In Reply to: Tidak Terima Kasih posted by LeanneK on Thursday, 3. February 2005 at 08:37 Bali Time:
Terima Kasih means "receive love". By adding tidak, you are sort of saying "don't receive love". So it's kind of equivalent to an Indonesian saying in English "I'm not going to thank you", rather than "No thanks". It's just a quirk of the language.
Previous posters are correct about the indirectness of Indonesian language. Flat refusals are almost never used. "Terima kasih" alone is enough to indicate you don't wish to accept something. "Sudah" should be polite enough the first six times a hawker tries to sell you something (but will more likely lead him to ask "So what else do you need?"). After refusing more than six times, you can probably get away with saying "tidak mau" (don't want).
Outside Bali, where the sales pitch is usually not so hardcore, "sudah" should be enough. But when examining goods, you would never say that something was of poor quality, just that something else was better "lebih baik". It's a fun game to play.