Tetun Translator

Clothes sold at Timor Plaza are too expensive. We don’t have enough money to purchase them. in Tetun

Ropa fa'an iha Timor Plaza karun demais, ita nia osan la to'o atu sosa.

English → Tetun phrasebook

Grammar in this phrase

Intensifiers
Intensifiers (loos, tebes, demais, laduun)
demais
Position matters. 'loos' / 'tebes' / 'demais' follow the adjective ('barak loos' = very many). 'laduun' PRECEDES the adjective ('laduun diak' = not very good). 'liu tan' = even more.
Negation
la — 'not' (general negation)
la
Placed before verbs and adjectives to negate them. For contrastive 'not X but Y' use 'laós'; for 'not yet' use 'seidauk'; for 'no longer' wrap 'la ... ona' around the verb.
Possession
nia / nian — possession
nia
'nia' goes BEFORE the thing possessed; 'nian' goes AFTER. Both function the same way; position decides which form. 'nia' is also the 3rd-person pronoun (he / she / it) — disambiguate by position.

More patterns like these in the Tetun grammar guide.

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