Why Indonesian to English is harder than it looks
Indonesian verbs do not carry tense. Saya pergi is โI go,โ โI wentโ or โI will go,โ and only a time word tells you which. English needs a tense in every sentence, so the translator has to supply something the original never said.
Formal and casual Indonesian are almost different languages. Saya and aku, anda and kamu, and the slang of everyday chat sit a long way from the Indonesian of a news article. A system trained on formal text can misread a casual message, which is most of what people actually send.
Affixes change the meaning of a root completely. From ajar come belajar (to study), mengajar (to teach) and pelajaran (a lesson). Getting the affix wrong flips who is doing what to whom, which is the most consequential error in this pair.
Repetition is grammar, not emphasis. Anak-anak means children, not โchild child,โ and jalan-jalan means going for a walk rather than repeated walking. Translated literally these come out as odd duplications.
Written by Hardik Vegad, Co-founder, Translatify. Last updated .
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