national form you could still learn other dialects if you choose"
Sorry Anton, but speaking only formal Indonesian will only achieve isolating yourself from many and most conversations amongst locals
If you wish to connect with Indonesians through language, you must be able to converse in either their dialect fluently (for example, in Central Java Indonesians tend to speak very refined Javanese and very little Indonesian, when conversing amongst themselves), or be able to speak "marketplace" Indonesian - which is not a "slang" version or Bahasa Indonesia, but more-so a colloquial version. Most Indonesians converse amongst themselves in a mixture of "marketplace Indonesian" and their own dialect (be it Balinese, Javanese, Sundanese, etc). When they travel or converse with other Indonesians who do not speak their own dialect, they revert to pure "marketplace" Indonesian, and generally not Bahasa Indonesia.
When an official is interviewed or a reporter reads the news, they are speaking Bahasa Indonesia - that language, will be fine if you plan on doing all the talking, because yes, most Indonesians understand it - but if that's all you speak and understand, the person you are speaking to will need to answer you in a language that they would only otherwise speak in a very formal setting (e.g. Perhaps being interviewed). And as a participant in a casual conversation with a group of Indonesians, you'll understand but a mere fraction of what is being said (unless you don't mind making everyone speak Bahasa Indonesia for the benefit of yourself).
As for being respected for making the effort to "learn their language", as Tintin alluded to, most Indonesians see their own dialect as their language and formal Bahasa Indonesian as the written / media language.
Troy F.
Hi Troy,
i do understand where your coming from though i didnt intend to just learn bahasa ind,as there are so many dialects in indonesia you will face the same problems what ever dialect you decide to settle for, as you have also said
With all due respect most indonesians have had a lifetime to master the variants of there own languages and i for one havent got that kind of head start so probably learning bahasa ind up to a certain point whilst conversing with locals using my b/i skills as a base to add on those local dialects but still having the important knowledge of the national language ," i never intended to alienate myself " show me an advertised language course on kasar indonesia i havent seen one yet so one must start somewhere and sometimes starting something new gives one the opportunity to do it the correct way and i can only guess that the average indonesian school also follow this line,
im pretty sure most indonesians can atleast understand the basics of b/i and in the short time i will be learning i probably will only get to the basics just enough to encourage me to take a trip to the market and start shouting my mouth off in b/i with atleast some confidence :mrgreen:
ronb said:
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The web-site itself simply has an extra message saying:
Don't worry - we're from the internets. It's going to be alright.
Ok my thoughts for today on this subject are as follows :
Now on my hopefully up coming trip to the big durian i will want to get cracking on this language palarva and to pay Rp160'000 a pop to an unknown isnt my cup of tea,so right i was thinking there are many young indonesian students who are unemployed and can speak good english and as i think the average weekly wage would be say Rp250'000 per week ( dont quote me its just a guess ) now a good idea would be for me to offer an unemployed student say Rp100'000 for say to spend the day with me talking and generally say sight seeing lunch that kind of thing you see i have a good grasp of the basics and can learn quickly once my mind is engaged now !
Its never a good idea to mix business with pleasure so having an indonesian girlfriend/teacher i think will disrupt my concertration
Im sure i could save thousands and manage to maintain my millionaire status :mrgreen:
Nantiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Now on my hopefully up coming trip to the big durian i will want to get cracking on this language palarva and to pay Rp160'000 a pop to an unknown isnt my cup of tea,so right i was thinking there are many young indonesian students who are unemployed and can speak good english and as i think the average weekly wage would be say Rp250'000 per week ( dont quote me its just a guess ) now a good idea would be for me to offer an unemployed student say Rp100'000 for say to spend the day with me talking and generally say sight seeing lunch that kind of thing you see i have a good grasp of the basics and can learn quickly once my mind is engaged now !
Its never a good idea to mix business with pleasure so having an indonesian girlfriend/teacher i think will disrupt my concertration
Im sure i could save thousands and manage to maintain my millionaire status :mrgreen:
Nantiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii