What is “martabak” in Indonesian?

Martabak telur tanpa ulen, simpel dan renyah

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A2 Indonesian listening practice · Jakarta Colloquial Indonesian · Curated for beginners

💡 Did you know?
martabak
noun · food
A beloved Indonesian street snack; savory 'telur' or sweet 'manis'

This easy recipe makes martabak telur, one of Indonesia’s favourite street foods. Martabak comes in two great branches: martabak telur is savoury, a crispy parcel stuffed with egg, scallion, and meat, while martabak manis (also called terang bulan) is a thick, sweet pancake loaded with chocolate, cheese, and peanuts. Telur means egg, so the name tells you which kind you’re getting.

This version is tanpa ulen (no-knead): instead of making dough, the cook wraps the filling in kulit lumpia (spring-roll wrappers) for the crunch. Listen for the cheerful filler “guys” and even a Korean “Annyeong,” a very current Indonesian way of greeting an audience.

Vocabulary frequency

How common is the vocabulary in this A2 Indonesian listening practice listening practice?

78.8%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common Indonesian words
Based on this reel’s transcript, most of the vocabulary is high-frequency, everyday Indonesian.

General Indonesian frequency

69.3%
Top 1,000
78.8%
Top 2,000
96.1%
Top 5,000

Spoken Indonesian frequency

73%
Top 1,000
88.7%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000
👄 Conversational vocabulary
This reel’s words appear more often in subtitle-based spoken-Indonesian data than in general usage, so it may feel closer to everyday conversation.

Words above this video’s level

Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s A2 level.

ngulen
3×
Rare / outside top 5,000
annyeong
2×
Rare / outside top 5,000
Korean greeting
isiannya
2×
Rare / outside top 5,000
kornet
2×
Rare / outside top 5,000
corned beef
teflon
2×
Rare / outside top 5,000
non-stick (pan)
wajib banget
1×
must try at home

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.

★Where you’ll hear this
  • ▸At Indonesian street stalls and kaki lima food carts at night
  • ▸On Indonesian home-cooking channels like Dapur Emak
  • ▸Choosing between martabak telur (savoury) and martabak manis (sweet)
  • ▸In Indonesian food reviews and jajan (snacking) videos
  • ▸Any time Indonesians crave a crispy, stuffed evening treat

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