Welcome! So, what now? Well, there's lot's of good free material on this site. If you're a beginner, the best thing to do is to go to our introduction to Indonesian page for a sample dialogue and an explanation of the various exercises and material available. Otherwise go straight to our main Indonesian learning page, which has plenty of sound files and exercises. But you might like to have a little look around before you get into some more interactive material. Why not start by listening to a conversation about the death of Soeharto as a warm up? If you already speak a little Indonesian (or a lot!), try to follow the sense of the discussion. If you are a beginner, have a listen to how the language sounds. The good news for beginners is that there are no difficult sounds for a native English speaker. This may take a few moments to stream, depending on your connection speed. How did you go? Ready to get into learning? Or you could start by find out more about our language learning philosophy. To find out what level you're at and to plan your lesson program, visit the levels home page.

Check your basics: Many, many times we get students who have studied elsewhere and have reached a fairly advanced level but have missed out on many fundamentals, or are making some basic mistakes, which have become bad habits; and they're very hard to break. How about "Welcome to Indonesia."    (?) Selamat datang di Indonesia. Selamat datang ke Indonesia. (wrong) "What are you doing?"    (?) Lagi ngapain? (really the only expression used by Indonesians in informal speech although: Anda sedang apa? is technically more correct) "it seems" / "I think"    (?) kayaknya (everyone is taught the word 'seperti' but we've yet to meet a student who was taught the word 'kayak' yet it's very, very commonly used) Kayaknya mau hujan. = I think it's going to rain. / It looks like it's going to rain. "She's listening to music on the radio."    (?) Dia sedang mendengarkan musik di radio. Dia sedang mendengar musik di radio. mendengar = hear  ;  mendengarkan = listen to Or casually: Dia lagi dengarin musik di radio. (leaving your office or house) "Oh, I forgot something."    (?) Oh, (ada) ketinggalan. Similarly: "Did you forget something?" = "Ada yang ketinggalan?" It's very important to stop translating from English and simply use the language which you're learning as it was intended. Developing a 'feel' for a language begins with the very first lesson; if the program is set up properly. How about this expression: "I never knew that before." / "I didn't know that."    (?) (Saya) Baru tahu itu. And Indonesians will commonly use the expression: "I just knew that." or "I just know that." Getting started: Take your time, browse the site, find all the tidbits that you've missed thus far in your learning, and find a good starting point to continue your learning. When you've had a browse and a play with our extensive range of free materials, you're ready to sign up for a full program, either over the net or in person with one of our talented teachers. Simply drop the Bahasa Guru a line at guru[_at_]bintangbahasa.com (sorry, that may look a little odd but we've written it that way to confuse the automated spam harvesters - yes, we hate spam as much as you do. If you've got this far, we believe you're net-savvy enough to figure out what the real address should look like... :) Like what you see? Take advantage of our special introductory internet course of 20 lessons now! Only AUD20 (approximately 20 USD).