I’m looking for a place to park my car, but there are no (free) spaces. in Tetun
Ha'u buka fatin atu para ha'u nia kareta, maibé la iha espasu.
English → Tetun phrasebook
Grammar in this phrase
Negation
la — 'not' (general negation)
laPlaced 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.
Translate your own text with the free English ↔ Tetun translator or look up individual words in the Tetun dictionary.
Related phrases
- Kareta ne'e ha'u nian privadu, la'ós estadu nian.This car is my private car, not a government one.
- Nia la'o lemo rai de'it, la iha fatin atu hela.He travels all over the place, with no place to live.
- Rai monu iha estrada, halo ita liu ho kareta la di'ak.There was a landslide on the road, so we couldn’t go past by car.
- Konjak dehan "Frei!", nune'e ha'u tama kedas.The conductor said "There's free (space)!", so I got in (to the minibus) straight away.
- Ita halo funu durante 24 anus, la'ós insusesu de'it, susesu mós iha.During those 24 years that we fought, there weren't just failures, there were also successes.
- Apoli nia kareta mola fraku. Kuandu tama rai kuak halo isin moras hotu.The suspension of Apoli’s car is very weak. When the car hits a pothole we feel sore all over.