Editing a diary entry for an exam: tense, aspect, and voice
For a writing task you must produce a 150-word diary entry in Indonesian about a memorable day. Your draft contains these sentences:
- 'Kemarin saya pergi ke rumah nenek saya dan saya makan siang di sana.'
- 'Ketika saya sedang makan, tiba-tiba hujan turun sangat lebat.'
- 'Saya sudah tidak bisa pulang karena jalanan banjir.'
- 'Akhirnya saya menginap di rumah nenek dan besoknya saya pulang.'
- 'Saya sangat senang sekali hari itu.'
Your teacher's feedback: 'The grammar is largely correct, but the writing is flat and repetitive, and one sentence is redundant.'
1. Explain how Indonesian marks time and aspect in these sentences, and identify the redundant sentence.
Read the worked answer
Indonesian marks time lexically, not by verb inflection - there is no conjugation. Tense and aspect come from time words and auxiliary markers.
- Sentence 1: Kemarin carries past time; pergi and makan are unmarked. Correct, but the repeated saya… saya… is clumsy - Indonesian prefers dropping the second subject: Kemarin saya pergi ke rumah nenek dan makan siang di sana.
- Sentence 2: sedang marks progressive ('was eating') and tiba-tiba marks interruption. This is the best-constructed sentence in the draft - it uses aspect marking to create narrative tension.
- Sentence 3: sudah tidak bisa uses sudah to mark a resultant state ('I could no longer go home'), not past tense. This is idiomatic and correct.
- Sentence 4: Akhirnya signals resolution; besoknya correctly forms 'the next day' with the -nya suffix. Fine.
- Sentence 5: redundant - sangat senang sekali doubles the intensifier (sangat + sekali). Use one: Saya sangat senang hari itu or Senang sekali rasanya hari itu.
The deeper problem is not grammar but flatness: five sentences of the same subject-verb shape. Fix by varying sentence openings and adding sensory detail.
2. Rewrite the passage to improve flow and vividness while keeping the grammar accurate. Justify your main changes.
Read the worked answer
Rewrite:
'Kemarin saya pergi ke rumah nenek. Siang itu, ketika kami sedang makan bersama, tiba-tiba langit menjadi gelap dan hujan pun turun sangat lebat. Saya sudah tidak bisa pulang karena jalanan di depan rumah banjir. Akhirnya saya menginap di sana. Pagi berikutnya, setelah sarapan, barulah saya pulang. Senang sekali rasanya bisa menghabiskan waktu bersama nenek, meskipun rencana saya berantakan.'
Justifications:
- Split sentence 1 - one clause per idea; Indonesian diary writing favours short, breathing sentences.
- Added a time frame (Siang itu) to anchor the scene, and kami instead of repeating saya - Indonesian drops or varies subjects rather than repeating them.
- Added a cause before the rain (langit menjadi gelap) - Indonesian narrative often builds cause → effect; pun in hujan pun turun adds a 'and so it happened' nuance.
- Replaced besoknya with Pagi berikutnya, setelah sarapan - more specific and avoids a slightly mechanical connector.
- Added barulah - an emphasising particle marking delayed resolution, common in written narrative.
- Fixed the intensifier and added a reflective closing clause (meskipun rencana saya berantakan) - diaries evaluate experience, not just report it.
Note: none of these changes alter the grammar rules; they change information density and rhythm, which is what the feedback was actually about.