Learning from Children

Indonesian is a contextual language, there is no tone and we don't have to pronounce words correctly. There is no complicated grammar either, no past, present and future tenses in Indonesian. I go yesterday, I go now, I go everyday, I go tomorrow and I have go, that simple.

Like other Indonesian families, my family does not speak Indonesian in appropriate grammar and pronunciations. We cut off and shorten words, especially the prefix, suffix and other ixes, including Asterix and Obelix. The term mengelem (=gluing) is pronounced ngelem only. We also mix some languages, so when we cannot find a term in Indonesian we simply jump and grab the similar term in other languages, English, Javanese, Banjar, or Dutch.

However, in this linguistic confused family, there is someone who speaks the most appropriate Indonesian. He speaks in an appropriate grammar and pronunciations even with his limitations. He doesn't cut off and shorten words, such as "mengelem", "mencintaimu" (love you), "memakan" (eating) and so on are pronounced grammatically perfectly right. That's a 3 year old boy. Perhaps it is time for adults to learn more from children and take children as role models.