From Sabang to Merauke, Indonesia is a huge archipelagic country, which means Indonesia has lots of cultures and local languages. Even so, all these differences are united under one language, Indonesian language.

There are many benefits for those who can speak Indonesian. And thusly, we will talk about those benefits.

1. Culture

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As stated before, being an archipelagic country has its own benefit. Many local cultures spread around the country, completing each other local culture. For example, Toraja Culture Death Ritual, Balinese Dance, and various custom wedding ceremonies. If you can speak Indonesian, you can come to Indonesia to experience all of these by yourself, except for wedding ceremony, unless you have a plan to celebrate your wedding ceremony in Indonesia.

2. Food

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Rendang, Ketoprak, Gado-gado, Nasi Goreng (Indonesian fried rice), Toge Goreng (fried beansprout), Nasi Padang (Padang rice), all of these has great taste, especially if you can speak Indonesian. Why? Because the greatest food in this country is their street food. You can find lots of tastier food at night. The downside is most of the food seller won’t understand you if you can’t speak Indonesian.

3. Beach

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Indonesia has the longest coastline in the world, for 100.000 kilometers. This means Indonesia also have greatest marine biome diversity in the world too. It’s home to 25% of world’s coral reef and 3.500 of the world’s 4.000 reef fish species. One think come to my mind when I hear of this, diving on the beach! Don’t let the language barriers get in the way of your enjoyment.

4. Friendly People

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If you can spend time and talk to Indonesia’s locals, please do. Do you know there’s a lot of different things when they’re talking with English (again, not many local can speak English) and talking with Indonesian?

They can share many funny stories with their own way of speaking. Give it a try!

5. Easy to Learn

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Indonesian language doesn’t have any tenses and pronouns. We only have simple arrangement of sentence, Subject + Predicate + Object. Also it uses Roman alphabet, same as English.

6. Increase your job prospect

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Indonesia is a growing country. This means you will have lots of job opportunities in this country. Of course this is only achievable if you can speak Indonesian fluently.

7. Increase your network

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Networking is one of the biggest assets of our life. From networking, you can easily get a job, create business opportunities, etc. But usually to increase your networking, you will need to speak in the person language to make it easier or you could say, friendlier. There is lots of entrepreneur in Indonesia. Perhaps you are looking for one?

8. Fun language to learn

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Without intonation and lots of easy words like slang, Indonesian language is a fun language to learn, for example, let’s look on causative form.

To change a simple verb to become a causative verb, you will only need to add suffix “-kan” or by adding affix “per-kan”.

Lihat (base verb) = see
Melihatkan (active causative) = to make someone see, to show
Dilihatkan (passive causative) = to make something seen, to be shown
Memperlihatkan (active causative) = to make someone see, to show
Diperlihatkan (passive causative) = to make something seen, to be shown

This causative form is known in Hebrew as Hiphil (active causative) and Hophal (passive causative). English can also change simple form to become causative form by adding suffix “-en”, but this can only be applied on adjective.

Easy, right?

9. Travel Objects

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For those who loves to travel, Indonesia is a place to go. We have so many travel destination for you to go. But while you may find a lot of people speak English in touristy areas, a little Indonesian will go a long way in your travels.

One more bonus information, only for you:

Get better prices!

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Yes, I really mean it. It is not a secret that in many places, not only in Indonesia, tourists get ripped off. And can you blame the merchants? Merchants usually think like this, if these people aren’t even willing to learn how to count in their language, why should I give them the local price? A little tips from me, try to learn numbers in many languages and learn a few simple questions. This may snatch you that great discount!

And that’s why should you learn Indonesian!

Hope this helps!