Perhaps a reason why Indonesian kids don't learn English well.

[Jaime C]

My wife had been buying basic bilingual (Bahasa Indonesian/English) books to help our 4 year old learn to read. I often read to her in English and am really apalled at how bad the english translation is.

These series from Daffa Media all have bad english translations. Often laughably so. I'm no english scholar, but I'd think any decent expat could do a thousand times better.

These books are all trying to teach morals of some sort. I know these aren't expensive books, but any english teacher could do a passable job in 15 minutes for each book.

 

[Bad_azz]

The academic books aren't much better, if at all JC.
Personally I would advise using books that are just in English for reading in English. & Books that are just in Indonesian for reading in Indonesian.

 

[kroshka]

Let me start saying that I do not speak Bahasa. Within the last 6 months I have had 5 English speaking employees to go through a dual language standard employment contract, and asked them to see if they could find any mistakes in it. This week end we had interview with 11 new candidates for a position as assistant, claiming fluency in both Bahasa and English. We asked the best 5 to do a "language test" - to proof read - the same contract. All 5 "found" more and different mistakes - both in the Bahasa and English part. I am amazed how difficult it seems to be even to be able to write your own language in the right way. (All candidates had university degrees).

 

[Jaime C]

The academic books aren't much better, if at all JC.
Personally I would advise using books that are just in English for reading in English. & Books that are just in Indonesian for reading in Indonesian.

We have plenty in English, but the monster always likes new stuff to read.

It's disappointing that with even minimal effort, they could have had so much better books.

 

[Nimbus]

The problem is that most Indonesians don't even know these books use crap English.

Hmmm... this could be a business opportunity...