
I can't say I'm particularly gifted at learning languages. Before Indonesia, I lived 2 years in Italy and 2 years in Brazil, and yet I can barely speak any Italian or Portuguese. Indonesian, or Bahasa Indonesia as it is called here, is different from any other languages. There are no tenses, no declension, no tones. There is nothing tricky about the spelling, nothing complex about the grammar, and you always pronounce the words the same way . You don't even have regional differences: It is spoken identically in Sumatra, in Papua, in Java or in Bali. And best of all, it uses the Roman alphabet. Put it simply, it is probably the easiest language to learn in the world . I arrived in Jakarta in November 2018. After one week, I had learned enough words to get by in all the most common situations : Greetings, introductions, ordering food, buying groceries, asking for directions, expressing basic feelings, etc. After 1 month, I was able to have a normal