21 Comments
305
You can ask that too, but in Indonesian, placing a question word at the end of a sentence is more prevalent than in English. And as demoksaputra has explained, it's also informal and casual.
I agree, and think this is an error: the first thing I was ever taught in Indonesian class was "Siapa namamu?", "What is your name?". It seems more natural in both English and Indonesian to place the question word at the beginning of a sentence.
This is not an error. You can say "Nama kamu siapa?" or "Namamu siapa?" It's informal and even you might hear it more often in daily conversation.
Which one is informal of your examples is informal? Would using 'anda' make it formal?
- 1875
Is "nama" a loan from a Germanic language (e.g. Dutch, English)? It would be quite a coincidence if it were the native word.
- 305
No, it isn't. But it's a loanword from Sanskrit, itself an Indo-European language. I guess it completely replaced a native one.
I heard somewhere that in Bahasa Indonesia if you're asking a person what their name is you use 'who' (siapa) instead of 'what' (I think it's 'what' if you're asking the name of a pet). Is this correct?
I think we always use 'siapa' when asking for someone's name, even for the name of a pet too.
- 305
Yep. Indonesian uses "siapa" to ask about names, be it people's or an animal's (if they have any). It's useful, too. I gave my pets names and when my friends ask their names they always use "siapa".
Maybe it was my headphones, but the sound quality of that audio was bad for me.
Not sure if that is supposed to go on the discussion board or reporting it.
"What's your name?" is not accepted, but there's no option to report "My answer should have been accepted".
- 671
If "Siapa kamu" is "Who are you?", "Siapa nama kamu" should have been "Who is your name?" ??? Please help.
- 305
Logically, it is. Indonesian always uses "siapa" to ask about names. But English doesn't, so the correct one is "what's your name?" instead of "who's your name?".
Hai. "Siapa nama kamu?" does indeed translate literally as "Who is your name?". "Siapa nama kamu?" is translated as "What is your name?" instead of "Who is your name?" because in English we ask "What...?" instead of "Who...?". It's not a literal translation as such but rather the English equivalent. Hope this helps. EDIT: Aarspar probably answered your question clearer than me.
