Sometimes when there is not enough room in the health centre, patients have to sleep in the corridor. in Tetun
Dala ruma fatin iha sentru saúde la to'o, pasiente tenke toba iha koredór.
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.
Possibility & probability
bele / parese / dala ruma / kala — possibility
dala rumaTetun hedges less than English, but has a cluster of markers. 'bele' before the verb = can / may. 'parese' at the start = 'seems'. 'dala ruma' at the start of a clause = 'perhaps, sometimes'. 'kala / kal' before a number = 'approximately'.
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
- Ami te'in uitoan-uitoan de'it, tanba hahán la to'o.We only cooked a little at a time, because there was not enough food.
- Koá na'an manu ne'e halo ki'ik, para han karik to'o ba ita hotu.Cut the chicken into small pieces, so that there is enough for us all.
- 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.
- Iha sentru votasaun ne'e, aliansa AMP iha fiskais lima: ida de'it mak tama iha laran, depois iha suplente haat.In this voting centre the AMP coalition has five observers: one goes in, and there are four substitutes.
- Iha fatin ne'e, susuk barak teb-tebes, muskiteiru la iha, entaun ami halo uma iha ai-leten hodi toba ba.In that place there were lots of mosquitoes, but we had no mosquito nets, so we built a tree house to sleep in.
- Semana liu ba udan boot. To'o agora bee nalihun iha uma oin, halo susuk barak tan de'it.Last week there was heavy rain. Even now there is water pooled in front of the house, leading to an increase in mosquitoes.