salam

The first thing we normally say to start the conversation is saying greetings. We say ;hi, hello and the similar things to greet someone. In more formal situation people use 'good morning, afternoon, etc. Bahasa Indonesia has the same system. For friends, we use 'hai' or 'halo' but for more polite function we say depend on the time, in the morning we say "selamat pagi, in the afternoon we say 'selamat siang' and in the evening we use 'selamat malam'. Actually the word 'selamat' can be used for some occasions such as :
- selamat jalan for a leavetaking person
- selamat tinggal which means good bye
- selamat ulang tahun for happy birthday
- selamat natal for merry Xmas
So I guess you know the meaning of 'selamat tahun baru'....

Apa kabar

apa kabar?
This is a common expression for two people that know each other and they don't meet for some time. This is not an expression for new people for us. In English, we usually say 'how are you'. Apa kabar is usually used for asking health and condition of another speaker and the other person will say ,'Baik' or 'Kabar baik'.
Bahasa Indonesia is sometimes mixed with other language for example Arabic, because it is related to the Indonesian' religion. So it is common that people in Indonesia will respond 'Alhamdulillah saya baik-baik saja' which means 'thank God I'm very well'.
Instead of 'apa kabar' we can say 'bagaimana kabarmu' and we can give the same respons as above.
If we want to know about other person condition we can say 'bagaimana kabar Susan' for example or 'bagaimana kabar keluargamu' ,you know keluarga is family.
The answer can be 'mereka baik-baik saja or they're just fine.
So, apa kabarmu dan keluargamu ?

intro to Indonesia

hi world,

let me introduce you to a country in south east Asia which consists of thousands islands and various kinds of ethnic groups. This country is Indonesia, with 33 provinces and 5 big island which are Sumatra,Jawa, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua. The people use their ethnic language for daily conversation but the national language is Bahasa Indonesia which is taught and used by children since primary schools.

Bahasa Indonesia system is easy to understand since it doesn't use what we call "tenses" like in English. So we don't have to remember many kinds of verbs in different forms. But Bahasa is often influenced by dialects of Indonesian people and the usage of Bahasa in different area sometimes sounds funny to other ethnic group.

OK, if I want to know your condition and health, I must ask "Apa kabar?"

So everybody, apa kabar?