Lingwa de Planeta | Simple Sentence

In this lesson you will learn:

• 7 pronouns: (me, nu, yu, ta, lu, ela, li)
• 11 verbs: (dumi, jan, samaji, kredi, nadi, lubi, gun, jivi, vidi, audi, shwo)
• 4 adverbs of time: (yeri, manya, nau, sedey)
• 5 conjunctions: (e, o, bat, bikos, dabe)
• 7 grammatical particles: (bu, ob, ya, non, doh, -te, ve)

In total, that's 34 vocabulary units.

The Basic Verb Form and Personal Pronouns

The basis of any phrase in any language is the verb. It is the verb that establishes the general situation, the action. All other components of the phrase are built around it.

Examples of verbs:

• jivi - to live
• lubi - to love
• nadi - to hope
• jan - to know
• samaji - to understand
• shwo - to speak

Reminder: the letter j is pronounced like a soft, vibrant "y" in "yes"

In Lidepla, the form of the verb never changes. To specify who performs the action, personal pronouns are used; to specify the action (for example, the time), special particles are used.

Personal pronouns:

• me - I
• nu - we
• yu - you (singular/plural)
• ta - he/she, generic
• lu - he
• ela - she
• li - they

Reminder: the letter y denotes an unstressed i

• ta – a general pronoun that denotes any living being (man, woman, child, animal). If it is necessary to specify the gender, the pronouns lu (he) and ela (she) can be used.

• yu – a general pronoun that denotes the person or people being addressed. If it is necessary to specify, the combinations yu oli (all of you), yu ambi (both of you), yu un (you – to single out one from a group) can be used.

In Lidepla there is no special word for a particularly polite or formal address (like "usted" in Spanish).

The one who acts (i.e., the subject) is generally placed before the verb.

The basic form of the verb by itself does not indicate the time of the action. The time of the action is determined by the context (for example, the word yeri (yesterday) unequivocally indicates the past, the word manya (tomorrow) the future, and nau (now) and, as a general rule, sedey (today) the present). If there is no context, the present tense is assumed.

Translation Exercise

• We live.
• They live.
• He hopes.
• She hopes.
• They know.
• I know.
• You speak.
• You (plural) speak.
• I speak.

Negation, Questions and Answers, Emphatic Particle ya

For negation, the particle bu is placed before the verb.

To ask a question, it is necessary to place the particle ob before the entire phrase.

Translation Exercise

• Do you love?
• I don't love.
• Doesn't she love?
• She doesn't know.
• Doesn't he hope?
• He lives.
• Don't you (plural) understand?
• We hope.
• Do they speak?
• They don't know.

You can answer a general question with the words:

• ya - "yes"
• non - "no"
• doh - "no, not at all!" / "quite the opposite!"

The word (particle) ya can also be placed before or after the verb to emphasize its meaning:

3. Past and Future Tense Particles, Conjunctions

To specify the time of the action (if necessary) the following particles are used:

• ve (before the verb) - future tense
• -te (after the verb, with a hyphen) - past tense

Translation Exercise

• Did you love?
• I will love.
• Will he understand?
• She hopes.
• She hoped.
• She will not hope.
• We will live.

To join words and phrases, the following conjunctions will be useful:

• e - and
• o - or
• bat - but
• dabe - so that
• bikos - because

New Verbs

The verbs are given with examples of use, to facilitate memorization and review of grammatical particles.

Translation Exercise

• I didn't know. But you said. Now I know. (Me ... . Bat yu ... . Nau me ...)
• She believes and hopes. (Ela ... e ...)
• They don't see and don't hear, but they work. (Li ... e ..., bat ...)
• He doesn't understand, but he works. (Ta ..., bat ...)
• I speak so that you understand. (Me ... dabe yu ...)
• She hopes, because she loves. (Ela ... bikos ela ...)
• You don't know or you don't understand. (Yu ... o ...)
• She didn't think, she already knew. (Ela ..., ela ya ...)
• You don't believe? - No, I do believe. (Ob yu ...? - Doh, me ... ya!)

Text

Read the text. Clarify the meaning of the words you don't understand. Try to retell this text or create your own.

Ob yu lubi?
Ya, me lubi. Ob yu jan?
Ya, me jan. Ela shwo-te e lu bu audi-te.
Me kredi. Bat yu bu samaji.
Me nadi. Bat yu bu vidi.
Me samaji. Me dumi. Me ve gun.
Nu ve jivi.

Etiquette: Introductions

In Lidepla there is a universal word that can be said as a greeting, farewell or simply as a wish for all the best. This word is: Swasti! Literally it means "May there be happiness! May there be peace!"

In addition, to say hello you can say Salam! (Hello!) or Namastee! (Hello/Good morning/Good afternoon!), and to say goodbye Chao! (Bye!) or Adyoo! (Goodbye!)

Reminder: doubling a vowel indicates that this vowel is stressed

To introduce yourself, you need the verb nami (to call, to be called):

After the other person says their name, you can express joy at the meeting using the verb joi (to be glad):

Language in Focus: English

It is no secret to anyone that English currently has the status of an international language. Therefore, we will begin our review with it. Every language, in one way or another, carries with it the entire history of its people. The 5th century AD can be considered the time of origin of the English language: at this time, Germanic tribes of Angles and Saxons penetrated the territory of the British Isles, populated by Celts. They were much more numerous than the Celts, and the Anglo-Saxon dialect gradually completely displaced Celtic from use. In the 6th and 7th centuries AD, the Roman Church carried out a general Christianization of Great Britain, and during this period, a large number of words of Latin origin appeared in the English language, such as: school, priest. In the 9th century, the Danish conquests of Great Britain began. As a result, words borrowed from the Scandinavian languages appeared in the English language: anger, sky. In the 11th century, Great Britain was conquered by the inhabitants of northern France. From this moment begins the era of three languages: the language of the aristocracy, French; the language of science, Latin; and the language of the common people, the Anglo-Saxon. Since then, the English language has had series of words close in meaning, but of different origin, and therefore, quite different from each other: head (from Anglo-Saxon) - chapter (from Latin) - chief (from French). From the 15th century, Great Britain carried out an active colonial policy, which has resulted in a significant number of variants of English today, such as American English, Australian English, Canadian English, not to mention the large number of very different dialects that exist in the British Isles themselves. Thus, English remains to this day a mixed and very heterogeneous language.

From the point of view of grammar, the language has also undergone significant changes. In particular, it has currently almost not preserved the endings for nouns and verbs. Possibly, the language would have lost them completely if it had not been for the development of the written literary language and the conviction of the first grammarians that a "correct" grammar should resemble Latin grammar.

Undoubtedly, you have an idea of what spoken English sounds like. But still, to compare with the languages we will talk about in the next lessons, here is a small excerpt from the famous book by A. Exupéry "The Little Prince", written orthographically and then phonetically, that is, approximately how it sounds.

The transcription should be read according to the rules of Lidepla pronunciation; sounds that do not exist in Lidepla are written with two closer sounds, separated by a slash; the stress mark is placed before the stressed syllable.

Oh, little prince!
oo litl prins

Bit by bit I came to understand the secrets of your sad little life.
bit bay bit ay keym tu ande'stend t/se 'siikri/ets e/ov yoo se/ad litl layf

For a long time you had found your only entertainment in the quiet pleasure of looking at the sunset.
for e long taym yu hed faund yoo ounli ente'teynment in t/se kwayt 'plezhe e/ov 'luking et t/se 'sanset

I learned that new detail on the morning of the fourth day, when you said to me:
ay lee/oond t/set nyu 'diiteyl on t/se 'mooning e/ov t/se foof/s dey, wen yu sed tu mi

I am very fond of sunsets.
ay em 'veri fond e/ov 'sansets.

It can be noted that English is characterized by rather short words and a large number of diphthongs (double vowels: ai, ou, etc.). In addition, it is clearly visible that the spelling differs significantly from the pronunciation of the word. When borrowing words from English into Lidepla, it is generally their pronunciation that is preserved first, not the spelling (of course, slightly modified in accordance with the phonetic system of Lidepla). In some cases, the word is slightly adapted to the Lidepla grammatical system (a verb, for example, receives the ending "-i", and an adjective, "-e"). From English came to Lidepla many functional words: conjunctions (o (or), bat (but), bikos (because)), prepositions (fo (for), bay (by/with), bifoo (before), afte (after)), adverbs (nau (now), iven (even)), question words (hu (who), wen (when)). Examples of the most used significant words borrowed from English:

Nouns:

• dey - day
• wik - week
• taim - time
• boy - boy
• mani - money
• shop - shop
• riva - river
• skay - sky
• leta - letter

Verbs:

• bi - to be
• bikam - to become
• hev - to have
• weiti - to wait
• miti - to meet
• smaili - to smile
• bildi - to build
• krai - to cry/shout
• tachi - to touch
• helpi - to help

Adjectives:

• blu - blue
• grin - green
• klin - clean
• longe - long

Exercise Answers | Next Lesson