"Surat-surat dan buku-buku ini punya saya."
Translation:These letters and books are mine.
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1325
Could this also translate to: "I have these letters and books"? i.e. My question relates to the difference between possession Versus ownership.
Saya punya surat-surat dan buku-buku ini = I have these letters and books. Surat-surat dan buku-buku ini punya saya = These letters and books have me. This is how ownership can be expressed in Indonesian. Quite literally the thing has (owns) you. That is how it is expressed. Weird I know, but do not expect everything to be equivalent in another culture. If you accept this as how it is, then there is no problem. Just gotta get your head to learn the way it is :-)
I gave this as my solution: "These letters and books belong to me" and Duo considered it to be wrong. The correct solution, according to Duo, was: "These letters and books belongs to me."
Duo's solution has bad grammar, however. Because the nouns are plural (with an "s"), the verb should also be plural (without an "s").
359
I thought that "mine", "yours" and "hers" or "his" required "milik". What is the difference between milik and punya in this sentence?
"Milik" here would be "belong to" (These letters and books belong to me)
"Punya" here, with the things coming before the owner in the sentence, is a little more like "are had by" (These letters and books are had by me)
In both instances, you could say "These letters and books are mine" for a more comfortable (and in the second case, natural) English sentence.
As for a direct translation of the word "mine" on its own, the closest would certainly be "milikku" (milik aku), but I expect even "punyaku" (punya aku) would be understood the same as well.
839
I have two things I don't understand. 1. It seemed to me that this sentence meant 'these letters and books have me'. 2. Why isn't it 'kepunyaan' instead of 'punya'? Any help appreciated. cheers Any helpful comments on that will also be greatly appreciated. cheers
839
I will try and give an example .. If you are in a range of mountains you are in these mountains, looking at those mountains far away. It is the plural of this (ini) and that (itu) - hope that helps