Indonesian/Lesson 0 Exercise

< Indonesian/Lesson 0

Okay, so now you at least know how to read Indonesian. That's a great start!

Indonesian/Malay has a rhymic quality akin to Italian. And for long, native poets, scribes, and orators have had a penchant of creating sentences that rhyme with each other. Just like in English poetry, the rhyming makes extensive use of the many similar final-sounds of words. To prove my point, let me bring you the Rhyme Game.

Rhyme Game
Objective:
 * 1) To practice your pronunciation of Indonesian through the rhyming pattern in the words
 * 2) To build up your vocabulary, obviously!

Kuku-kukuku kaku (My nails are stiff)
-ku (pronounced -COO) is not very common, but it does contain some important words!

Now that I've established the pattern, can you guess how to pronounce these words?

Cinta itu buta (Love is blind)
Words ending with -ta (-TUH) are often related to love, and to umm... many other things!

(*)the vowel sound in ren- is essentially a schwa, in contrast to gEn- in genta

Can you guess, based on what you've learned?

Tangkap ikan kakap! (Catch the Barramundi fish!)
When you catch and hold onto something, you say -kap (-CUP)! And when you let something be known, you should also say -kap!

Here we go again!

Other Tongue Twisters
If you're feeling especially game after your Indonesian phonetics lesson, have a go at the following tongue twisters: