Me-, me-i, and me-kan

[Hombre de Maiz]

You two should get a (chat)room. If the object is to teach the noobies, you lost them long ago.

[ausdag]

You two should get a (chat)room. If the object is to teach the noobies, you lost them long ago.

That's cause the thread was kind of a false start right from the outset.

[Hombre de Maiz]

You should start a thread about stress. Far too often, noobies get the stress on the wrong syllable. For example, the word "sekarang", many noobies stress the first syllable when the stress should fall on the second syllable.

I am particularly mindful of this because one of my native languages is punctillious about this. For example, three different meanings emerge depending on the stress:
Público: stress on the first syllable denoted by the accent mark. Meaning, "public".
Publico: stress on the second to last syllable by default. Meaning, "I publish".
Publicó: stress on the third and last syllable denoted by the accent mark. Meaning, "S/he published".

Get the stress wrong, and you get the meaning wrong. There is no change of meaning of Indonesian, but the right stress is part of speaking it well.

[Hiram]

This shows the difference between being just 'understood' and speaking like a native speaker.

Well, sort of. Arguably due to the prevalence of other primary languages (Bahasa Sunda, Bahasa Batak, Bahasa Java etc.) and dialects (such as Bahasa Gaul) I think that except for the rather elite realms of science, academia, legal matters etc. that Ari mentioned, most "native speakers" aren't all that hung up on correct grammar either. I mean, who in this country is really only raised speaking Bahasa Indonesia? I'd say that that's a minority. So unless you only consider a minority of Indonesians as native speakers with regards to Bahasa Indonesia, the dichotomy between simply being understood and speaking like a native speaker is a false one, me thinks. Try talking like SBY with a Blue Bird driver - dude's not gonna respond the same way. Who's right?