University of Hawai'i Press Let's Speak Indonesian: Ayo Berbahasa Indonesia

Let's Speak Indonesian provides beginning and intermediate learners with an introduction to conversational Indonesian. Using a relaxed variety of standard Indonesian spoken among educated native speakers, it offers fifteen thematically-based chapters in two volumes that are rich with photographs, illustrations, and cultural explanations. The volumes take the novice learner to the intermediate-high level while following a set of fictional students through their university studies. Each lesson presents four to six language functions (e.g., how to greet a stranger, introduce oneself, ask for directions, apologize, offer a suggestion) in socially appropriate contexts.

Students begin with the language functions needed to communicate about self, family, and the immediate environment; later lessons expand to topics about the community and broader social issues. Each lesson offers the following: a list of language functions in Indonesian and English, a dialogue (and online recording) exemplifying the language functions taught in the lesson, structured activities to develop accuracy using the language functions, open-ended tasks to develop fluency in communicative events, a vocabulary list with English definitions, and cultural notes. Each volume concludes with a glossary of vocabulary items introduced in the text.