Now we are no longer use a hearth of three cooking stones, but instead use a stove to cook. in Tetun
Agora ami la uza ona lali'an, maibé uza fali fogaun hodi te'in.
English → Tetun phrasebook
Grammar in this phrase
Aspect markers
fali — 'again' / 'back' / 'instead'
faliPlaced after the verb. Can mean 'again / back' or mark an unexpected reversal ('instead'). Context decides which.
Aspect markers
ona — 'already' (perfective)
onaPlaced after the verb (or after the object), 'ona' marks that something has already happened. Cannot stand alone — must belong to a sentence. See also 'tiha ona' for a stronger completed aspect.
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.
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
- Ema barak agora uza gás hodi te'in, no la uza ona ai-sunu.Many people nowadays use gas for cooking, and don’t use firewood any more.
- Agora ita servisu tol-tolu lai.Now we’ll work in groups of three for a while.
- Bainhira ami te'in na'an asu sempre uza du'ut morin.When we cook dog meat we always use lemon grass.
- Ami uza kareta ne'e ba ami nia an.We use this car for ourselves (i.e. for private use).
- Tinan liu ba Tiu Pedro hetan strok, agora nia liman karuk aat tiha.Last year uncle Pedro had a stroke. Now he can't use his left arm.
- Ha'u hakerek Monografia foin to'o iha kapítulu tolu atu pasa ba kuatru.I wrote a monograph up to chapter three now and about to move on to the fourth chapter.