"Mereka mengisi tas mereka dengan pisang dan kacang."

Translation: They fill their bags with bananas and peanuts.

[tsuj1g1r1]

Epic prank, bro! Now they'll wonder if they accidentally took the bag of a monkey and left their bag for the monkey to take! Classic!

[dgaeremie]

Why is there a need for "mereka" before dengan

[joeldipops]

It's part of the noun-phrase (tas mereka), specifying that the bag that was filled was "Their bag"

Without it, we could be talking about any bag or bags.

[fhwqhgads]

Can I be blown away by the fact that phrasal verbs is a very English-language thing, yet "fill with" translates literally?

[joeldipops]

I'd like to be blown away by this too, can you explain more about what phrasal verbs are?

[fhwqhgads]

In short, it's when a preposition (or more!) attaches itself to a verb, such as in "stand up for" or "get away with."

Germanic languages do this all the time, and English is part of the German family. You've probably heard grammar nazis tell you not to end a sentence with a preposition. That "rule" only came about because Latin can't end sentences with prepositions. Technically, neither can English, because the preposition used in phrasal verbs is part of the verb, just as much as any helping verb.

Another way to look at the sentence is to find out what the "preposition" is modifying, since prepositions can only modify nouns. If there's no noun to modify, you're looking at a phrasal verb!

If you check this comment for phrasal verbs, you'll find some interesting quirks, such as how a word can be slotted in between the main verb and the preposition word. This splitting of the verb is similar to a split infinitive, which incidently also can't be done in Latin.

Now that I'm looking at the sentence structure, it's possible dengan modifies tas. And although "fill with" is a phrasal verb, the sentence here seems to be verb/object/preposition. But I'll keep a lookout for this in the future!

[joeldipops]

"Kacang" can be various types of nuts right?

[pettomas]

World literally means bean but is also used for some of nuts. For example peas (kacang hijau = 'green beans'), kidney bean (kacang merah = 'red bean'), cashew (kacang mete).
If 'kacang' is without any aditional word, usually points on peanut. Peanut full name is kacang tanah.

[lili114354]

i think that nuts generally may be 'kacang-kacangan'...

[Rien303]

I was also wondering why bags and nuts are not in plural form?