Sinhala Grammar #64- Referring to a group of people

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!

 

Sinhala Grammar #63: Plural and Indefinite Singular Nouns

 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:

English Word	Plural	Singular
Children/A Child	Lamayi/ළමයි	Lamayek/ළමයෙක්
Shoes/A shoe	Sapaththu/සපත්තු	Sapathuvak/සපත්තුවක්
Books/ A book	Poth/පොතක්	Pothak/පොතක්

Loan words, or words originally from other languages, are a little more straightforward. Just use

ekak at the end!

Loan Words:

English Word	Plural	Singular
Cars/A Car	Kar/කාර්	Kar ekak/කාර් එකක්
Chocolate/A chocolate	Chokolat/චොකලට්	Chokolat ekak/චොකලට් එකක්
Cake/A cake	Kek/කේක්	Kek ekak/කේක් එකක්

Thanks for reading! Join me next Wednesday, February 22nd at 12AM PST for a new lesson.

Lesson #63 on 02/17/23 at 12AM (PST)

Sinhala Grammar #62: Ithin/ඉතින්

 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!

1. 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. 

2. 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…

3. 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!