PRONUNCIATION

Proper Indonesian pronunciation is typically considered to be easy to moderate for native English speakers. Contrary to what one may expect, Indonesian pronunciation may feel more like that of a European language when compared to other languages in Southeast Asia. To make things even easier for English speakers, Indonesian is written purely with the Latin alphabet.

The following chart shows the how Indonesian Pronunciation corresponds to English.

Indonesian	English	Example
A	AH	father
B	B	ball
C	CH	child
D	D	doll
E	E	open OR egg (see below)
F	F	fan (often closed, resembling “p”)
G	G	go (always hard)
H	H	hat (never silent)
I	EE	feet
J	J	jump OR fudge
K	K	key
L	L	lamp
M	M	map
N	N	not
NG	NG	sing
O	OH	vote
P	P	pay
Q	Q	Key (extremely rare – Arabic)
R	RR	rolled r (like spanish rr)
S	S	sun
T	T	top
U	OO	fool
V	V	vote
W	W	water
X	X	taxi (rare)
Y	Y	yellow
Z	Z	zoo

Here are a few more notes for some differences:

The letter “e” can be pronounced either long or short. In written Indonesian, there is no distinction between the two pronunciations. This is really the only major spelling irregularity to be concerned about. Luckily, the “e” is short in the vast majority of cases.

The letter “h” is always pronounced, even if it is at the end of a word. The word “lebih” (meaning “more”) may be written phonetically in English as leh-bee-h. It may seem strange to produce the final “h”, as if you were expelling a little too much air. It can also be difficult to pick it up when it is spoken if you’re not attuned to it. However, It will become natural with practice.

The letters “ng” in the middle of a word ( ex: mengarti ), are always pronounced like “singer”, never like “finger”.  A hard “g” should never be pronounced when it is simply an “ng”. If a hard “g” following an “ng” is required, it will be followed by an additional “g”. For example: “tunggal”. Because it contains the second “g”, the “ngg” should be pronounced like in “finger”.

If a vowel is doubled, ( example: aa as in “maaf” ), there should be what is referred to as a “glottal stop” between the two vowels. “Maaf” is pronounced Ma’af — the “a” sound is stopped quickly at the back of the throat. Some English dialects perform this stop in words like “bottle” or “Butter”, pronouncing the double-t’s as a glottal stop. The expression “Uh-Oh” or “Oh-Oh”, said when something goes wrong, contains this same stop. It is also found in the proper native pronunciation of Hawai’i.

The “R” is always rolled when pronounced. This can be difficult for almost all English speakers. If you have trouble making this sound, try saying the word “practice”, but flapping the R, effectively saying “practice”. This flapped R can be relaxed and morphed, with a bit of practice, into a rolled R.

Many words ending in “k” are pronounced with a glottal stop. Effectively, the “k” becomes a hard stop for the word at the back of the throat. Again, depending on where you’re from, this can be difficult. Some English dialects pronounce “cat” with a glottal stop at the end. Common in some British pronunciation, words ending in “t” may exhibit the same stop ( ex: bit or bought ). The final “k” glottal stop is quite common in Indonesian, but not universal. It may even vary between speakers from different parts of the country.

I hope you are not confuse