Voice of Indonesia presents Let’s Speak Indonesian, a program that introduces the Indonesian vocabulary and guides you to speak in the language. Mari Berbahasa Indonesia or Let’s Speak Indonesian is a joint initiative of Voice of Indonesia and the Language Development Agency of the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture.  Today’s topic is still about Sakit which means Sick. 

Here is the conversation entitled Obat apa?which means What Medicine?. This dialog is between Kevin and Mela, Kevin’s workmate. They talk on the phone. Kevin asks Mela if she has medicine or not and Mela wants to know what medicine that Kevin needs. Let’s read to the conversation.

Having listened to the conversation, now I am going to introduce some vocabulary and expressions related to the topic of the day.

In the dialog, you listen to a question Obat apa? (2x) which means What medicine? In the question, there is a word apa (2x) which means what, that is placed in the end of a question. In Indonesian, the word apa (2x) which means what, that is followed by an object can be used to find out a type of some object.

Examples:

Mela   : Obat apa? (2x) which means What medicine?

Kevin  : Parasetamol (2x) which means Paracetamol

Here is another example to find out a type of some object.

Mela  : Air apa? (2x) which means What water?

Kevin: Air putih (2x) which means Mineral water

In Indonesian, drinking water with no color is called air putih (2x) which means mineral water. So if you want to know if someone has mineral water or not, you may ask Ada air putih? (2x) which means Is there any mineral water?

That was “Let’s Speak Indonesian” for today. Hopefully, this edition can be useful for those of you who want to know more about Indonesian language.