General online Indonesian courses from first words to level B1

A general Indonesian course follows the six levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), which run from A1 for beginners to C2. No official hour counts per level exist for Indonesian. The hours in the table are rough estimates for lessons plus self-study, derived from the figures of the US Foreign Service Institute (FSI), and the weeks assume five study hours a week.

The FSI is the language school of the US State Department. It places Indonesian in the second of its four difficulty groups and plans about 36 weeks of full-time training for confident professional use. Vietnamese and Thai take about 44 weeks under the same scheme, Chinese and Japanese 88.

Courses inside Indonesia often use a scale of their own. Teaching for foreigners there is called BIPA, short for Bahasa Indonesia bagi Penutur Asing, Indonesian for non-native speakers. A 2017 regulation of the education ministry divides BIPA into seven levels, BIPA 1 to BIPA 7. Ask a provider which of the two scales its course goals refer to before you compare prices per level.

1 Prefixes and suffixes

Indonesian builds whole word families from one root. The prefix meN- even changes the first sound of the root, so tulis becomes menulis (to write) and baca becomes membaca (to read). A general course should bring in these forms step by step from A2 and practise them in word families.

2 Formal and colloquial speech

The formal standard, bahasa baku, is used in news, offices and letters. Conversation in Jakarta shortens many words: tidak (not) becomes nggak, sudah (already) becomes udah, and saya (I) becomes gue. Learners who start with apps and social media often pick up the colloquial forms first and later carry them into formal emails.

3 Three sounds and one spelling trap

The rolled r, ng at the start of a word as in ngopi (to drink coffee) and the murmured e need practice in the first weeks. The letter e stands for two sounds, short and murmured in besar (big) and clear in sate (skewer), and the spelling does not show which one.

Material from Malaysia adds a fourth risk. Malay and Indonesian are closely related, yet kereta means train in Indonesia and car in Malaysia. Check that your coursebook and app teach Indonesian.

A general course follows a syllabus of grammar, vocabulary, listening, reading, writing and speaking. A conversation course spends most of each lesson on speaking and usually expects level A2, the second of the six CEFR levels. Which one fits depends on where you stand with Indonesian.

Forms of address are a typical conversation topic. You address older or respected men as Bapak or Pak and women as Ibu or Bu, while people of similar age on Java often say Mas and Mbak.

Indonesian has more online options than many Asian languages, and many teachers in Indonesia teach by video. Many learners combine private lessons with an app for practice between lessons.

The University of Hamburg in Germany is one example of a university abroad that teaches Indonesian within Southeast Asian studies. An AI tutor is a program that practises with you and scores your pronunciation by speech recognition. Test any AI tutor with the murmured e in besar before you rely on its pronunciation scores.

Children usually read Indonesian after a short time, because it uses the Latin alphabet they already know and is written almost as it is spoken. Indonesian also has no tones, so children do not need to hear pitch differences. In Australia, Indonesian is one of the languages some schools teach, since Indonesia is the country's nearest large neighbour, though the number of students taking it has fallen in recent years.

For younger children, book shorter lessons, for example 30 minutes, and ask the teacher how the lesson keeps the child speaking. A trial lesson shows whether the teacher corrects the rolled r and the two sounds of e in a playful way.

Families with Indonesian relatives should first find out which language the relatives speak with the child. Many Indonesians speak a regional language such as Javanese or Sundanese at home and use Indonesian at school, in offices and with guests. Badan Bahasa, Indonesia's national language agency, had mapped 718 regional languages in the country by 2019.

1 Weeks 1 to 4: sounds and core sentences

You learn the alphabet with the rolled r, ng and the two sounds of e. You introduce yourself with saya (I) and Anda (formal you), count, and ask for prices.

2 Weeks 5 to 8: time words and doubling

The Indonesian verb never changes, so sudah (already), sedang (in the middle of) and akan (will) mark the time. Doubling forms plurals, as anak-anak (children) from anak (child) shows.

3 Weeks 9 to 12: the first prefixes

The course introduces ber- verbs such as belajar (to learn) and the first meN- verbs such as membaca (to read), both built from short roots you already know.

At five hours a week, these 12 weeks give you about 60 study hours. That covers most of the way to A1, the first CEFR level, and lays the base for word building at A2.