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!