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- "How old are you?"
"How old are you?"
Translation:Berapa umur kamu?
17 Comments
I'm confuse! I tried "Berapa kamu umur" but instead of being told, that this is the wrong order I am told it is the wrong word and it should be "Berapa umurmu". In particular when I only find out that "Berapa umur kamu?"is right as well, by writing this post. And is there any rule, or indication when to use the endings, and when to use kamu/saya etc.?
As esperisto have explained, possessive pronoun and adjectives in Indonesian are reversed : Umur kamu -> Your age
Both "berapa umurmu" and "berapa umur kamu" is correct, and can be used interchangeably. The suffix "-mu" indicates possession. The other possible suffixes for possession are :
"-ku" -> "Umurku" (my age), and "-nya" -> "Umurnya" (his/her/it's age)
Note that saying umurku (or any other word with the suffix -ku) is less formal than saying umur saya
Actually "Berapa" means "how many", and the word order is quite reverse of the English. The word order of Indonesian is somewhat similar to French, and as same as Vietnamese, i.e. adjectives are behind the noun. For example, umur kamu = your age. (umur = age, kamu = you or your)
In French, possessives are before the noun, like in English, unlike Indonesian.
Most of the time adjectives follow the noun in French, but not always, as it's a matter of meaning and emphasis, like in other Romance languages, like Spanish for instance.
umurmu = umur kamu. It is a simple way to say. And, if my age, umur aku -> umurku.
Is it possible to say umurmu berapa or umur kamu berapa? Maybe in informal speech?
Yes, that would be totally fine. Native speakers would probably correct you on your word order and, certainly, "berapa umur kamu" is the correct way to say it, but those words in any order would convey your meaning, I'm sure :).
Similar question to werewere-wolfy: Can somebody please tell me all possibilities as far as the word order is concerned? Berapa umur kamu? is correct. What word order else?
In Indonesian, the word order is reverse of English. Indonesian: umur kamu Literally: age your English: your age
Yes, but not for everything.
The word order is only reverse for possessive pronouns. Noun + possessive adjective.
And for any noun-qualifier: Noun + adjective.
For subject-verb, it's the same order.
For word orders, only "Berapa umur-kamu"
(Umur and kamu are not linked with - but I make it on purpose as they are like a block)
Informally, people say also "Umur kamu berapa?" It's common, but informal, and I'm not sure it's 100% correct grammar, because of what this site says:
https://masteringbahasa.com/indonesian-question-word-order
In Indonesian, the word order is a bit funky: in order to say "my apple" or "my age", you simply take the base word (apple or age), and add your pronoun to the end (in this case, me (saya)). For example:
My Apple = Apel Saya.
My Age = Umur Saya.
You can use this for other people, too:
Her Apple = Apel Dia.
His Age = Umur Dia.
Hope that helps!
I tried Berapa tahun kamu. Can someone explain why you don't use berapa tahun for how many years?
You cannot replace "umur" (age) with "tahun" (years). Not interchangeable.
Berapa is used to say that you want the person to express their age as a number (berapa = how many). Maybe you want to say something like "How many years are you?" but it's weird in English and in Indonesian.
Note that the fact that you can use the "to be" verb in English to express is a singularity.
For instance, you'd probably say "I am 20", as a short to say "I am 20 years old". As the first part is an abbreviation, let's take the real form: I am 20 years old.
The reason why you can use the to be verb, when you know that you are not the age, there's no identity between you and your age, like when you say "A is B", it's because the "years old" means that you are aged of...
So, literally, when you say "I am 20 years old" it means "I am aged of 20 years". I'm a 20-years-old, like I'm a blue-eyed woman.
It explains the use of to be.
But in Indonesian, you don't have the "years old". The only way to express the "years old" is the verb berusia (or berumur) meaning to be aged of.
There's no reason that the "to be" can express an age in Indonesian, like "Saya adalah sepuluh tahun" as there's no "years-old", it's wrong. In other language than English, it's also wrong.
I don't know if my explanation was clear enough, but if you get it, you realize now why you can't say "Kamu sepuluh tahun" in Indonesian, if you want to keep "kamu" as the subject (and not "age), you have to say Kamu berusia sepuluh tahun ( berusia = to be aged of).
If you say "Berapa tahun kamu" it only means "How many years you", as Indonesian doesn't express, like in English, age with the verb to be, this is an English specificity.
To express age with a verb, you need berusia or berumur, and the subject would be in this case the person ("to be aged of...")
As given in another message "Berapa tahun umur kamu" is different, as it's not you that "are" your age.
You can find this sentence "Berapa tahun Umur Anda?" in this document: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2686&context=theses
So, it's both correct and formal.
Literally it's "How many years is your age".
For those who are confused, maybe my explanation could help. Umur : age Umur kamu : your age Berapa : how many/how much . Berapa umur kamu may translated literally as "how many is your age" but because this is an expression, the meaning could be "how old are you"
