I can be/ I want to be: Sinhala Grammar #41

 Ayubowan!

In last week's lesson, we learned about expressing an “I am sentence”

in multiple tenses. In today’s lesson, we will be learning how to make more 

of these sentences. 

In the previous lesson, we did not use a verb for “to be”. This is not the case

 for the concepts introduced in this lesson. The verb we are using for “To be”

is venna/ වෙන්න. Although we have a new verb, the grammar structure for these

ideas is similar to the ones that we have covered previously.

Remember:

Mata kanna puluwan.

මට කන්න පුළුවන්.

I can eat.

We use a similar pattern for venna

I can be/ I can’t be

Mata daksha venna puluwan.

මට දක්ෂ වෙන්න පුළුවන්.

I can be smart.

This pattern also applies to the negative.

Mage lamayi varedhi venna bæ.

මගේ ළමයි වැරදි වෙන්න බැ.

My children can’t be wrong.

I want to be/ I don’t want to be 

This is also similar to patterns we’ve seen with verb + want to structures. 

Mata daksha venna one.   

මට දක්ෂ වෙන්න ඕනෙ.

I want to be smart.

Mata dosthara kenek venna one nǣ.

මට දොස්තර කෙනෙක් වෙන්න ඕනෙ නෑ.

I don’t want to be a doctor.

That’s all for this lesson! If you have any questions or comments, please leave

them down below. Stay tuned for a new lesson on January 11th at 12AM PST

Thank you for reading! See you next year!

I was/was not: Sinhala Grammar #40

Ayubowan! Today’s lesson will be about expressing the idea of “I/He/She/It was not”.

While this may seem like a simple concept, it is not quite the same as it is in English, which is why I’ve decided to talk about it today. 

So as we’ve learned previously, an “I am” sentence is:

I am a nurse.

Mama hedhiyak.

මම හෙදියක්.

In English, if we wanted to say that we were previously a doctor, we would just 

change “am” to “was”. However, since Sinhala does not exactly have a verb to express

this concept, there is no past tense verb that translates directly.* 

What we do instead is this:

We would express the statement the exact same way as we would in the present

tense, but we must include a detail about the time in the past that we are talking about.

Before coming to Australia, I was a nurse in France.

Ostreliyaavata enna kalin, mama pranshaye hediyak.

ඕස්ට්‍රේලියාවට එන්න කලින්, මම ප්‍රංශයේ හෙදියක්.

*Just as a side note, if we wanted to emphasize the fact that I am a nurse, we would place

the adjective Thamayi at the end of the sentence.

Mama hedhiyak thamayi (තමයි). 

If we want to express this idea in the negative, it works a little differently. 

We actually have to add an adjective Nemeyi to the end of the sentence.

I am not a good child.

mama hondha lamayek nemeyi.

මම හොඳ ළමයෙක් නෙමෙයි.

Similarly to before, the present and the past tense are the same.

When I was going to school, I was not a good child.

Iskole yana kale, mama hondha lamayek nemeyi.

ඉස්කෝලේ යනකලේ, මම හොඳ ළමයෙක් නෙමෙයි.

That’s it for this lesson! As always, if you have any questions or comments, please 

leave them down below in the comments box. Stay tuned for the next lesson on 

December 28th at 12AM PST, which is next week as opposed to two weeks from the date of

this posting. 

Thank you for reading!