Talk to Indonesian speakers, compared with the countries next door
Comparisons rather than a profile, because a profile of one country tells you nothing about whether to spend an evening there.
Against the Philippines: English
The Philippines has English as an official language and uses it in schooling; Indonesia does not. So the first practical difference is that a session here more often runs through a text box and a translator, and more often works anyway.
What you get in exchange is a conversation that stays in Indonesian, which for anyone practising is the whole point and in the Philippines is nearly impossible to arrange.
- Typed Indonesian translates unusually well — no tones, Latin script, fairly regular structure.
- Spoken Indonesian through a translator does much worse, as everywhere.
- So the text box is not a fallback here; it is the main channel, and the video is what makes it friendly.
Against Vietnam: the hours
Both are a daytime country from Europe, but Indonesia is spread across three time zones, so the shape of the day depends on which half of the country you have reached.
Practically: the western zone, which holds Jakarta and most of the population, sits six hours ahead of central Europe. The eastern end is eight. A European lunchtime is a Jakarta evening and a Papua night.
Against Malaysia: how the day is marked
The nearest neighbour by language — Malay and Indonesian are close enough for mutual understanding — and the difference is in how the day is cut up rather than in what is said.
Which is the one thing that surprises visitors who arrive with a fixed schedule in their head. The schedule is fine. It is just not the schedule that country is keeping.
One thing none of the neighbours share
Indonesia is the largest country in the world by population that most Europeans have never knowingly spoken to anybody from. That is not a fact about the country; it is a fact about who European visitors expect to meet, and it means arrivals here are treated as slightly more interesting than they deserve.
The practical effect is patience. A conversation that would be abandoned after two confused exchanges elsewhere gets a third and a fourth attempt here, and the third attempt is usually where the translator finally lands on the right word.
Which is worth not taking advantage of. Patience offered to a foreigner is a real thing being spent on you, and the way to return it is to type shorter sentences rather than to talk for longer.
What the comparison comes out at
For practice: Indonesia over the Philippines, because the language survives the session. For convenience: the Philippines, because English removes the friction entirely.
For a visitor who only wants to talk to strangers and does not mind which strangers, all three are the same answer at different hours of your own afternoon.