Before you start reading this, make sure that you have been introduced or have introduced yourself to the function of pronoun in Indonesian language. I will put it in a very simple way, when you have an Indonesian noun, you can add a pronoun right after that to claim the possession of that noun.

For example:

In Indonesian, teman means friend and Saya means I.

When you combine them together and put the pronoun right after the noun, it will become something like this –> teman saya.

Now, in Indonesian, pronoun will not change in order to express possession. Hence, teman saya will mean something like ‘my friend’.

Some people got around by thinking of it as ‘friend that belongs to me’. You can try to understand it in different ways and that’s not a problem.

The tricky part is when we are talking about more than just 1 level possession. How if you want to say my father’s friend?

It will become something like this –> Teman bapak saya

Again, you can think of it as “my father’s friend” or as far as “friend that belongs to the dad that belongs to me”.

This might be confusing at first, but try to experiment with different nouns and pronouns. I am sure you will get around quickly.

Oh, I almost forget! You should look search for the pronoun first and then works it out from right to the left.