If a company brings in goods other than through customs, we consider these to be contraband. in Tetun

Grammar in this phrase

• Comparison

  liu — comparison 'more / most'

  liu

  Tetun comparison uses 'X liu Y' not 'mais X' — the adjective stays put and 'liu' follows. With a focus 'mak' it becomes superlative. Avoid Portuguese-style 'melhor' or 'mais boot'.

• Conditionals

  se / karik — conditionals

  se

  'se' opens a definite conditional ('if X, then Y'). 'karik' sits at the end of a clause and hedges it ('perhaps'); it can also mark an uncertain conditional.

• 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.

More patterns like these in the Tetun grammar guide.

Related phrases

• Horiseik alfándega prende sasán ne'ebé tama ilegál, ho valór $5000.Yesterday customs seized $5000 worth of illegally imported goods.
• Ita sei liu iha imigrasaun hodi revista ita nia sasán hotu mak foin ita bele sai ba li'ur.We will go through immigration where they will inspect our goods before we can go outside.
• Sira hirus malu to'o ida-ida buka fatuk hodi tuda malu.They were angry at each other, to the extent that they each looked for rocks and threw them at each other.
• Kuandu kandidatu ida hetan maioria simples, nia hetan votu barak liu partidu sira seluk, maski la to'o 50% hosi votu hotu-hotu karik.When a party gets a simple majority, it gets more votes than the other parties, even if it doesn't reach 50% of all votes.
• Iha kompañia foun ida loke vaga, maibé nia kritéria feto idade 25 mai kraik, tenke isin lotuk no bonita. Vaga ba servisu saida mak ne'e?!A new company has announced vacancies, but the criteria includes being no more than 25 years old, being slim and pretty. What sort of job is that?!
• Imi nia uma boot liu ami nian.Your house is bigger than ours.