Like Tree3Likes
  • 2 Post By dentarthurdent
  • 1 Post By Scousebanana

Bahasa Indonesia Course

Closed Thread
  1. #1

    Bahasa Indonesia Course

    We have just stayed in Hong Kong for 1 month and we have a new helper from Indonesia. She can barely speak English so I’m considering taking a Bahasa Indonesia course online so that we can communicate better. Do you think it necessary? It’s because I think she doesn’t have enough time to learn to speak English while I have more time and opportunity myself to learn Indonesian. In addition to that, the ability to speak another foreign language will be a benefit for my career, too.

    Has anyone here learned to speak Indonesian? Do you think it is as difficult as learning Mandarin? I’ve learned Chinese before and I think it is one of the most difficult languages in the world. I always get confused by the different tones and meanings.

    So if any of you can refer me an experienced Indonesian school or course, that’d be great. I don’t mind taking online classes as well as I have flexible time.

    Thank you!


  2. #2

    Join Date
    May 2017
    Posts
    148
    Quote Originally Posted by ekopasre:
    We have just stayed in Hong Kong for 1 month and we have a new helper from Indonesia. She can barely speak English so I’m considering taking a Bahasa Indonesia course online so that we can communicate better. Do you think it necessary? It’s because I think she doesn’t have enough time to learn to speak English while I have more time and opportunity myself to learn Indonesian. In addition to that, the ability to speak another foreign language will be a benefit for my career, too.

    Has anyone here learned to speak Indonesian? Do you think it is as difficult as learning Mandarin? I’ve learned Chinese before and I think it is one of the most difficult languages in the world. I always get confused by the different tones and meanings.

    So if any of you can refer me an experienced Indonesian school or course, that’d be great. I don’t mind taking online classes as well as I have flexible time.

    Thank you!
    Definitely easier than learning Mandarin since the same alphabets are used. Perhaps just a dictionary might be sufficient for giving instructions to your helper

  3. #3

    The reason HK Chinese hire Indonesians is quite a lot of them can speak some Mandarin or Cantonese.

    It is easier for the older HK Chinese to communicate with them compared with Filipinos.

    And we already know Indonesia is not an english speaking country.


  4. #4

    Join Date
    May 2010
    Posts
    4,689

    Bahasa indonesian is very easy to learn. the grammar is easy and you'll have no problems reading and writing.


  5. #5

    Why on earth would you hire a DH who you can't communicate with? That's just bizarre behaviour!

    chuckster007 and MerMer like this.

  6. #6

    I need to travel to Jakarta regularly for work so have learned some basic Bahasa as my taxi drivers were forever going the wrong way and I needed to give them directions, plus I felt bad being in a room full of Indonesians and Malaysians and only being able to communicate in English.

    OP is right, Bahasa is easy to learn as you pronounce it pretty much as it is written. There are Bahasa courses available in Hong Kong, though the only ones I have found are taught in Cantonese. I didn't particularly need to be to a high conversational standard, just have some basic phrases to be polite and make myself understood, so I found 'Practical Indonesian Phrasebook' by John Barker (I have the Kindle version so I have it handy on my phone) and 'Survival Phrases - Indonesian' from Audible, was sufficient for my purposes.

    chuckster007 likes this.

  7. #7

    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Location
    Kowloon
    Posts
    296

    I studied Indonesian for a bit at school and loved it. Super easy compared to mandarin! As others have said, probably phrases will be enough.