Here is a more indepth site on passive and active sentences in Indonesian

Active and Passive (Aktif dan Pasif)

If someone does something to someone or something, the verb that describes that action is a transitive verb. The one who does the action is the agent. The person or thing that receives the action of the action is the recipient. In Indonesian, if the agent and/or the action is the main concern of the sentence, the "active" form of the verb is used, which means the verb takes the prefix meN-*. Often, but not always, the agent will be the subject of an active sentence. The exception is if the verb is in a "yang phrase" and the agent is not in that phrase; then, the agent is the predicate and the verb in the "yang phrase" is active. If the agent is in the "yang phrase" with the verb, the verb is "passive". If the recipient of the action is the main concern of the sentence, the "passive" form of the verb is used. Often, but not always, the recipient will be the subject of a passive sentence. The exception is as mentioned above: if the verb is in a "yang phrase" and the recipient is not in that phrase, the recipient is the predicate and the verb in the "yang phrase" is passive. In the passive, the verb is preceded either by :

(1) short forms of the intimate pronouns (ku-, kau-) or di-; or by

(2) the full forms of the formal pronouns (saya; Anda, Saudara, Bapak, etc;
beliau); or by the plural pronouns (kami, kita, kalian, mereka).

In all cases, NOTHING (no auxiliary word such as bisa, harus, akan, etc.) comes between the pronoun form and the verb stem. In the case of third person passive, the noun or pronoun(-nya) which designates the agent comes after the verb, optionally preceded by oleh ("by"). Except for sentences where the verb is in a yang phrase, the subject of a passive verb is the recipient, and often precedes the verb. With subject /predicate inversion the recipient-subject may come after the passive verb.

Taken from Seasite.niu.edu (click on that link for more examples)

Passive and Active sentences, Chapter 4 style

I admit I don't fully get the whole passive/active sentence thing, but I do try my best. Anyway, this is how I figure is best how to learn it. All full, "correct" sentences should have a subject, verb and an object. For example, "I played with the dog." would have "I" as the subject, "Played" as the verb and "Dog" as the object.

Step 1: Figure out what point of view the sentence is.
A 1st person point of view will say, "I, we" or "Saya, aku, kita, kami"
A 2nd person point of view will say, "You" or "Anda, kamu"
A 3rd person point of view will say, "He, She, They, Them, or that person's name" or "Dia, Mereka, (insert name here)"

STEP 2: Figure out whether the sentence is an active sentence or a passive sentence.
An ACTIVE sentence is one that focuses on the subject. An example of an active sentence is, "I wrote that book" as it focuses on me having written the book.

A PASSIVE sentence is one which focuses on the object. An example of a passive sentence is, "That book was written by me" and it focuses on the book more than me being the author of it.

Step 3: Change the sentence type
Ok by changing the sentence type, obviously I mean going from changing an active sentence to a passive one, and a passive sentence into an active one.

Changing from an active sentence to a passive sentence
As mentioned before, an active sentence will be Subject + Verb + Object such as "Anne wrote that book" where "I" is the subject, "Wrote" is the verb and "Book" is the object. So because this is an active sentence and I want to change it to an passive sentence, I want the sentence structure to be Object + Verb + Subject. Therefore, the sentence will be "This book was written by Anne".

Or in Indonesian:
Anne menulis buku itu (Active sentence) --> Buku itu ditulis oleh Anne (Passive sentence).

Things to note:
* 'menulis' changes to 'ditulis'. Basically the key is just to drop the "me" from the verb and change it to a "di".
* 'oleh' means 'by'... just use it whenever you're writing a passive sentence to be safe.

When changing the passive into an active, just move the words around to make the Subject + Verb + Object pattern. But remove the "di" from the verb and add the "me-" prefix. And remove the 'oleh'

More about the passive and active sentences will be continued later when I get to the next chapter. :)

Chapter 4: Perayaan dan upacara (Celebrations and Ceremonies)

Forming Nouns with '-an'

Nouns can be formed by placing -an at the end of a base word.

For example:
Baca (To Read) -> Bacaan (Reading Material)
Membantu (To Help) -> Bantuan (Assistance)
Makan (To Eat) -> Makanan (Food)
Hari (Day) -> Harian (Newspaper)
Manis (Sweet) -> Manisan (Sweets)

Arisan! film review

Tackling Indonesian social taboos, Arisan! is a film directed by Nia Di Nata that revolves around three 30-something socially elite friends living in Jakarta. These 3 friends join an arisan group, which is a joint financial pool conducted between groups of people such as friends or colleagues in order to foster relationships. Through this arisan group, these 3 friends’ secrets are unravelled and friendships are put to the test.

The social issues displayed in this film are infertility, infidelity and homosexuality. Aniden (Aida Nrmala) is the presider of the arisan group and is seen to have the ‘perfect’ life as she has a husband and children and is well off. However, infidelity rocks her marriage even though she tries hard to sexually please her husband. Meimei (Cut Mini Theo) is a successful interior designer who is desperately trying to have children and her life is shaken when her doctor tells her that she is infertile.

Although homosexuality in Indonesia is not illegal, it is seen as a taboo in Indonesian society. Arisan! is famed as one of Indonesian’s first mainstream films that successfully tackles the issue of homosexuality and of ‘coming out’ in a realistic manner as Sakti (Tora Sudro) is not stereotyped as an effeminate gay, but as an average male who is just troubled by his sexual orientation and about how his family and friends will react to it. Because of this, Sakti was my favourite character and indeed, Tora Sudro’s acting outshined the rest of the cast.

I give this movie 3 stars.

Reflection #1

It's been a very long time since I've posted about my learning of Indonesian. I can't believe it's already the mid-sems - and I haven't even posted anything up yet about Indonesian! Time just flies by when you're busy.

So far Indonesian has been interesting. It's a bit more difficult, as one could imagine. I think people really need to put the effort in, especially me. We just had a quiz which I think I failed. I think it's because even though we have a vocabulary list at the end of each chapter, we don't actually really go through them so you don't think you need to know it as much as the other words we use more often during classes. If we do actually go through the words, we probably have only heard it once but we don't remember learning. So I guess this year is the start of REAL self-learning in Indonesian!

Environmental verbs and adjectives

Adj.
bersih - clean
cemar - polluted
kotor - dirty
berlumpur - muddy

Verbs
membuang - to throw
memelihara - to take care of
mencemari - to contaminate
dirusak - to be destroyed
menanam - to plant
memelihara lingkungan - to look after/take care of the environment
membuang sampah - to throw rubbish
mencemari lingkungan - to pollute the environment
melindungi sungai - to protect the river
melingungi udara - to protect the air (udara = air)
melindungi hutan - to protect the forest
mati - die (for animals)
meninggal - die (for people)

Other:
pelestarian - conservation
Sembarangan - just anywhere