Graded Indonesian Reading Texts for Your Teaching

Insights into the Indonesian Language

Speakers

About 252 million people speak Indonesian, but only around 75 million as a native language; some 177 million speak it as a second language (Ethnologue figures for 2020, as cited by Wikipedia).¹

Did you know?

Indonesian does not regularly mark plural nouns; when plurality matters, a speaker can repeat the word or add a marker, so "students" is either murid-murid or para murid.¹

The main challenge

Standard Indonesian is used mainly in formal settings, and everyday speech differs from it noticeably: in informal Jakarta speech, for example, tidak ("no, not") becomes nggak and membuat ("make") becomes bikin.¹

CEFR exams

• UKBI, Uji Kemahiran Berbahasa Indonesia (Badan Bahasa, Indonesia's language agency): reports seven ratings on its own scale, from Istimewa down to Terbatas, and is not a CEFR exam

Where students struggle

• The verb prefix meN- changes shape with the root, and an initial k, t, s or p followed by a vowel drops out, so the root sapu is hidden inside menyapu.²

Teaching notes

• Verbs never change for tense, person or number, so A0 learners can talk about time with time words alone, such as sudah ("already") and belum ("not yet"), before meeting any affixed verb forms.¹

Sources

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_language
2. https://lbifib.ui.ac.id/id/blog/artikel/menyontek-atau-mencontek-kesalahan-umum-penggunaan-imbuhan-dalam-bahasa-indonesia

About the Indonesian language

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_language
2. https://ejaan.kemendikdasmen.go.id/
3. https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejaan_yang_Disempurnakan
4. https://wals.info/datapoint/81A/wals_code_ind
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_grammar
6. https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/East_Timor_2002
7. https://setkab.go.id/en/bahasa-indonesia-named-unesco-general-conference-official-language/

Indonesian reading proficiency benchmarks (CEFR)

Indonesia has its own scales: the UKBI proficiency test reports seven ratings, from Istimewa down to Terbatas, and the BIPA programme for foreign learners uses its own numbered levels (BIPA 1, BIPA 2 and up). No published crosswalk from either scale to the CEFR was found, so this column uses CEFR only.

Reference corpora

Frequency data and official reference works for standard Indonesian:¹

• Frequency Dictionary Indonesian: By Uwe Quasthoff and Sabine Fiedler, edited by Erla Hallsteinsdóttir (Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2015). The printed volume ranks the 1,000 most frequent word forms and lists the top 10,000 alphabetically; its CD-ROM gives relative frequencies for up to 1,000,000 word forms.²
• KBBI: The Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, now in its sixth edition online, is the official dictionary of standard Indonesian, published by the national language agency (Badan Bahasa).¹
• Register: Stichos writes Indonesian readers in standard written Indonesian (bahasa baku) at every level, following the EYD spelling rules: tidak rather than nggak, and saya/Anda rather than Jakarta slang such as gue/lu.

1. https://kbbi.kemendikdasmen.go.id/
2. https://wortschatz-leipzig.de/en/freqdict

Readability design principles

Indonesian readability research has mostly tested English formulas on Indonesian text.¹

• Formula comparison: Yasa, Sutama and Martha (2013) checked Flesch, the Fog Index, the Fry graph, SMOG and a formula for Indonesian texts against the test results of 324 ninth-grade students in Singaraja, Bali. They found both the English-based formulas and the Indonesian one accurate, with no significant difference between them.¹
• Stichos: Stichos sets difficulty with level-by-level grammar rules and sentence-length limits rather than a readability score: 3 to 5 words per sentence at A0, then by default at most 8 words at A1, 12 at A2, 17 at B1 and 23 at B2.

1. https://ejournal-pasca.undiksha.ac.id/index.php/jurnal_bahasa/article/view/516

Script & grammar scaffolding

• Verb affixes: From A0, everyday verbs appear in their standard written form, with the active prefix meN- where prose requires it (melihat, membuat), because a bare root such as lihat reads as a command. The passive prefix di- is held back until A2, which also adds ber- and ter-. The suffixes -kan and -i and the noun-forming pe-an and ke-an wait until B1, and complex circumfixes such as memper-...-kan come in at B2.
• Time and negation: Indonesian verbs do not mark tense, and A0 leaves out the aspect markers sedang, sudah and akan. A1 adds them along with belum.
• Joining clauses: A0 uses no conjunctions at all: one main clause per sentence. A1 allows dan; A2 adds atau, tetapi and simple time clauses; by B1, relative clauses with yang and clauses of cause and condition with karena and jika are open.
• Requests: At A0 and A1, requests take the form minta plus a noun (Minta satu kopi, “one coffee, please”) rather than a command.

Related academic & framework resources

• UKBI: Predikat: The seven UKBI ratings and their score ranges, on the official UKBI site of Indonesia’s Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education.
• BIPA Daring: Badan Bahasa’s portal for Indonesian for foreign speakers (BIPA), with teaching materials such as the Sahabatku Indonesia series.
• Ejaan Bahasa Indonesia yang Disempurnakan, Edisi V: The official spelling and punctuation rules for Indonesian, fifth edition.
• KBBI VI Daring: The online sixth edition of the official Indonesian dictionary, from Badan Bahasa.
• Kecermatan Formula Flesch, Fog Index, Grafik Fry, SMOG, dan BI: The 2013 study by Yasa, Sutama and Martha comparing readability formulas on Indonesian textbook texts.
• Wortschatz Leipzig: frequency dictionaries: The Leipzig University project page for its frequency dictionaries.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is included in the free preview on this page?

You can try a live-generated A0 or A1 story right now with tap-to-translate functionality. Each line can display a translation in your reading language. Additionally, you can get 3 sample stories as a PDF by joining our Reading List, all without creating an account.

Which levels will Educator Studio support when it launches?

At launch, Educator Studio covers every level from A0 through B2. You will be able to generate level-matched texts across this entire range for your classes.

How will I be able to share reading passages with my students?

At launch, you can share any story you generate by sending your students a link. There is no limit on how many share links you can create for your classes.

Do my students need to create an account to read shared texts?

No, your students can open any shared link directly in their web browser without an account. They will be invited to make a free account if they wish to save their words and stories, but it is never required.

Can my students listen to the stories?

At launch, students reading a shared story can tap words to hear standard computer voice pronunciation. If you opt for the Premium Audio add-on at launch, you get natural-sounding voices for word pronunciation, full story narration with distinct voices for dialogue characters, and MP3 audio exports.

How does the AI ensure the stories match the chosen level?

Stories are written by AI and automatically verified against the vocabulary and grammar rules of that level. Because an automated system performs this check rather than a human editor, minor errors can sometimes pass through, so you should review a text before handing it out.

Can I target specific Indonesian grammar points like verb prefixes?

Indonesian verb prefixes like meN- alter initial letters—such as hiding the root sapu inside menyapu—which can confuse beginners. At launch, Educator Studio lets you turn tenses on or off and adjust vocabulary lists, helping you keep stories focused on the exact structures your students have studied.