Yesterday Carlos cleaned the house, and there was a lot of dust, which gave him a blocked nose. in Tetun
Horiseik Carlos hamoos uma laran, rai rahun barak loos, halo nia inus metin.
English → Tetun phrasebook
Grammar in this phrase
Intensifiers
Intensifiers (loos, tebes, demais, laduun)
loosPosition matters. 'loos' / 'tebes' / 'demais' follow the adjective ('barak loos' = very many). 'laduun' PRECEDES the adjective ('laduun diak' = not very good). 'liu tan' = even more.
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
- Ha'u fó $1, nia volta fali 50c.I gave (him) a dollar, and he gave me fifty cents change.
- 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.
- Horiseik ha'u telefone nia.Yesterday I rang him..
- Alberto han barak, halo nia isin boot.Alberto eats a lot, which has made him large.
- Uma ida ne'e la di'ak ida. Ida ne'ebá kapás.This house is no good. The one over there is lovely.
- Sira lori nia ba Dare, í nia eskola iha ne'ebá.They brought him to Dare, and he went to school there.