Making Plurals in Indonesian
To make a plural in Indonesian, you normally repeat the noun. So anak (child) becomes anak-anak – children.
However, be careful, as occasionally doubling the noun can change the meaning of the noun. My friend found this out when he wrote to his girlfriend: “Saya cuma punya mata-mata untuk kamu.”
He meant to say “I only have eyes (mata) for you,” He actually said, “I only have spies (mata-mata) for you”.
When chatting on the internet and with other informal writing people often
write this as anak2.
People are also sometimes lazy, and do not always bother to double a word –
in this case you need to use context to work out if the word is singular or
plural.