IndoLingua A1 Indonesian Course Book — French Edition (Digital eBook + Audio)
About this A1 book for French speakers
This is the CEFR A1 (absolute beginner) level of the IndoLingua method, written for French speakers. At A1 the goal is to make your very first contact with Indonesian and survive basic everyday situations. Every explanation, translation and example is given in French, so you never have to learn Indonesian through a third language.
What you will learn at A1
The A1 book focuses on the alphabet and pronunciation, greetings, numbers, family, ordering food and simple present-tense sentences. By the end you will be able to introduce yourself, ask simple questions and handle basic shopping and directions.
- CEFR A1 syllabus with clear, level-specific learning outcomes
- Vocabulary lists with French translations and pronunciation
- Grammar for the A1 level explained in French with example sentences
- Dialogues set in real Indonesian contexts (Bali, Jakarta, Yogyakarta)
- End-of-chapter exercises with answer keys
- Native audio recordings for every dialogue and vocabulary item
Learning Indonesian as a French speaker
What you already have for free
French and Indonesian both place the adjective after the noun, so rumah besar is built exactly like voiture rouge — the word order you already use transfers on day one. French speakers also have an unusually short route into the written language: Indonesian spelling is fully regular, so unlike French there is no silent ending, no -ent, no accord to remember.
What you have to unlearn
What has to be unlearned is conjugation and gender. An Indonesian verb never changes form: makan alone covers je mange, il mangeait and nous avons mangé. There is no le / la, and no plural -s — quantity comes from a number word or from reduplication (buku-buku). Time is carried by separate words — sudah, belum, akan — never by an ending.
The mistakes French speakers actually make
The interference error French speakers make most is inserting a copula. Il est professeur is simply Dia guru: no verb at all, and adalah is not a general-purpose être. Age works the same way — umur saya 30 tahun, literally mon âge 30 ans, never saya adalah 30 tahun. Watch mata (eye), which is not a match for anything in French, and pantai (beach), easily confused with pantat.
Pronunciation: what to drill first
Three habits to drop: the silent h (Indonesian pronounces it, and tahu and tau are two different words), the French nasal vowels (there are none — bon in kebon is bo-n), and the stress on the last syllable, since Indonesian is almost flat. The final -ng of uang is a single sound, not n + g.
Words you already know
A large Latin-rooted vocabulary reached Indonesian through Dutch and is recognisable on sight: administrasi, universitas, politik, republik, stasiun, apotek, polisi.
This is why the French edition exists as its own book rather than a translated appendix: the A1 explanations are written against French habits, and the vocabulary lists give French equivalents rather than English ones.
The grammar taught at A1
The grammar load at A1 is deliberately light, because Indonesian lets you say useful things almost immediately. You cover the fixed subject-verb-object order, the demonstratives ini and itu, possession by simple juxtaposition (rumah saya), the existential ada, and the two negations that beginners confuse most: tidak before verbs and adjectives, bukan before nouns.
A sentence you can build by the end of chapter three: Saya mau nasi goreng, tidak pedas. — "I want fried rice, not spicy." Every word in it is unchanged from its dictionary form, which is the point of starting with Indonesian.
What CEFR A1 certifies
CEFR A1 means you can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases, introduce yourself, ask and answer questions about personal details, and interact simply provided the other person speaks slowly and clearly.
Where A1 fits in the A1–C2 path
IndoLingua's French collection runs from A1 (absolute beginner) to C2 (mastery). A1 is the absolute beginner stage, reached once you can introduce yourself, ask simple questions and handle basic shopping and directions. The next level, A2, keeps these sentences and adds time to them: what happened, what is happening, what will.
Why learn Indonesian?
Indonesian is spoken by 270 million people and is the official language of Indonesia. FSI ranks it as Category II (around 900 hours to professional fluency for English speakers) — no verb conjugations, no noun genders, no tones, Latin alphabet.