VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Voice of Indonesia presents “Let’s Speak Bahasa Indonesia,” a lesson in the Indonesian language on the radio, introducing some Indonesian vocabulary and tips on how to use it in a conversation. This segment is a joint initiative of Voice of Indonesia and the Language Development and Cultivation Agency at the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture.  Today’s topic is  ‘Office Hours’ or Jam Kerja.

Next is a conversation about Jam Kerja  or  ‘Office Hours’. Tony and Endah are talking about Joko’s work.

Tony          : Di sini biasanya mulai kerja jam berapa ?

Endah       : Rata-rata mulai jam 7.30 dan selesai jam 4 sore.

Tony          : Istirahat jam berapa ?

Endah        : Istirahat jam dua belas sampai jam satu

Tony          : Oh, jadi, istirahat satu jam, ya ?

Endah        : Ya.

After the conversation, now I’m going to introduce some vocabularies and expressions related to the topic today. I’ll say each word slowly and twice, you can follow after me.

In the dialogue, Tony said Di sini biasanya mulai kerja jam berapa?. The word biasanya is an adverb that shows frequency. Here are next adverbs that show frequency: selalu (always), biasanya (usually), sering (often), kadang-kadang (sometimes), jarang (rarely) and tidak pernah (never).

For examples:

-      Saya selalu berangkat kerja pukul tujuh. (I always go to work at 7 o’clock.)

-      Mereka biasanya pulang kerja jam 4 sore. (They usually go home at 4 p.m.)

-      Aku sering pergi ke sekolah jam tujuh. (I often go to school at 7 o’clock.)

-      Dia kadang-kadang pulang jam sepuluh malam. (Sometimes he comes home at 10 p.m.)

-      Tony jarang datang terlambat.  (Tony rarely comes late.)

Actually, there are still other kinds of adverbs but the words selalu, biasanya, sering, kadang-kadang dan tidak pernah  are often used in daily conversation.