Learn Indonesian with a Native Speaker Online
I’m Yuni, a native speaker and teacher of Indonesian language, and I invite you to learn Bahasa Indonesia online with me. I offer individual Bahasa Indonesia classes over Skype. As a teacher I see my goal to make you speak Bahasa Indonesia within the shortest time possible.
How it Works
The online lessons are performed over Skype video call. For a whiteboard, we shall be using Google Docs and other free cloud software. So, all you will need is:
- A free Skype account
- A free Google account
- Any consumer-grade computer
- A decent internet connection
- Some cash to spend (but not much)
Quality Guarantee
My quality guarantee in essence is: if you book a single lesson and are dissatisfied with the quality, you do not have to pay. Yes, you can just walk away: I’m neither asking for your credit card number nor for a pre-payment. This should eliminate all your doubts at their root.
Booking a Lesson
To book a lesson, just send me a message to learnbahasawith.yuni@gmail.com. The details of my business model can be found here: Online individual lessons in Bahasa Indonesia: workflow, pricing and payment .
You’ve also got an option to book a package of lessons, in which case you will get a generous discount. Lesson packages must be fully prepaid and are not refundable, so buy them once you are confident in me as a teacher of Indonesian language.
How Difficult is Indonesian Language?
While learning a foreign language is always an effort, Indonesian language is relatively simple. Indonesian language utilizes the standard Latin alphabet, the very same you use in English. There are only four tenses: present, present continuous, past and future. No irregular verbs. And the pronunciation is so simple, that we shall be done with it by the end of our first lesson.
My Methodology in Teaching Bahasa Indonesia
Except for a few initial lessons, in my classes we will be talking Indonesian from the very beginning. The purpose is to make you speak Indonesian as opposed to translating into Indonesian from your native language. In other words, you will learn Bahasa Indonesia the same way you’ve learned your mother tongue. And you will be listening and talking to a native speaker from the day one! It won’t be a walk in a park, but, as they say, “no pain, no gain”.
The first practical step would be to learn “lesson phrases”, so that you could ask questions like “What does the word … mean?” or “Could you repeat, please?” or “How is it spelled?” in Indonesian. Once we get past the very basics, we shall continue our lessons exclusively in Indonesian in a pretty standard way: pronouns, building a basic sentence, verb tenses, etc. plus the vocabulary for the first necessities, like introducing yourself, asking for directions, etc. Indonesian is a pretty straightforward language, so fear not, we get you ready for your Indonesian adventures rather quickly.
How often should I take online lessons in Bahasa Indonesia?
In short, the more, the better. Intensive learning is most productive. Ideally, if time permits, you should take about four lessons a day, plus at least an hour worth of homework. The least individual lesson regularity I can think of would be one or two lessons a week, so that when you take a lesson, you still remember what you’ve learned the last time. Feel free to ask for an independent, third-party opinion, should mine feel biased.
Bahasa Indonesia: Why is Learning Worth the Effort, Even if Just for a Vacation?
Indonesia is not limited to Bali, Yogyakarta and Jakarta. It is a vast and incredibly diverse country. I’ll use Halmahera island (it’s in North Maluku) to give you a brief example. In Halmahera, you can climb Mount Ibu and watch mini-eruptions occurring every 20 minutes from a safe distance of about 200 meters; you can visit the semi-nomadic Togutil people who still run in jungle barefoot, hunting wild pigs with a spare; or watch a walking shark, if you are into diving - and this is just a single island. By the way, there are about 17000 islands in Indonesia.
Best of all, the Indonesians are warm, very welcoming people, particularly in the countryside. But here is a catch - as soon as you get away from excessively touristic areas like Bali, you will meet very few people who speak English. So, be it walking sharks or flying snakes, Bahasa Indonesia will certainly be an asset.
While learning a foreign language is always an effort, Indonesian language is relatively simple: we use the very same Latin alphabet you use in English, we have just four verb tenses, and incredibly simple pronunciation rules.
By the way, you do already know a couple of Indonesian words at least. You know how to say “man” and “forest”! Sure, the word “orangutan” comes familiar, right? Well, “orang” means “man”, and “hutan” means “forest”. So, the learning has indeed already started. Book a lesson, and we shall get you prepared for the adventure!