Ayubowan!
The concept in this lesson is a little difficult to explain concisely, so let’s jump right in to make sense of it.
In past lessons, we have learned how to report what someone has told us:
“She said,“This book is good”.
æya kiuwaa me potha hondayi kiyalaa.
ඇය කිව්වා මේ පොත හොඳයි කියලා.
However, you are not always reporting ideas exactly as you hear them. For example, if you are talking about a book with someone, you might say, “My sister read that book. It is supposed to be good.” You do not know for sure if it is good and you are not the authority on the statement. This requires its own concept in Sinhala.
In Sinhala, we would use the suffix Lu/ලු
So in the case of our book, we would say:
This book is allegedly/supposed to be good.
Me potha hondhayilu.
මේ පොත හොන්ධයිලු.
Another case in which you might see this is in regards to the weather.
I watched the news today. It is supposed to rain tomorrow.
*Ada pravrtti bæluwaa. Heta vahinawalu.
අද ප්රවෘත්ති බැලුවා. හෙට වහිනවලු.
*I am not sure if I have touched on this in other lessons, but remember that in Sinhala, the subject of the sentence is dropped frequently when it is obvious who or what the subject is. If you are a native English speaker like me, then you might be in the habit of including the subject all the time! It is not wrong if you do, but your ideas will flow better if you get into the habit of dropping the subject where it is not necessary.
My (younger) brother supposedly saw your (older) sister.
Mage mali oyage akkawa dhakkalu.
මගේ මාලි ඔයාගේ අක්කව දැක්කලු.
That is all for this lesson! If you have any questions, comments, or corrections, please let me know. Also, if any of you have an idea for a better title for this lesson, I would love to hear it!
As I advance in grammar, I’m finding it harder to explain these concepts in a simple way.
The next lesson will be posted on April 5th. I apologize for the long pauses and inconsistent scheduling recently. University has kept me quite busy and I want to hold off on creating content until I am in a position where I can give it my full attention. Thank you for all your patience and support!
*Edit: Sorry for the late update. There were some issues with my schedule posting on Blogspot
