VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

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 about Transportasi which means Transportation.

Here is the conversation entitled “Macet Sekali” which means “Very Congested”. This dialog happens when Kevin is in a taxi. He and the taxi driver are talking about traffic condition. Let’s read to the conversation.

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

In the dialog, you hear Kevin say Di jalur biasa macet sekali (2X) which means It is very congested on the normal route. In the sentence, there is an adverb sekali (2X) which means very. It is placed after an adjective to show the quality of the adjective. In the dialog context betweenKevin and the taxi driver, Kevin describes the traffic condition which is not only congested, but very congested. Therefore, he says Di jalur biasa macet sekali (2X) which means It is very congested on the normal route.

Other examples:

Let’s read to the other examples to describe a condition by using an adverb to show quality.

- Apakah pelabuhan jauh dari sini? (2X) which means Is the port far from here?

- Iya. Pelabuhan jauh sekali dari sini (2X) which means Yes. The port is very far from here.

- Hari ini panas sekali (2X) which means Today is very hot

- Ya, benar (2X) which means Yes, that’s right

 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.