Ya Udah In Indonesian
An Indonesian Phrase
Halo semuanya, apa kabar? Ketemu lagi sama saya, Iman Prabawa. This time, I will talk about the meaning [ya udah] in the Indonesian language. Maybe some of you watch many Indonesian movies and hear a lot of this phrase being spoken in that scene, and don’t know its meaning.
As always, we’re going to watch scenes from Indonesian movies where this phrase [ya udah] is spoken so that you will understand it better.
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Meaning of Ya Udah
Ya udah is short for [ya sudah]. It can be translated as [okay then] in a neutral tone.
[Ya udah] is usually used when someone is going to end a conversation, but not always. You have to watch for the tone when this phrase is being spoken because if someone says it with a rising voice, it means that they are feeling kind of upset, want to end the conversation soon, and don’t want to continue the conversation. It means neutral if it’s spoken with a neutral tone, not high or low.
We will see this from the scene that I’ll give you to see for yourself, and I hope you can better understand the provided clips.
[Ya udah] can be followed by other words, such as [sih], [deh], [dong], [lah]. And different words collocate with this phrase [ya udah] can mean different things.
How to Pronounce Ya Udah
Here is how you pronounce [ya sudah] in bahasa Indonesia.
And here is how you pronounce [ya udah].
And here is how you pronounce [ya udah deh].
And here is how you pronounce [ya udah sih].
And here is how you pronounce [ya udah lah].
And here is how you pronounce [ya udah ah].
And here is how you pronounce [ya udah dong].
Examples of Ya Udah In Use
In this section, we will watch scenes from movies where the phrase [ya udah] is spoken to better understand how the Indonesian people use this phrase in their daily lives.
The first clip is taken from a movie called Milea: Suara Dari Dilan (2020). Let’s watch it below.
Conversation from the clip with English translations.
Dilan: Masuk. Ada apa? (Come in. What is it?)
Bibi: Astaghfirullah hal adzim. Ih! Bikin kaget aja. Eh, tadi neng Lia telpon. (Oh, my God! You scared me! Lia just called.)
Dilan: Apa katanya? (What did she say?)
Bibi: Kurang tahu. Ngobrolnya sama Bunda. (I don’t know. She talked to your mother.)
Dilan: Ya udah, Bi. Makasih. (Okay, then, Auntie. Thank you.)
In this scene, Bibi told Dilan that he had a call from Milea, and when Bibi had finished telling Dilan about it, Dilan said:
Ya udah, Bi.
Dilan said this phrase to end the conversation and let Bibi know that he had received the message, and after saying [ya udah], Dilan said thank you to Bibi for letting him know the information.
Vocabulary From the Clip
[Masuk] is short for [silakan masuk] = please come in.
[Astagfirullah hal adzim] is actually coming from the Arabic language. The literal translation is “I seek forgiveness in God,” but in this situation, it can mean, like, “Oh, my God.”
[Bikin kaget aja] is usually used when someone gets scared by someone else. You can also use this phrase [ngagetin aja deh].
[Neng] is an honorific title to call a girl in the Sundanese language.
[Kurang tahu] has the same meaning as [tidak tahu] = I don’t know. [Kurang tahu] is considered more polite than [tidak tahu].
[Ngobrol] = [berbicara] = to talk. Berbicara is more formal than ngobrol. Ngobrol is usually used in conversation in Indonesian.
[Makasih] is short for [terima kasih] = thank you.
The second clip is still from the same movie, Milea: Suara Dari Dilan (2020). Let’s watch the clip below.
Conversation from the clip with English translations.
Milea: Dilan!
Dilan: Udah, kan? Tadi katanya mau pulang? (You’re done, right? You said you wanna go home?)
Milea: Ya udah, aku pergi! (Okay, I’m leaving.)
Dilan: Ti-ati. Daah. (Take care. Bye.)
In this scene, Milea says [ya udah] with a rising tone because she is kind of upset with Dilan, and you can see that after the phrase, the conversation is finished. You can see [ya udah] is being used to end a conversation here.
Vocabulary From the Clip
[Kan] is usually used to emphasize something. In this context, [kan] is used to emphasize the word [udah].
[Pulang] = go home.
[Pergi] = to go, to leave.
[Aku] is informal for [I]. For a more detailed explanation, you can read my article here:
[Ti-ati] is short for [hati-hati]. In daily conversation, we usually shorten words. This is one of the examples where [hati-hati] is shortened into [ti-ati].
The third clip is still from the same movie, Milea: Suara Dari Dilan (2020). Let’s watch the scene below.
Conversation from the clip with English translation.
Dilan: Aku ingin kuliah di sini, Put. (I want to study here, Put.)
Aput: Ini kampus seni, ya? (This is an art college, right?)
Dilan: Iya. (Yup.)
Aput: Ya udah. Aku doain. (Okay, then. I will pray for you.)
Dilan: Doain naon? (What will you pray for me?)
Aput: Doain biar kamu jadi orang besar. (I will pray so that you will be a big man.)
Dilan: Raksasa kitu? (You mean a giant?)
Aput: Yeee. Istirahat dulu ah. (Oh, come on. Let’s take a rest for a while.)
In this scene, the phrase [ya udah] is not used to end a conversation but to respond to what Dilan said. He said that he wanted to study in that college, so Aput responded to it by saying:
Ya udah.
So, [ya udah], as I said earlier, is usually used to end a conversation, but not always. In this scene, you can see that [ya udah] is not used to end a conversation but to respond to what someone says before.
Vocabulary From the Clip
[Ingin] = want.
[Kuliah] = lecture, course, school, but it means to study in this context.
[Doain] is a colloquial way of saying [doakan] = to pray for someone.
[Naon] comes from the Sundanese language. It means [what].
[Kamu] is informal for [you].
[Orang besar] literally means [a big man], but [orang besar] has a figurative meaning. The figurative meaning of [orang besar] is an important person. In this context, Aput uses the figurative meaning, but Dilan responds jokingly and takes the word [orang besar] in the literal meaning. Aput will pray that Dilan will become an important person someday, but Dilan jokingly responds to it, taking the meaning [orang besar] as its literal meaning [a big man].
[Raksasa] = giant.
[Istirahat] = take a rest.
The fourth clip is taken from a web series on BRI's YouTube channel (2020). Let's watch the scene below.
Conversation from the clip with English translation.
Indah: Terus ini kita gimana? (Now what? What do we do?)
Bagas: Ya elah, ya udah sih, tinggal telpon bengkel. Susah amat! (Hey, chill, just call the car repair shops. It’s not that difficult!)
Robert: Susah sinyal di sini. (There’s no signal here.)
Bagas: Kok ngga ada sinyal sih? (Why there’s no signal here?)
In the scene above, they got a flat tire, and then someone came along and offered help, but Bagas refused the help because the man was their competitor. Bagas didn’t want to get help from his competitor, but Indah and Robert didn’t mind that.
Indah asked Bagas what they should do then, in the middle of nowhere, and got a flat tire. Here, Bagas said this:
Ya elah, ya udah sih, tinggal telpon bengkel.
You can see Bagas said [ya udah sih]. As I mentioned earlier, [ya udah] can collocate with different words. One of them is [sih], like in this example.
Vocabulary From the Clip
[Terus] = continue, keep on, but in this context, it means so, and then.
[Kita] = we.
[Ya elah] is usually used when you underestimate something.
[Tinggal] = to stay, but in this context, it means just.
[Telpon] = telephone.
[Susah amat] is usually used to say that what other people are doing is wrong, and then you give suggestions. Example sentence: Itu loe susah amat sih ngerjainnya kaya gitu? Kaya gini aja kali, jauh lebih gampang. (Why are you doing it like that? If you’re doing like that, that’s hard. Here, this way, a lot easier.) In this scene, it is used when Bagas gives a solution, and then says, “Susah amat!” It was like he was trying to say that it was not that difficult to solve their problem.
[Susah] = hard. [Susah sinyal] means it is hard to get a signal in that area.
[Di sini] = over here.
In this context, [ya udah sih] means that Bagas felt the problem they were facing was just a piece of cake. Although they are in nowhere land, Bagas thought that he could just phone a car repair shop and then the problem would be easily solved. He didn’t know that the signal was bad in that place, and he couldn’t make a telephone call because of the bad signal.
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So, that’s gonna be it for now. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below. Thank you for reading my article, and I’ll see you soon.