Tense and Aspect Problems in Translating Grammatical Equivalence

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4.3.4 Tense and Aspect

Tense and aspect may be the most complicated part of grammatical between English and Bahasa Indonesia. Past and present tenses are marked by verb changes adverbs of time in English. Adverbs of time are the only mark to indicate past and present in Bahasa Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia uses also temporal determiners sudahtelah and sedang to indicate aspect, perfect and progressive. There is no agreement or formula of verbs related perfect and progressive aspects as English. Some problems will occur in this part, as follows: English has agreement of verbs related to adverbs of time to distinguish past and present. Meanwhile there are only adverbs of time to differentiate them in Bahasa Indonesia. It becomes a problem when the English only uses verb forms without any adverbs of time, so that the translation is not past or present because Bahasa Indonesia will use the same form of verbs in any tenses or aspects. Below is the example: 79 a. “It was a little trickier than I expected. S.8 b. “Sedikit lebih rumit daripada yang kuperkirakan. S.8 The word ’was’ and ’expected’ are past forms. The use of past forms indicate that the activity or event happened in the past and has been finished. There is no adverb of past time used here, so that there is nothing which can explain that it is past in Bahasa Indonesia because Bahasa Indonesia will use the same verb form to indicate past or present. It means that information related to exact time of the event is loss. 88 Tense and aspect in English have many variations. Some of them are difficult to reflect in Bahasa Indonesia because the form doesn’t exist. If it isn’t translated in the correct and proper form. Past perfect had + past participle and present perfect have + past participle are the examples that will be explained below: 80 a. Yaxley had leaned forward to look down the long table at Voldemort and Snape. S.52 b. Yaxley telah mencondongkan tubuh ke depan untuk memandang ke ujung meja ke arah Voldemort dan Snape. S.52 81 a. No doubt a Confundus Charm has been placed upon Dawlish. S.58 b. Tak diragukan lagi Mantra Confundus pastilah telah dilancarkan kepada Dawlish. S.58 In sentence 80, the form of ’had leaned’ indicates past perfect. In sentence 81, the form ’has been placed’ indicates present perfect. In Bahasa Indonesia, perfect is marked by temporal determiners ’telah’ or ’sudah’. They are used for both past and present perfect and no verb changes such as in the sentences above. It means that past and present perfect in Bahasa Indonesia are not distinguished and have the same meaning. Meanwhile, english has distinguished them because they have different meanings. Past perfect means that the activity was finished before another activity or time in the past. Present perfect expresses the idea that something happened before now, at an unspecified time in the past. 89

4.3.5 Voice