Best online or at-home courses for learning Indonesian?

December 18, 2016 12:29 AM

I'm looking for a resource that will allow me to learn/develop my very limited Indonesian skills from home. I have used Learning Indonesian, the website/podcast, previously. I am looking for something a little more structured/organised around the assumption that I want to take this fairly seriously.

I don't think Duolingo does Indonesian, unless I'm missing something. Also, I have tried Duolingo briefly before, and like Learning Indonesian, it seemed fairly...kind of random in its approach. I felt like, compared to when I have done language classes in person (which were, of course, paid for), the emphasis was on learning cute phrases or vocab, rather than looking at grammar at the same time. I lived in Turkey for about a year and very much enjoyed my Turkish tuition classes. I am a reasonably quick study, I think, which is really why I want to do this-- I am about to have some time off and I think I'd enjoy the stimulation that learning a language offers.

We also take pretty consistent annual trips to Indonesia for holidays, so I have some very limited opportunities to practice.

I am willing to pay something, but this is a hobby, so I'm not going to sign up for a university course. I will also have a new baby and a toddler so in-person classes are not what I'm after. I am not keen to get a private tutor-- I really like the structure of a curriculum (I am a teacher myself) that is planned and organised, and I probably don't want to pay as much as a private tutor would require.

Any suggestions for resources?

posted by jojobobo to Education (8 answers total)

They had Pimsleur Indonesian at my public library and it was on if you like drills as a language methodology. I think they're useful in a limited way but I also wished to god they'd tell me some grammar. On the other hand, Indonesian seems to be minimally inflected so it might be an ok language for drills without grammar lessons. There are two 8-disc says, I think, and if I had to guess I'd say they get you up to about a semester of Indonesian. There are probably better resources.
posted by Smearcase at 12:35 AM on December 18, 2016

Sorry, lots of autocorrect. Ok for "on" and sets for "says."
posted by Smearcase at 12:36 AM on December 18, 2016

My parents both learned Malay from books, back in the 1970s in Singapore and practicing with people. Bahasa is about vocabulary and reading, not pronunciation and grammar. The grammar isn't that complex, neither is the pronunciation, but there are a ton of proverbs and sayings after you get past the basics, and there's regional vocabulary. I have a friend who learned Malay in university recently for a year and then went to Indonesia for several months for an academic project and she had no problems switching over to Bahasa Indonesia after a while, because people were helpful with the foreigner and her wonky vocabulary. So you can opt for either Malay or Indonesian locally if there's a class.

I would work through a good beginners' set of books - the Peace Corp's Indonesian? - for a solid base and then concentrate on getting real fluency with reading popular magazines, newspapers and children's books in the language, as well as watching current TV shows and talking to people online in the language as soon as you can. Bahasa Indonesian is easy to get an initial start in, but there is a lot of colloquiel and local vocabulary to understand.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 3:04 AM on December 18, 2016

Check out Italkie.com, where you can find community teachers to video chat with. I found it helpful for immersing myself in other languages. The people I have interacted with have been fairly structured.
posted by Rabarberofficer at 8:29 AM on December 18, 2016

Best answer: My local library has a copy of Sentence Patterns of Indonesian, which I have glanced through and looks to be a very serious, thorough text. Plus, and this is a deal-maker for me with teach-yourself language materials, there appears to be audio available to support the grammar drills, although at a very high price.

If Indonesian were a target language for me -- I'm working on Welsh and French, myself -- I would try to hunt down a less costly way to get the audio. Maybe contact the publisher, University of Hawaii, and see if there is a digital option?

Also, there's some free audio for an Indonesian course at a University of Indiana archive; if you could find the book that matches it, that might be useful.
posted by bertran at 12:44 AM on December 19, 2016

Oh, also, I found this very extensive discussion of Indonesian language learning resources at A language learner's forum.
posted by bertran at 1:45 AM on December 19, 2016

The Indonesian Way, online from U. of Hawaii, mentioned at the end of that thread, may be the ticket. Lots of audio.
posted by bertran at 2:01 AM on December 19, 2016

Check your local library website or call them to see if they offer an online course for free with your library card. My library subscirbes to Mango Languages, for example, which offers Indonesian. Then you can study at work or home on your laptop. For free!
posted by Jandoe at 8:58 PM on December 20, 2016