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- "Saya mau jeruk."
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Like I've said many times before, the word "jeruk" can be both singular and plural.
It's true for every Indonesian words, the plural-dobling is only optional, so "jeruk" can be orange or oranges, depending on the context...
If you want to translate a specific orange, (in English: I like the orange/that orange/this orange).
You would say:
Saya suka jeruk itu (= I like the/that orange).
Saya suka jeruknya (= I like the orange/his orange/her orange).
Saya suka jeruk ini (= I like this orange).
but, if you say "Saya suka jeruk", it's infinite, and you don't have a way to know if it's "I like an orange", or "I like oranges", as it's context dependant.
If you really want to mean "oranges" because it's not clear from the context, or very important to mention, you would say "Saya suka jeruk-jeruk".
Indonesian nouns doesn't differ between singular and plural form. If you want plural noun you can repeat the noun (but not when the amount of the noun is stated directly).
For example:
Orange = Jeruk Oranges = Jeruk-jeruk Two oranges = Dua jeruk
Hope this helps.
From my understanding, almost all of the nouns, perhaps except pronouns. If u want to be specific you say things like "dua buah jeruk" (meaning "two oranges", buah is a classifier) or "seekor ikan" (meaning "one fish", ekor is a classifier).
Yes, "buah" means "fruit" and is used after a quantity for fruit or round things (according to my understanding).
And "seekor"is used after a quantity for animals;
For instance: I have 2 dogs. Saya punya 2 seekor anjing. You can also skip it: saya punya 2 anjing.
It's the way I learnt it. If it's not bahasa Indonesia yang bagus dan benar, please correct it.
I'd like to correct one sentence of yours: saya punya 2 seekor anjing, should be: saya punya dua ekor anjing
They should add "sebuah" before "jeruk", so people can guess whether it is a singular or plural noun.
Right, "sebuah" means "a/an", but Indonesians are rarely use it in conversation, it's unnatural and too formal
Because it's not grammatically necessary, but isn't it used also when you really want to mention there's only one, or would you use rather "satu"?
Well they should, however we rarely use in informal so it's more like formal
They make it on purpose, so we learn how to translate when there's no "sebuah".
The sebuah comes in other Duo exercises.
