How to differentiate active and passive voice in Indonesian
Since Indonesian does not have “to be” (go see this topic to learn more about “to be” in Indonesian) and does not have any inflected form, it may be confusing at first when you are trying to create passive sentences.
Don’t worry, it is very simple.
If you have finished some lessons here in Langoid, you may notice that there are many words begin with the letter ‘m’. Those words usually are verb, with ‘me-’ as their first syllable. If you see one of those words in a sentence, that means it is an active voice.
To change it into passive voice, after switching the position of subject and object, you need to change that ‘me-’ into ‘di-’.
Active | Passive |
memasak | dimasak |
melamar | dilamar |
memenangkan | dimenangkan |
melahirkan | dilahirkan |
See, easy!
Now let’s put them into sentences
Active | Passive |
Ibu sedang memasak ikan. Mother is cooking fish. | Ikan sedang dimasak oleh ibu. Fish are being cooked by mother. |
Dia melamar adik saya. He proposed to my sister. | Adik saya dilamar oleh dia. My sister was proposed by him. |
Dia memenangkan pertandingan. She won the match. | Pertandingan dimenangkan oleh dia. The match had been won by her. |
Kucing melahirkan 3 ekor anak. The cat gave birth to 3 kittens. | 3 ekor anak dilahirkan oleh kucing. 3 kittens born to the cat. |
One thing you need to remember is that the prefix me- has mutation (check this topic to know more about it). When you want to create passive voice and you see this mutation, you need to change the whole mutation to ‘di-', and if there is any change in the first letter of the root word, you need to change it back to before the mutation.
Mutation | Active form | Passive form |
meng- | mengambil mengeja menggantung menghitung mengintip mengusulkan mengoper | diambil dieja digantung dihitung diintip diusulkan dioper |
men- | mencoba mendapatkan menjadikan | dicoba didapatkan dijadikan |
meny- | menyapu menyusui menyederhanakan | disapu disusui disederhanakan |
me- (+change 1st letter to m) | memakai memukul memagari | dipakai dipukul dipagari |
me- (+change 1st letter to n) | menerima meneriakkan menanggulangi | diterima diteriakkan ditanggulangi |
meng- (+ 1st letter disappear) | mengawal mengemas mengasihi | dikawal dikemas dikasihi |
you're like a god to me because of all the topics you've explained here in the forums. thank so much, mate!