Indonesian/Lessons/Alphabet

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Lessons
Introductory
0.01 Introduction
0.02 Learning Indonesian
0.03 The Alphabet
0.04 Pronunciation
0.05 Greetings
0.06 Formal Speech
0.07 How are you?
0.08 Numbers
0.09 Dates
0.10 Telling Time
Review • Test
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1 The alphabet and its pronunciation

^ Indonesian ^ | << How to use this Indonesian Wikibook | Lesson 0: The Alphabet | Lesson 1: Greetings >>

Go to Exercise: Rhyme Game

[edit] The alphabet and its pronunciation

Indonesian letters are the same as the ones used in English. All letters a through z are used, and no other letters are used. Of course, they are pronounced differently. However, unlike English, Indonesian letters are pronounced much more consistently and no letters are muted. You will find that the pronunciation is much closer to Spanish.

Below is a table of Indonesian alphabet. The pronunciation column shows how we pronounce the letter in Indonesian. The sound column shows how it sounds in English. If there are no notes in the sound column, it is roughly the same as English.

Listen to how Indonesian pronounce their alphabets: A-M; N-Z

Letter	Pronunciation	IPA	English Approximation
a	a (like a in father)	[a]	always the a in father, bath but shorter, never the "a" in catch
b	be (like ba in bay)	[b]
c	ce	[ʨ] (versus English [ʧ])	Almost always like the ch in church, chest, and in some borrowed words or proper nouns like the French c'est (nearly like English say)
d	de (like da in day)	[d]	like de in deli
e	e	[ɛ], [ə], [e] (not [eɪ])	there are three ways of pronouncing e in Indonesian: one is like the e in bed, red. second (and by far the more common) is the schwa sound, as in e in stern, learn. and third is like in a in foray and came
f	ef	[f]	like the English standalone f, though often substituted with p and vice versa
g	ge	[ɡ]	always the hard g in English: gas, guard except in conjunction with an n
h	ha	[h]	as in the English have except when occuring at the end of a word when it is pronounced but unvoiced
i	i	[i]	Like the i in in
j	je	[ʥ] (versus English [ʤ])	like the j in joke, some accents make it sound much heavier making dj a closer transliteration
k	ka	[k] (versus English [kʰ])	like the k in kite except when at the end of the word when it functions more like a glottal stop
l	el	[l]
m	em	[m]
n	en	[n]
o	o	[o] (not [oʊ] or British [əʊ]), [ɔ]	there are two ways of pronouncing o in Indonesian: like the o in post, rope, but don't pronounce the u sound. more open, like the o in boss, stop.
p	pe	[p] (versus [pʰ])	(Do not aspirate)
q	ki	[k]
r	er	[r]	always trilled as in the r in Spanish.
s	es	[s]
t	te	[t] (versus [tʰ])	always the hard t in English: test, top (Do not aspirate)
u	u	[u]	like the oo in soon, boot
v	fe	[f]	pronounced like f
w	we	[w]
x	eks	[ks]
y	ye	[j]
z	zet	[z]