Ayubowan!
I apologize for the long wait. I hope that you have been well and making use of the existing lessons on the blog!
I wanted to announce that I will be working on reorganizing the blog, creating some more practice dialogues, and most importantly, trying to record some audio clips to accompany the existing lessons here.
I will be sure to post some updates when these new components of the website are ready. Thank you so much for all of your support!
- Judy
Ayubowan!
Today’s lesson is a short one on how expressing “or” in Sinhala
Let’s get started!
Let’s say you are asking a “This or that” question:
Are you going to eat this or that?
Mekada araka kannada?
මේකද අරක කන්නද?
You can use this set up when you are gesturing towards
the objects you are referring to.
Let’s say you are referring to specific items:
Do you want to eat rice or roti?
Bath kannada roti kannada?
බත් කන්නද රොටී කන්නද?
In my experience, you can also drop the last kannada.
Bath kannada roti?
බත් කන්නද රොටී?
This is also okay!
If you are including “or” in a statement, you can use “ho”:
Q: What should I give to the child?
A: A book or a toy is fine.
potak ho sellam baduvak hondayi.
පොතක් හෝ සෙල්ලම් බඩුවක් හොඳයි.
That’s all for this lesson! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free
to leave them down below.
Ayubowan! (Hello!)
I’m so excited to be back to making lessons!
Since this website has gotten a lot of new visitors recently, I thought that it might be
helpful to have a list of basic Sinhala greetings and introductory sentences.
Let’s get started!
Hello (Formal)
Ayubowan
ආයුබෝවන්
In Sri Lanka, it is pretty common to use the English word “Hello” in Sri Lanka as well,
especially in casual settings.
How are you?
Oyata kohoma da?
ඔයාට කොහොම ද?
You can also just say “Kohomada? කොහොම ද?”
I am fine.
Mama hondin innawaa.
මම හොඳින් ඉන්නවා.
This literally means, “I’m in a state of being good”.
Thank you (Formal)
Sthuthiyi
ස්තූතියි
If you are not in a formal setting-you are more likely to hear the English, “Thank you”
Goodbye!/ We’ll meet again!/I will go and come back!
Mama gihila ennanm.
මම ගිහිලා එන්නම්
If you are saying goodbye to someone that you know (friend, family, acquaintance),
you are likely to hear this phrase. It literally means, “I’ll go and come back”. For Sri Lankans,
It sounds a little bit sad to just say goodbye, as it implies not seeing each other again.
This concludes this short vocab lesson! Make sure to tune in for the next post on June 8th
at 12AM PDT. I am in the process of trying to add audio to these lessons, so that you can
practice the pronunciation. In the meanwhile, I would recommend plugging these sentences
into Google translate's speaking feature. I’ll be sure to send an update if and when I manage
to add them on.
Thank you for reading!
Mama gihila ennanm!
Ayubowan!
I apologize for the long wait since my last post. Weekly lessons will start from June 1st at 12AM PDT!
Thank you for your patience!
Hello everyone!
Here is a quick lesson on a common grammar construct that you will hear
commonly in spoken Sinhala:
As we have covered in previous lessons, the pronoun for referring to a group of
people are:
Ogolo
ඔගොල්ලො
Egolo
එගොල්ලො
However, this might not be specific enough for your purposes.
Let’s say that you are talking about a family with four members:
Dilini, Mahesh, Varuni, and Nilanthi
Sinhala has an easy shortcut that you can use to refer to all of these people
without listing them out.
Let’s answer the following question:
Kouda oya gedara ave?
Who came to your house?
You can say
Dilinila ava.
ධිලිනිල ආවා.
Dilini's group came.
Let’s look at another example!
Ape gedarala veralata yanawaa.
අපේ ගෙදරල වෙරළට යනවා.
We (everyone in our household) are going to the beach.
Thank you for reading!
Feel free to leave any questions or comments down below.
I will be moving the upload schedule to Saturdays at 12AM PST.
Tune in on March 11th at 12AM PST for the next lesson!
Ayubowan!
Let’s practice our singular and plural indefinite nouns in Sinhala:
Unlike in English and other languages, we actually have to add a suffix to the end of plural
words to make them singular. Let’s take a look at a few examples:
Sinhala Words:
Loan words, or words originally from other languages, are a little more straightforward. Just use
ekak at the end!
Loan Words:
Thanks for reading! Join me next Wednesday, February 22nd at 12AM PST for a new lesson.
Ayubowan!
Let's jump into this lesson, which is all about the elusive “ithin”/ඉතින්, a word you will hear very frequently when listening to conversational Sinhala. There are three uses that I will discuss here today!
As a preposition to explain the results of a situation
I can’t use my car, so I am walking to work.
මට මගේ කාර් එක පාවිච්චි කරන්න බැ ඉතින් මම වැඩට පයින් යනවා
Mata mage kar eka pavichi karanna bæ ithin mama vædata yanawaa.
The use of “ithin” here is pretty similar to the use of “so” in English.
You can also use “ithin” to say something along the lines of “So, the thing is”:
Q: Are you coming to school today?
Oyaa ada iskole enawada?
ඔයා අද ඉස්කෝලේ එනවද?
A: The thing is, I’m feeling sick…
Ithin mata sanipa nae….
ඉතින් මට සනීප නැ…
As a filler word
“Ithin” is also used as a filler word, kind of similarly to “umm” in English, but not exactly in the same sense. Usually when I try to practice speaking in Sinhala, but need a second to think about what to say, I’ll interject an “ithin”.
If you watch a lot of Sinhala content on Youtube, you might here “Ona ithin/ඔන ඉතින්” quite often.
Here is an example from this video from the channel “Travel with Wife”:
So today we are in Belihul Oya of Ratnapura District in Sabarabamuwa Province…
ඔන ඉතින් අද අපි සබරබමුව පළාතේ රත්නපුර දිස්ට්රිච්ට් ගේ බෙලිහුල් ඔය…
Ona itin ada api Sabarabamuva paḷātē Ratnapura disṭricṭ gē belihul oya…
There are some Sinhala speakers who might not say “ona ithin” and only say “ithin”. Whatever way you choose to express this in convesrational sinhala is depends on what feels most natural for you!
That is all for this lesson! If you have any questions about this lesson, or any suggestions for future lessons, please let me know in the comments down below. Some of you have asked really great questions in the past, which have also helped me deepen my understanding of Sinhala grammar!
Stay tuned for the next lesson on February 17th, 2023 at 12AM PST.
Thank you for reading!
Ayubowan!
I'm happy to announce that I will begin posting more lessons weekly starting from February 8th at 12AM PST. Let's learn more Sinhala in 2023!
