I used to think that my formal Bahasa Indonesia is near-abysmal, especially compared to my fluency in its everchanging spoken informal form, which is actually the form that's used most frequently in normal life -and by normal, I exclude Cinta Laura. It's not that I'm bad at it, it's just that I find myself unable to conform to what others (i.e. my teacher and national exam maker) want. Honestly, I was somewhat frustrated with exam-style Bahasa Indonesia. At that time, I really wanted to face the Bahasa bigwigs and give them a piece of my mind. Our current Bahasa Indonesia education is simply not working.
Look at that banner in the picture above and read what it says. "Kejahatan jalanan, penggembos ban, menunjuk-nunjuk ban, asap-asap...Mereka adalah pencuri, waspadalah" Before we proceed, let my take a shot at translating it: "Street crimes, tire deflators, pointing at tires, smokes...they're robbers, beware". Now that's abysmal. Seriously, I'm no language purist but this wicked sentences really set my alarms off.
That public service banner by the local police makes my 3-years old cousin's story of his fun holiday sound like Shakespeare. First, it starts out with "street crimes"; then, it jumps to those criminal "tire deflators". All of a sudden, the list continues with "pointing at tires". To top the wackiness, it's then closed with "smokes". Moreover, the last sentence means that street crimes are robbers, tire deflators are robbers, pointing at tires are robbers, and smokes are robbers. What the *beep*!? Grammatically speaking, only the "tire deflators" part is forgivable, the rest is sentenced to third-degree stupidity and would have to suffer in Grammar Hell. Ya burnt!
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