Online Indonesian courses for travel, work and study in Indonesia

Indonesian, Bahasa Indonesia in the language itself, is the national language of Indonesia. According to the statistics office BPS, the country had about 281.6 million inhabitants in mid-2024, the fourth-largest population in the world. Indonesian grew out of Malay. Young nationalists adopted it as the language of unity in the Youth Pledge of 1928, long before independence.

For many Indonesians, Indonesian is not their first language. At home they often speak a regional language such as Javanese or Sundanese. Badan Bahasa, the national language agency, has identified 718 regional languages in the country. Indonesian is the shared language of school, government, media and business.

English already holds a few words from Malay, the parent of Indonesian. Orangutan comes from orang (person) and hutan (forest), and amok comes from amuk. In the other direction, Indonesian has absorbed many English words, such as komputer, internet and universitas.

Who learns Indonesian online

• Professionals work with Indonesia, a G20 member and the largest economy in South-East Asia.
• Australians learn Indonesian for their closest large neighbour, and many meet it at school.
• Travellers want to understand more than the menu on Bali, Java or Sulawesi.
• Researchers in biology, geology and climate science work with Indonesian partners.

The Foreign Service Institute (FSI), the language school of the US State Department, places Indonesian in the second of its four difficulty categories, together with German, Malay and Swahili. It estimates about 36 weeks and 828 classroom hours. The target is level 3 on the ILR scale, a US government scale from 0 to 5 on which level 3 means confident professional use. Hindi, Vietnamese and Thai take about 44 weeks under the FSI scheme, Chinese and Japanese 88 weeks.

Indonesian is quicker because it lacks much of what makes other languages hard. It uses the Latin alphabet and has no tones, no conjugation, no grammatical gender and no articles. Time goes instead into prefixes and suffixes, into switching between formal and colloquial speech, and into vocabulary with few links to English.

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) describes ability on six levels from A1 to C2. No official hour counts per CEFR level exist for Indonesian. The hours in the table are rough estimates for class plus self-study, derived from the FSI figures.

At five hours a week, you reach A2 in about nine months.

Indonesian is written in the Latin alphabet and almost exactly as it is spoken. Since 1972, its spelling has been largely aligned with that of Malaysia. Stress is light and usually falls on the second-to-last syllable. Indonesian has no tones of the kind found in Vietnamese or Chinese.

Letters that sound different from English

The letter e is the main spelling trap. It stands for two sounds. In besar it is short and murmured, like the a in about. In sate it is clear, like the e in bed. Spelling does not mark the difference, so you learn the sound with each word.

Indonesian vowels are pure and short. English speakers tend to glide them into diphthongs, so an o turns into ow. A teacher who points this out early saves you a strong accent later.

1 No conjugation, time words instead

The verb never changes. Saya makan means I eat, I ate or I will eat. Time words do the job: sudah (already), sedang (in the middle of) and akan (will). Saya sudah makan means I have already eaten.

2 Plurals by doubling

Anak means child, anak-anak children. Often the plural is left out when context makes it clear. Some doubled words carry their own meaning: jalan means street, jalan-jalan means to go for a stroll.

3 Prefixes and suffixes build new words

This word building is the largest task for learners. From one root, prefixes and suffixes create whole word families, as the root ajar shows.

The prefix meN- often changes the first sound of the root: tulis becomes menulis (to write), baca becomes membaca (to read).

4 The di- passive is everyday language

Indonesian uses the passive far more often than English. Buku itu dibaca Ani, literally the book is read by Ani, sounds completely normal. Adjectives follow the noun: rumah besar is a big house.

Indonesian has a wide gap between its formal and colloquial forms. The formal standard is called bahasa baku. It rules in government, news, universities and business letters. In conversation, social media and films, you often hear Jakarta colloquial speech instead, which shortens or replaces many words.

Forms of address matter too. You address older or respected men as Bapak or Pak and women as Ibu or Bu. Among people of similar age on Java, Mas and Mbak are common.

Indonesian is closely related to the Malay of Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore. Speakers understand each other well but trip over false friends. Kereta means train in Indonesia and car in Malaysia. Percuma means free of charge in Malaysia and in vain in Indonesia.

Indonesian has more online options than many other Asian languages. Several large language apps include Indonesian, and many teachers in Indonesia teach by video.

In Indonesia, teaching for foreigners is called BIPA, short for Bahasa Indonesia bagi Penutur Asing, Indonesian for non-native speakers. A 2017 regulation of the Ministry of Education divides BIPA into seven levels, BIPA 1 to BIPA 7. Many Indonesian universities run BIPA courses, and some offer them online.

If you want to study in Indonesia for a year, the Indonesian government's Darmasiswa scholarship is an option. It is open to foreign nationals from countries with diplomatic relations with Indonesia, and its conditions change every year.

AI tutors are programs that simulate conversation and score pronunciation with speech recognition. Test any AI tutor with the rolled r and the murmured e in besar. If it cannot hear either, use it for vocabulary and grammar only.

Indonesian has an official proficiency test called UKBI, short for Uji Kemahiran Berbahasa Indonesia, the Indonesian language proficiency test. It is run by Badan Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Bahasa, the language agency of Indonesia's education ministry. Its legal basis names both native and non-native speakers as test takers.

How the UKBI works

• Registration, payment and scheduling run online through the UKBI portal.
• You take the test on your own computer with a camera, a headset and at least 15 Mbps.
• The test is adaptive, so the questions adjust to your answers.
• It covers listening, language rules, reading and, depending on the package, writing and speaking.
• The agency marks writing and speaking within up to 14 working days.
• You receive a digital certificate.

The result combines a score of up to 800 points with one of seven ratings, called predikat. A 2016 ministerial regulation sets the top three as follows.

Four further ratings follow, down to Terbatas (limited). No official conversion to CEFR levels exists. The CEFR, the Common European Framework of Reference, describes ability on six levels from A1 to C2. For applications outside Indonesia, combine a UKBI result with a CEFR self-assessment using the Council of Europe and Europass grid. In the United States, the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview, a 15- to 30-minute speaking test by phone, is also available in Indonesian.

Indonesian lessons are often inexpensive compared with European languages, because many teachers live in Indonesia.

A sample calculation: reaching A2 on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR, the scale from A1 to C2) takes roughly 180 to 250 study hours. Perhaps 70 of those are lessons. At US$15 per private lesson, that comes to about US$1,050. The portal of the official UKBI test shows the current fee at registration.

1. The course teaches formal bahasa baku first and explains colloquial speech separately.
2. The teacher drills prefixes and suffixes systematically with word families.
3. The course states goals as levels of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR, the scale from A1 to C2) or as the seven BIPA levels for foreigners.
4. The provider offers a trial lesson.
5. Lesson times fit the teacher's time zone.
6. On request, the course prepares you for the UKBI, Indonesia's official online language test.
7. The course measures progress with tests, recordings or writing tasks.

Indonesia is a G20 member and the largest economy in South-East Asia. English is enough in international firms in Jakarta. Outside the capital, in factories, local government and on the outer islands, many people speak little English.

Fields that need Indonesian

• Resource, energy and manufacturing companies run projects and supply chains in Indonesia.
• Tourism businesses and dive schools on Bali and Sulawesi hire staff with language skills.
• Researchers in biodiversity, volcanology and marine biology work with Indonesian institutes.
• Aid organisations work on disaster preparedness and climate adaptation.

Indonesian also opens up most of Malay as spoken in Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, so one language covers several countries.

Realistic targets on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR, levels A1 to C2) look like this. Travel needs A2. Working on site with colleagues needs B1. Negotiating, studying or doing research in Indonesian calls for B2 to C1.