Indonesian to English examples

Saya ingin belajar bahasa Inggris dengan cepat.

→ I want to learn English quickly.

SVO order matches English exactly here. Indonesian speakers often find beginner English sentence building surprisingly familiar at the structural level.

Saya sudah belajar bahasa Inggris selama tiga tahun.

→ I have been studying English for three years.

Indonesian uses 'sudah' (already) as a completeness marker. English uses the present perfect continuous — an ongoing-but-unfinished tense that Indonesian does not have.

Bisakah Anda berbicara lebih pelan?

→ Could you speak more slowly?

Indonesian questions place 'bisa' (can) at the start — similar to English auxiliary inversion. This structure feels relatively natural for Indonesian speakers.

Kalau saya belajar lebih giat, saya pasti lulus ujian.

→ If I had studied harder, I would have passed the exam.

Indonesian uses 'kalau' with present tense for all conditional types. English requires specific past perfect verb forms to signal the past unreal condition.

Bahasa Inggris adalah bahasa yang sangat penting.

→ English is a very important language.

Indonesian 'adalah' corresponds to English 'is'. Note the article 'a' before 'language' in English — Indonesian does not require any equivalent word here.