Marcos is a giggler. When he tells a story, he’s the one who laughs first. in Tetun
Marcos ema ne'ebé hamnasa dór, nia kontente istória, nia mak hamnasa uluk.
English → Tetun phrasebook
Grammar in this phrase
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.
Focus
mak — focus marker
mak'mak' focuses the preceding constituent — used when English would bold or cleft ('it was X who...'). Also forms the superlative with 'liu'.
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
- Ha'u nia amá baibain konta istória ba ami kona ba tempu uluk na'in.My mother usually tells us story about the past.
- Kala nia mak konta istória ne'e. Ha'u lae.Perhaps he was the one who told that story. I didn’t.
- Totál estudante iha eskola ne'e sentu í ún pesoas.The total number of students in this school is one hundred and one.
- Istória ne'ebé nia hakerek ne'e, ha'u gosta nia tópiku, maibé la gosta nia maneira narasaun.This story that he's written, I like the topic, but don't like his style of story-telling.
- Se la iha kandidatu ida mak manán iha primeiru ronde eleisaun prezidensiál, entaun na'in rua ne'ebé mak votus barak liu kontinua ba iha segundu ronde.If no one candidate wins in the first round of a presidential election, then the two with the most votes continue on to the second round.
- Hau hameno serveja ida.I ordered one beer.