Why Indonesian?

Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a standardized dialect of the Malay language that was officially defined with the declaration of Indonesia's independence in 1945. The Malaysian and Indonesian languages remain quite similar.

Indonesian has distinct advantages for the prospective student of Asian languages.

First of all, unlike Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, it is not written in an unfamiliar script that can take years to master. Instead of thousands of difficult ideograms or multiple-character syllabary sets, it uses Roman script, just like English and the European languages. That means that from day one in the classroom you will be able to read out your texts fluently - with no complicating factors or memorisation nightmares.
Second, Indonesian has no tonal system to be mastered, no complex system of honorifics or other linguistic features that can make some Asian languages so difficult for English speakers to learn.
Third, it is a language without declensions or conjugations. There are no changes in nouns or adjectives for gender, number or case. Verbs do not take on different forms showing number, person, tense, or mood. In other words, no matter who is doing the action of a given verb (me, you, her, them), or how many are involved in the action (one, two, or many), or when the action takes place (today, tomorrow, yesterday), the form of the verb always remains exactly the same. In addition, Indonesian vocabulary (besides having hundreds of English loan words) is built by adding very regular prefixes and suffixes to short root words, so that every root word you memorise actually represents as many as ten different built-up word forms that you acquire at the same time.


23.1 million speakers as a mother tongue.
140 million second language.

Although I certainly respect other people's reasons for learning Indonesian, all the difficulty in learning a language like Japanese is half the fun for me. :) In addition, Chinese and Japanese are found all over the web, whereas Indonesian is more rare, so I wouldn't have as many opportunities to practice what I've learned.

- Kef

Guest said: "Malaysian and Indonesian languages remain quite similar." Can a person fluent in one understand written or spoken communications in the other with little difficulty? Are the differences just vocabulary, or are there differences in pronunciation, syntax, etc.?

As Kef said, Chinese and Japanese are widespread. In addition, they have a long and admired history of literature, journals, etc. If one masters Indonesian, what authors or what material would you recommend reading (novelists, essayists, newspapers, journals, etc.)?

"Third, it is a language without declensions or conjugations. There are no changes in nouns or adjectives for gender, number or case"

Not only that, but Indonesian doesn't even have grammatical gender.

My ex-flatmate learned Indonesian and was able to do a whole conversation with a Malaysian after three months.
He said that if one attended an intensive course, the level he reached within three months would be covered in four weeks.

Indonesia is relatively easy. The easiest major language in the world.

That's all well and good, it's just that there are plenty of of other much more useful foreign languages. Sorry but Indonesia is one those countries that doesn't really have any big impact in the world. Not to mention it still undeveloped in comparson to many other nations. Nothing is wrong with learning it, it's just that unless you are living there or doing business, it's not going to be very useful.

Business rules the world! Unfortunately.......

You're right Guests.
I'm just saying that Indonesian is relatively easy that you can even learn it casually by the way.

And foreigners who speak Indonesian still have a plus compared to the ones who don't speak it. Even though Indonesia is not that important, the knowledge of the language would still be an asset. ;-)