Indonesaian books

I took an opportunity to visit a bookstore in Pekanbaru, Indonesia during my last visit on 24-27 Dec 2011. I wanted to get book written by local indonesian as well as a book translated from English to Indonesian. Though the bookstore at Matahari Mall is small, I managed to get what I wanted. But I would like to see more academic books on psychology and counselling as a well as any books on the helping professions. Maybe I'll get this opportunity when I go to big cities like Jakarta if I go there again someday.

It is almost impossible for any Malay books from Malaysia to penetrate the Indonesian market, which is quite a pity. We could share a lot of knowledge and compare similarities and differences in our writing style, use of language, spelling etc.

I bought a book written by two teachers about their students' psychological, social and emotional issues. They are similar with what teachers are facing in our country. The writing style is simple and easy to read but they used a lot of Indonesianized English words. Though we used a lot of Malaysianized English words we tried to use Malay words or terms as much as possible. La Tahzan for Teachers by Irmayanti and Gita Lovusa is published by Lingkar Pena. Though the quality of paper is not very good, the book makes interesting reading and I do recommend teachers and parents to read it if they can get hold of it. The authors attempted to make analysis based on psychology theory on the cases presented.
Since I am trained in translation from English to Malay and had translated English book and articles, I was interested to read a translated English book in Indonesian language. I bought Hidup Optimal dengan Skizofrenia by Roberta Themes, Ph.d. For people who are really familiar with only Malay language will find difficult to understand the book. For Malay and English speakers understanding is not a problem but may take time to translate back the words into English. Quoting afew examples are pesakit/patient is used as pasien, psikiatris is psikiater, medical profesional is professional medis etc. I find thet they use a lot of English words which are spelt in Indoneisan. Sometimes I feel so strange reading in my familiar language, interwoven with Indonesianized English words. I bet for those who don't understand English will find it harder to understand the book. To me this is an easy way out to translate - pollute the original languaue. Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka is quite careful about translating English words to Malay. Englishnized translation is used only if there is no suitable word to suit the meaning. I think this is the best way so that the words we have in our language are not forgotten or repalaced by English words.
On top of that, there are so many spellings and terminology which are different in Malay. For example Kelompok Rekan is Peer Group whereas it is Kelompok Rakan (or Rakan Sebaya) in Malay, Komunitas Pendukung for Support Group which is translated in Malay as Kelompok Sokongan Komuniti. To me, I really have to take time to read and to translate back to English in irder to understand what is being translated In Indonesian language. There are still some terms that I failed to figure out.
As a whole both books are good for light reading and also for references.