Quick guide to Indonesian words - mostly the same as Malaysian

Flag of Malaysia, which is almost the same as Indonesian.

Starting Indonesian on Duolingo is easy.

Indonesian - English

air - water (pronounced aye er, as it is written in the Singaporean placename and MRT underground railway station, Telok Ayer)

apple/ apples - apel

dan - and (the same letters in a different order)

jeruk - orang/oranges (juicy oranges, letter er, then UK)

kamu - you (I think of 'come here, you')

makan - eat

minum - drink

punya - possess/have

saya - i/My (remember the letter y in both words)

susu - milk

English - Indonesian

and - dan

apple/apples - apel

drink - minum

eat - makan

I - saya

milk - susu

orange/oranges - jeruk (remember JEruk not juruk, je like the GE in orange)

possess/have - punya

water - air

you - kamu 

False Friends

air meaning water looks like air but it isn't air, it's water, unless you think of H2O

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Confusing Foreign Words in German, Italian and Malay

Problem
You see word in a foreign word which looks like English but the two words are not related.

Answer
You have to learn the correct word through repetition or make aug a memory aid.

Story

Tips
German - English
Das Kapitel - the chapter (not the capital - remember the chapter is capital)

English - German
the capital - die Hauptstadt

Italian
Ricordare is not record but remember. More like recall. You could make up a memory aid sentence such as 'hard to record in your brain and remember'.

On the other hand it is easy to remember that difficile is Italian for difficult.

Malay
ayer - pronounced air means water
remember the place name Telok Ayer means water

I was about to say that water is a more common name than air (I was thinking of the English place name Virginia Water) when I thought of Buenos Aires which means good air in Spanish

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Author
Angela Lansbury, teacher of English and languages. See my books on Amazon.com and Lulu.com