IndoLingua A2 Indonesian Course Book — French Edition (Digital eBook + Audio)
About this A2 book for French speakers
This is the CEFR A2 (elementary) level of the IndoLingua method, written for French speakers. At A2 the goal is to hold short everyday conversations with confidence. 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 A2
The A2 book focuses on daily routines, past and future time markers, shopping and bargaining, transport, and the core affixes ber-/me-. By the end you will be able to describe your day, make plans and manage common travel and market interactions.
- CEFR A2 syllabus with clear, level-specific learning outcomes
- Vocabulary lists with French translations and pronunciation
- Grammar for the A2 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 A2 explanations are written against French habits, and the vocabulary lists give French equivalents rather than English ones.
The grammar taught at A2
A2 is where time enters the language. Indonesian never conjugates, so it uses separate markers — sudah (already), belum (not yet), sedang (in progress) and akan (will) — and learning to place them correctly is most of the level. Alongside them you meet the first two productive prefixes, ber- for states and activities and me- for transitive verbs.
A sentence you can build at A2: Kemarin saya sudah pergi ke pasar untuk membeli buah. — "Yesterday I already went to the market to buy fruit." Note that pergi and beli keep their shape; only the markers around them change.
What CEFR A2 certifies
CEFR A2 means you can understand sentences and frequently used expressions about immediate relevance — personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment — and communicate in simple, routine exchanges.
Where A2 fits in the A1–C2 path
IndoLingua's French collection runs from A1 (absolute beginner) to C2 (mastery). A2 is the elementary stage, reached once you can describe your day, make plans and manage common travel and market interactions. At B1 the affix system stops being two prefixes and becomes the full derivational network of the language.
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.