Lesson 48 Betulkah? Ya (Is it true? Yes)

 Ya, dia marah.

 Ya, bagus.

For those who want to know more:
Betulkah? in a more complete form would be Betulkah itu? (Is that true?)
Other possible answers to this question (besides Ya and Tidak) are:
Mungkin (Probably)
Boleh jadi (Perhaps), and
Entah or Entahlah (Dunno) when you have no idea at all of its veracity.

Note: Instead of asking Betulkah you can also ask Betul tak?
However this form is often used to get your interlocutor to agree to something obvious that you've just said. In such a case this is not a real question as it expects a Ya betul for an answer, the English equivalent of the question being, "Isn't it so?"
An example of such a use is:
Kalau selalu mencuri mesti kena tangkap satu hari, betul tak? (If one is in the habit of stealing one is sure to get caught one day, isn't it true?)
The above is an example of a sentence using the passive construction. The passive voice is very, very frequent in Malay so I'm making use of this occasion to talk about it.
In fact there are two main rules for the formation of the passive voice in Malay.

• By using the word kena before the verb (which must be in the infinitive and therefore in its root form without the prefix) as in the above sentence (kena tangkap = to be caught). Other examples are:
  Dia kena pukul = He was beaten.
  Saya kena tipu = I was cheated. (It's important to know how to say this, if you have to make a police report, which God forbid!)
  
  
• But instead of using kena we can use di followed by the verb in question to turn a sentence into the passive voice though in such cases it usually goes hand in hand with the word oleh eg.
  Dia telah ditangkap oleh polis. (as in English "He was caught by the police"). Other examples:
  Dia telah dipukul oleh dua orang yang dia tidak kenal. (He was beaten up by two men unknown to him.)
  Saya telah ditipu oleh pemandu teksi. (I was cheated by a taxi-driver.)
  In fact this second construction of converting a verb into the passive (by putting di before it and quite often, kan after it, as in Dia telah diselamatkan oleh ahli bomba meaning "He was saved by the fireman") is very often used in Malay newspaper reports. The best way to familiarize yourself with the use of verbs in the passive voice in Malay is to go to this page every day. You need to spend only 10 minutes or so every day but after some time I can assure you that you will be able to make use of it very easily.