Salah Tingkah In Indonesian
An Indonesian Phrases
Halo semuanya. Ketemu lagi dengan saya, Iman Prabawa. In this article, I want to talk to you about the meaning of the phrase [salah tingkah], and as always, we will watch examples from movies and whatnot where the phrase is spoken by Indonesians.
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Meaning Of Salah Tingkah
[Salah] means [wrong] and [tingkah] means [behavior]. If translated literally, it means wrong behavior. But that’s not the meaning of the phrase [salah tingkah].
[Salah tingkah] is a condition where you suddenly act funny or behave weirdly because of something. Usually, it is because you meet someone that you really, really like. For example, you meet the woman of your dreams. She is so perfect, and you somehow act funny in front of her because you don’t know what to do or say correctly. This condition is called [salah tingkah].
So, when you are acting funny because there is someone that you really, really like in front of you, this condition is called [salah tingkah], and Indonesian people usually smush them together into [salting], or SALah TINGkah.
How to Pronounce Salah Tingkah
Here is how you pronounce [salah tingkah] in bahasa Indonesia.
Next, let’s watch examples that I took mostly from movies where the phrase [salah tingkah] is spoken by Indonesians.
Examples of Salah Tingkah In Use
The first clip we are about to watch is taken from a movie called Garis Waktu (2022). Let’s watch the clip below.
Conversation from the clip with English translations.
Sanya: April, lo tu ke sini ngga bilang-bilang dulu deh, ah. (April, why didn’t you tell me first you’re gonna come here?)
April: Nya, nya, kelakuan lo ga berubah-berubah. (Your bad behavior really doesn’t change at all, nya.)
Sanya: Lo kenapa tiba-tiba ke sini? Oh, bentar. Coba gue tebak. Pasti lo pengen cerita tentang si Pangeran Pinggir Jalan itu, kan? (Why all of a sudden do you come here? Oh, wait. Let me guess. I bet you want to talk about The Roadside Prince, right?)
April: Apaan sih lo? Lebay! Gue ngga pernah panggil dia Pangeran, ya. (What are you talking about? You’re exaggerating. I never called him a prince for once.)
Sanya: Kok lo jadi salah tingkah gitu sih? (Why, all of a sudden, are you acting weird like this?)
In this scene, April has a flat tire, and then a guy comes to help her replace her tire. Somehow, she meets again with the guy who helped her replace her tire in another place, and then they spend some time together.
After that, April goes to Sanya’s apartment without telling her first. Sanya is April’s best friend. Sanya asks why she came here all of a sudden without telling her first that she was coming. When Sanya guesses that she knows April will talk to her about the person who helps her replace her tire on the street and names him Pangeran Pinggir Jalan (The Roadside Prince), April kind of acts funny.
That’s why Sanya says this:
Kok lo jadi salah tingkah gitu sih?
If April weren’t in a position of [salah tingkah], she shouldn’t have corrected the name ‘prince’ Sanya gave to him. She will just let it be. But here, April kind of defends herself for something unnecessary. In other words, she reacts too much.
Vocabulary From the Clip
[Lo] is informal for [Anda] = you. For a more detailed explanation, you can read my article here:
[Tu] is short for [itu] = that.
[Ngga bilang-bilang dulu] is said when you do something without telling someone first.
[Kelakuan] = behavior.
[Ga] = [ngga] = [engga] = [enggak] = no.
[Ngga berubah-berubah] = never changes.
[Kenapa] = why.
[Tiba-tiba] = all of a sudden.
[Bentar] is short for [sebentar] = a short while, hold on, wait a second.
[Pengen] is the colloquial way of saying [ingin] = want. In daily conversations, Indonesian people say [pengen] or [pingin] instead of [ingin].
[Cerita] = tell about something; story.
[Pangeran] = prince.
[Apaan sih?] can have many meanings, depending on the context.
[Lebay] is when you exaggerate something. In this context, Sanya calls the guy ‘prince,’ which is exaggerated because she can just say the guy instead of the prince.
[Ngga pernah] = never.
[Panggil] = call.
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Thank you for reading my article, and that’s gonna be it for now. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below. Bye now.