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 Kerja dari Rumah which means Work from Home.

Here is the conversation entitled KDR selama Seminggu which means One-Week WFH.Kevin dan Mela are in the office. They are talking about a plan to work from home. Let’s listen 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 Mela say Mulai Senin kita akan KDR selama seminggu (2x) which means As of Monday we will WFH for a week. In the expression there is the word selama (2x) which means for. In the dialog context between Mela dan Kevin, the word selama is used to emphasize the time used in doing something.

Let’s listen to the other examples of expressions to emphasize duration to do something.

Mela           : Berapa lama kita akan KDR? (2x) which means How long will we WFH?

Kevin           : Kita akan KDR selama seminggu (2x) which means We will WFH for a week

Kevin          : Tadi malam saya hanya tidur selama dua jam (2x) which means Last night I slept for only two hours

Mela           : Oh, ya? Kenapa? (2x) which means Oh really? Why?

The word selama which means for or during, is not always placed before adverb of time. It can be placed before another word or expression to show certain period of time. For example, Selama KDR, saya akan tetap bekerja dengan rajin (2x) which means During KDR, I will keep working diligently.

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.