English Pronunciation for Indonesian Speakers: TH, V, Consonant Clusters, and English Stress

Start here: MAP → PROBE before you practise anything

This is a self-check, not an automated accent diagnosis. The goal is to stop a national label from assigning pronunciation homework before your own speech has been heard.

If all four probes are KEEP but pronunciation still causes difficulty, use the broader guide on how to find what to fix first in English pronunciation instead of inventing a problem here.

Indonesian is one possible influence—not your whole pronunciation history

A 2024 peer-reviewed study, “Pronunciation Features of Indonesian-Accented English”, recorded 50 educated Indonesian regular users of English and examined consonants, clusters, and vowels acoustically. One of its most useful conclusions for learners is that the observed English was not fully predictable from contrastive Indonesian–English analysis.

That is a strong reason to diagnose before prescribing. It is also a reason to avoid pretending that Bahasa Indonesia tells us everything about a multilingual reader.

A 2026 study on English /v/ among Kaili Rai EFL students makes the boundary even clearer. The participants came from one specific local-language background, and their /v/ production varied by position. That evidence belongs to Kaili Rai learners; it should not be relabeled “what Indonesians do.” Its value here is the opposite: local-language history can matter.

Before diagnosing transfer, list the languages you actually grew up using and the English varieties you learned from. Treat Bahasa Indonesia as one possible source of influence, not the whole explanation.

TH — hear the friction before you choose the repair

“Indonesian speakers say T/D for TH” is too neat to be a useful personal diagnosis.

A study of 40 first-year Indonesian English-major students producing English fricatives found /v/, /ð/, and /θ/ among the more difficult fricatives in its cohort. Errors also increased significantly when learners moved from a word-list task into sentence reading. The paper discusses spelling, L1 transfer, and development as possible influences—but it does not establish one universal TH substitute.

So start with the sound you want, not the substitute somebody guessed you use.

Hear it

If your target model uses /θ/ and /ð/, listen for continuous friction at or near the teeth. Do not assume your current production is /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /f/, or another category until you have actually listened to it.

Build it only after you hear it

• /θ/: make a narrow dental/interdental passage for continuous air; keep the target voiceless in a word such as think.
• /ð/: use the same broad friction target with voicing in a word such as this.

1. Hold a short continuous friction without a vowel.
2. Add the following vowel and make the full word.
3. Move into think twice or this time.
4. Record one sentence you might genuinely say.

If the sound works in the word but disappears in the phrase, the problem is transfer, not a need for fifty more isolated repetitions.

V — screen it; do not assign F

The 2024 Indonesian-accented-English study gives a wonderfully inconvenient result for stereotype lists: across its sampled /v/ tokens, the sound was realised about half the time as [v] and about half as [f]. That is not evidence that “Indonesians say F.” It is evidence that /v/ is worth checking and is not uniform.

Before you spend a week chanting very, very, very, find out whether your mouth requested the homework.

The target movement

• Upper teeth lightly contact the lower lip.
• Air continues through the narrow gap: this is a fricative, not a complete closure.
• Add voicing for the /v/ target.

Contrast fan — van if that pair is useful in your target model, then move into very useful or a phrase from your real vocabulary.

Position can matter too. If /v/ works in one part of a word and changes in another, record that fact rather than turning it into a national rule.

Consonant clusters — initial and final are different jobs

“Indonesian does not allow clusters, so Indonesian speakers insert vowels” is not supported by current empirical English data.

In the 2024 study of 50 Indonesian English users, 99.7% of the sampled two-consonant initial clusters were well formed. The small set of three-consonant initial clusters was also produced well, though the authors explicitly warn that the quantity was limited. Final clusters were a different story: they were more variable, and when the target form changed, deletion was the predominant strategy.

Initial and final clusters are not roommates who share all their problems.

Trace the exact event

A 2024 Universitas Negeri Malang thesis on English consonant-cluster difficulties among Indonesian EFL students also reports multiple events in complex clusters, including elision, epenthesis, and assimilation. That does not give you a personal diagnosis; it gives you a menu of things to listen for.

Patch only what actually changes

1. Write the consonants you intend to produce.
2. Record the word without deliberately “fixing” it.
3. Cross out only a consonant you genuinely hear missing; circle one that changes; mark an extra segment if one appears.
4. Practise the exact failed transition slowly and continuously.
5. Add the next word and return to a comfortable speaking pace.

If street is already stable but a final cluster changes, do not turn your successful initial cluster into collateral homework.

English stress — verify the English word; do not invent an Indonesian rule

A common shortcut says Indonesian has predictable penultimate stress and then uses that claim to explain English errors. Modern research gives a more careful baseline.

A large production study in the Journal of Linguistics found no evidence of lexical prominence in Standard Indonesian and instead found higher-level prosodic patterns associated with focus. This is a claim about Standard Indonesian, not every regional language spoken in Indonesia.

For English practice, the consequence is simple: do not transfer a made-up Indonesian stress rule. Verify the English word itself.

A 2023 study of word-stress production by Indonesian learners of English found several inaccurate patterns in selected two-syllable noun/verb tasks. Its sample and task are limited, but it supports the practical need to check English lexical stress rather than assume it will take care of itself.

The verified-word drill

1. Choose one multisyllabic English word you genuinely use.
2. Check its lexical stress in a trusted dictionary or audio model.
3. Mark the stressed syllable visually.
4. Say the word alone without simply shouting that syllable.
5. Put it into a normal phrase and listen for the same prominence relationship.

If the target stress is clear alone but disappears in the phrase, PATCH the phrase transition. If it already survives, KEEP it. Languages do not owe us a tidy transfer rule just because tidy rules fit nicely in a blog post.

The One-Patch Workshop

Look back at your four probes and choose one PATCH result. Not all four. Your language history can be complicated; today’s practice plan does not have to be.

If the feature exists in the word but disappears in the phrase, restart from the phrase boundary—not from zero.

BRIDGE — make one target survive real English

A pronunciation feature is useful when it survives while you are thinking about meaning, not only while you stare at a phonetic exercise.

1. Phrase: use the short phrase from your selected PATCH.
2. Own sentence: put the target into something you could genuinely say this week.
3. Unscripted follow-up: keep recording and add one related sentence without stopping.

For /v/, you might move from very useful to “That was very useful for the meeting.” A more formal version could be “The feedback was very useful for the final report.” The register changes; the target /v/ does not suddenly need a different theory.

The one-feature bridge: listen only for today’s target in the unscripted sentence. If it disappears, return to the phrase. Do not add a second pronunciation goal yet.

Once your chosen target survives your own sentence, repeated speaking is more useful than another explanation. Practice speaking with FunFluen by choosing a speaking-practice path and continuing to produce English aloud while monitoring only that feature. This is general English speaking practice; it does not promise an Indonesian-specific lesson, automatic accent diagnosis, or perfect scoring of TH, /v/, clusters, or stress.

Keep it, add an alternate, or use the alternate more often

A recognizably Indonesian, Javanese, Sundanese, Kaili, Balinese, Batak, Minangkabau, multilingual, or simply personal feature does not become defective because it differs from one English model.

• Keep it: the feature works for your identity and communication goals.
• Add an alternate: you want another option for a workplace, exam, presentation, performance, or international audience.
• Use the alternate more often: the current pattern repeatedly creates a meaning problem you care about or conflicts with the target model you chose.

Aim for intelligibility, control, and useful options—not compulsory accent erasure.

Questions Indonesian-speaking learners should settle before doing more drills

Sources and scope

• Syam, Gardner & Cribb, “Pronunciation Features of Indonesian-Accented English,” Languages, 2024. Fifty educated Indonesian regular English users in reading tasks; used for the empirical evidence boundary, mixed /v/ production, and position-sensitive cluster findings. It is not a universal profile of every Indonesian speaker.
• Ni Luh Putu Sri Adnyani, “EFL Phonology: A Case Study of English Fricative Production by Indonesian Learners,” Aksara, 2021. Forty first-year English-major college students; used to justify screening /v/, /θ/, and /ð/ and to motivate phrase-level pressure because sentence reading produced more errors than word-list reading.
• Rahma et al., “English /v/ Under Pressure: Phonological Interference among Kaili Rai EFL Students,” 2026. Used only as a deliberately local example showing why regional/home-language background and position can matter; it is not national Indonesian evidence.
• Atoriq Nurriza, “Pronunciation difficulties of English consonant clusters among Indonesian EFL students,” Universitas Negeri Malang master’s thesis, 2024. Used only to show that several events can occur in complex clusters and that a learner should identify the actual event before choosing a repair.
• Athanasopoulou, Vogel & Pincus, “Prosodic prominence in a stressless language: An acoustic investigation of Indonesian,” Journal of Linguistics, 2021. Large-scale Standard Indonesian production research used to reject a simplistic predictable lexical-stress baseline; the result does not describe every regional language in Indonesia.
• Nurpahmi et al., “An Acoustic Analysis of Word Stress Production by Indonesian Learners of English,” Indonesian TESOL Journal, 2023. Selected third-year English Education students and a narrow noun/verb task; used to motivate verifying English word stress and carrying it into phrases, not to assign one national learner pattern.

Map your history before you accept new pronunciation homework

The useful question is not “What pronunciation mistakes do Indonesians make?” It is: what does my own speech do, given the languages and English models that actually shaped me?

MAP the history. PROBE TH, /v/, clusters, and stress. PATCH one repeatable breakdown. BRIDGE it into a sentence you did not fully script.

Your speech has a history, not a template. Keep what already works. Build the alternate you actually want.