Get around Jakarta
|
How to speak prokem like a Betawi
The everyday speech of Jakartans (Betawi) is liberally laced with slang (prokem) expressions. Like any slang, words come in and out of fashion with bewildering rapidity, but some features can be distinguished:
- f becomes p
- z becomes j
- The prefix me- for verbs becomes ng-
- The suffixes -i and -kan turn into -in
A short glossary of common Jakartan expressions:
- no�
- tidak ? nggak
- I�
- saya/aku ? gua/gue
- you�
- kamu/anda ? lu/lo
- sorry�
- maaf ? maap
- to come up�
- menaik ? naek
- to take�
- mengambil ? ngambil
- to look�
- melihat ? ngeliat
- to use�
- memakai/menggunakan ? pake/ngegunain
- to visit�
- mengunjungi ? ngunjungin
|
Jalan Thamrin in Jakarta, normally a busy city thoroughfare
View across a kampung in central Jakarta
Getting around Jakarta is a problem. The city layout is chaotic and totally bewildering, traffic is indisputably the worst in South-East Asia with horrendous traffic jams (macet "MAH-chet") slowing the city to a crawl during rush hour, and the current railway system is inadequate to say the least. The construction of a monorail system, started in 2004, soon ground to a halt over political infighting and the main glimmer of hope is the gradually expanding Transjakarta Busway (Bus Rapid Transit) system.
Various areas of the city have different levels of chaos. The most well organised traffic is only at Golden Triangle (MH Thamrin, Jendral Sudirman, and H.R.Rasuna Said.) Recently, new housing complexes also have good traffic too.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Jakarta
