As a native English speaker, ESL teacher, and former student of Chinese and Thai, I know a thing or two about difficult languages. After spending five years teaching and studying in China, I was ready for a change of scenery. Wanting to continue my studies of different languages and cultures and also looking to relocate to Southeast Asia, I narrowed my choices down to Thailand and Indonesia. Although I love both countries (you can also find my work over on the Thai blog), I decided on Indonesia in the end for one big reason – the language is much, much easier! In fact, many people will argue that Bahasa Indonesia is one of the easiest languages to learn in the world. Don’t believe me? Here are a few reasons why Indonesian really is an easy language to study, based on my own personal experiences studying (sort of) in Bali for the past two months:

Indonesian is fun and easy!

The alphabet is the same as English.

After spending years trying to learn the thousands of Chinese characters, coming to Indonesia has been quite the relief. It’s much easier to learn a language when you can read and write it from day one. Sure, the pronunciation of the letters is slightly different than English, but all you need is a little practice. Thankfully for you, we’ve got you covered with this short instructional video.

There are no tones.

Anyone who has spent time learning tonal languages such as Chinese, Thai, or Vietnamese probably has had their fair share of trouble. In Chinese, for example, you could end up calling your mother a horse simply by using the wrong tone! No need to worry about that in Indonesian, a language without tones. Similar to English, you do use tones in Indonesian in certain situations – most notably asking questions – but the meaning of a word will not change just because your voice rises a bit.

There is no verb “to be.”

My beginner ESL students always had a hard time with the various forms of the verb “to be” in English – I am, you are, he is, etc. Forget about this problem if you’re learning Indonesian, because there isn’t any such thing! Just look at these examples:

• Saya guru = I’m a teacher.
• Ini mobil = This is a car.
• Dia tinggi = He/She is tall.
• Anda dari Amerika = You’re from America.

There are no tenses.

Learners of English go crazy trying to learn the various tenses. Think about it for a minute – could you explain the difference between “I will be going” and “I will have been going” to a non-native English speaker in a way that they could understand? English grammar is complicated! You can forget about verb conjugation in Indonesian, though. Simply adding time markers is enough in Indonesian. Just take a look at these sentences and how easy it is to change the tense:

• Saya makan buah kemarin = I ate fruit yesterday.
• Saya sedang makan buah = I’m eating fruit.
• Saya sudah makan buah = I already ate fruit.
• Saya akan makan buah = I will eat fruit.

Notice that in all of these sentences, the word for “eat” (makan) remains unchanged. How easy!

There is an abundance of loan words.

As with English, Indonesian has borrowed words from plenty of other languages. Most common are words from Sanskrit, Arabic, Dutch, and English. If you’re a speaker of one or more of these languages, you probably already know a lot of words in Indonesian! For English speakers, here are some examples. They’re so easy, I don’t even have to give you the translation!

• bisnis
• komputer
• informasi
• musik
• stroberi

Not only is Indonesian a relatively easy language to learn, but it’s also quite fun. People are very pleased to hear you speaking their language here, and are happy to chat while offering you plenty of help and encouragement. My Indonesian is mediocre at best, but I’m complimented on it every day. Practicing a language is a much more enjoyable experience when the local people are patient with you and cheering you on. If you’re interested in learning more Indonesian, start out by signing up for our Word of the Day to build up your vocabulary.