Learn some Malay-Indonesian and Understand and Remember Slang

Lots of Indonesian is easy. Ticket is tiket.
Tiket Harian Berjaminan, literally: Daily Ticket with Guarantee (a seven day ticket).
Jalan is street. You see this word all over the place, on street signs and maps.

However, after you learn to read Malay/Indonesian, you find that in Indoneisa they speak slang, a bit like the British shortening words, saying yeah for yes.
Wikivoyage gives a handy phrase list and I have added my own aide-memoire (French for memory aid):

How to speak prokem like a Betawi

The everyday speech of Jakartans (Betawi) is liberally laced with slang (prokem) expressions. Like any slang, words come in and out of fashion with bewildering rapidity, but some features can be distinguished:

• f becomes p
• z becomes j
• The prefix me- for verbs becomes ng-
• The suffixes -i and -kan turn into -in

A short glossary of common Jakartan expressions:

no 

tidak → nggak/kagak/gak/ogah/moh

I 

saya/aku → gua/gue

you 

kamu/anda → lu/lo ('A n d a' is you, which you see on signs in Singapore. For the written word, I think of 'and you'. I had to insert spaces because the spell checker thinks I have mistyped the word and. For the spoken word, think of you and lu.) 

sorry 

maaf → maap

to come up 

menaik → naek

to take 

mengambil → ngambil

to look 

melihat → ngeliat

to use 

memakai/menggunakan → pake/make/ngegunain

to visit 

mengunjungi → ngunjungin

what are you doing? 

kamu sedang apa? → ngapain?

to pay 

membayar → bayar/ngebayar (The shortened version is simpler and easier to remember. B a y a r for pay her. 'ow much am I gonna pay 'er, gebayar, meaning to pay.)

how much is it?

berapa harganya? → berapaan nih? (How do you learn this phrase? Think of pan as pay. Think of nih is you as in the Chinese greeting nih how - how are you.

Keep pointing at items on the table or in the room and asking, 'berapaan nih?'. Think of if as 'how much as you asking,' or 'how much would I pay you for this?' Think of it as: 'how much would I pay you for bread?' Berapaan nih? Berapaan nih? Berapaan nih? How much could I bear to pay you for bread? Berapaan nih?

If you have trouble saying it, don't say it. Ask somebody else (preferably somebody Indonesian) to say it. Just listen to them. Three times. Berapaan nih.

Glossary - means a short list of word explanations, like a short dictionary

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Language teacher, English and other languages.