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Yesterday, today, tomorrow and the words around them

The time vocabulary that makes akan unnecessary, plus how Indonesian counts days in both directions.

a1Lesson 32 of 435 min

By the end of this lesson

  • Place an action in time without any tense marker
  • Say how long something has lasted

Once you have time words, the tense markers from the previous lesson often become optional.

The basics

kemarin ‘yesterday’
hari ini ‘today’
besok ‘tomorrow’

Saya pergi besok. ‘I’m going tomorrow.’

No akan needed. The word besok has already done the work.

The two Indonesian adds

Tadi means earlier today, and English has no single word for it.

Tadi saya ketemu dia. ‘I met him earlier.’

Nanti means later, deliberately vaguely. It can mean in five minutes or this evening, and the imprecision is the point.

Nanti saja. ‘Later.’ A complete and very common answer.

Counting outward

Indonesian builds further days from the near ones.

kemarin dulu ‘the day before yesterday’
besok lusa or just lusa ‘the day after tomorrow’

How long

Berapa lama? ‘How long?’
Sudah lama. ‘For a while now.’

Lama is one of those words that does more than its translation suggests. It also means slow.

Kok lama? ‘Why is this taking so long?’

Putting it together

Tadi pagi saya sudah makan, dan nanti malam saya akan keluar.
‘I already ate this morning, and I’m going out tonight.’

Two time words, two markers, and the verbs makan and keluar have not changed a letter.

Words from this lesson

kemarinyesterday
hari initodayLiterally 'day this'.
besoktomorrow
nantilaterVague and extremely common.
tadiearlier todayNo English equivalent. Recent past, same day.
lamaa long time