'per-' and 'per-...-an' — Indonesian Grammar

The prefix is far rarer than or . You will mostly meet it in two places: inside a few verbs, and in nouns that end in .

memper-: Making Something So

Between and the root, means making something become what the root describes. Its p never drops, so the verb always starts with memper.

good - to repair (to make good again)

memperbaiki
to repair

Not every word starting with memper has this prefix. In (to believe) the root is , and the per is simply part of it: the word is , and .

per-...-an: Nouns From ber- Verbs

Many verbs have a matching noun with at the front and at the end. It names the activity, or the thing that comes out of it.

to meet - meeting
to ask - question
to go shopping - shopping
to work - job
to study - lesson

pertemuan
meeting
pekerjaan
job

Spelling

follows the same rule as . It loses its r when the root's first syllable has an er, which is why goes with , and it becomes pel- before ajar, as in . (a livestock farm) is built on ternak the same way.

Other per-...-an Nouns

teacher - school, place of learning
conversation

In the course

Sentences from Lingora’s Indonesian course

15 of the course's 500 sentences use this, the first in lesson 51. A few of them, with the words “'per-' and 'per-...-an'” is about in bold:

Aku pergi ke pusat perbelanjaan.
I went to the shopping mall.
Lesson 172

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