We’ve learned a lot of new things really quickly. Using the things we’ve learned in Lessons One, Two, and Three, we’re now going to spend some time putting these things together… with a few surprises, too!. I’ll provide resources, but don’t hesitate to visit L’Översteir or the resources page if you need anything else.
Let’s start by translating this big ol’ boy into English. Don’t be intimidated… a lot of these words are cognates to their English equivalent. A cognate is a word that looks the same and has the same meaning as another language (like how “bléu” in Talossan is very similar to English “blue”).
Éu risguardéu las liuns ambrulénts es els eiafunts caums in el zupharc.
Let’s break it down into chunks, to make it easier to handle.
| Éu risguardéu | las liuns ambrulénts | es | els eiafunts caums | in el zupharc. |
What are the different parts of speech, to begin with? Some of these chunks are whole phrases, but we should be able to identify almost everything at this point. Let’s fill in our chart with the different parts of speech.
| Éu risguardéu | las liuns ambrulénts | es | els eiafunts caums | in el zupharc. |
| ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Answer
Pronoun and verb
Answer
article, noun, and adjective
Answer
conjunction (and now you know it means “and”)
Answer
article, noun, and adjective
Answer
prepositional phrase
Did you get it?
Okay, so let’s start our translation. We’ll let’s start with the first words, “Éu risguardeu.”
“Éu” is on our short list of pronouns. If you haven’t already memorized them, you should do so soon. It’s a short list, and they’re used a lot. But if you haven’t gotten there yet, you can look up its meaning on the resources page.
Now moving on to “risguardéu,” our verb, we will already know the person and number by looking at our verb endings. Here those are again, just in case:
| Singular | Plural | |
| First | -éu | -ent |
| Second | -ás | -etz |
| Third | -a | -ent |
Or maybe we remembered the pronouns already, and we knew the person and number based on the meaning of Éu?
Either way you got there, what is the person and number for risguardéu?
Answer
First person singular.
Great! Okay, but we can’t look that up in L’Översteir, can we? If we do, we’ll just find a noun that’s a homonym (same spelling but different meaning).
We need the “dictionary form” or infinitive form we learned about way back in Lesson One! Thankfully, that’s easy to get. Start by taking off the ending. That leaves just have the “root” of the word: “risguard.”
Then you just add -ar to the root. For almost all verbs, this gives you the infinitive form. (There are some important exceptions, like the verbs “tir” and “ir,” but we’ll tackle those irregular bits later.)
Once you’ve added -ar to our root, we can look up the result in L’Översteir.
Now we know the meaning of the word! We’re ready to translate “Éu risguardéu!”
Answer
| Éu risguardéu | las liuns ambrulénts | es | els eiafunts caums | in el zupharc. |
| Pronoun and verb | article, noun, and adjective | conjunction | article, noun, and adjective | prepositional phrase |
| I look at | ? | and | ? | ? |
Did you get it?
Next up, let’s translate the next chunk: “las liuns ambrulénts.” As we already figured out, this is an article, noun, and adjective.
The article is easy, since English doesn’t have gender or number for definite articles: it’s “the” (eg, the boy and the girl and the boys and the girls).
But what is/are “liuns.” You might already have a guess based on the English cognate, but we’ll make sure.
Begin by figuring out the possible singular, just like in the last lesson. Here’s the pluralizing chart.
| Declension | End of the Noun | Pluralizing |
| First | Most nouns! | add -s |
| Special First | Any stressed vowel except -à (-å, -è, -ì, -ò, -ö, -ù, -ü) | take off the accent mark and add -ns |
| Special First | -à, -ar, or -an | change to -aes |
| Special First | -l or -il | change to -is |
| Special First | -rh, -s, -sch, -scht, -xh, -tx, -z, -glh, -gnh, and -þ | add -en |
| Second | -eu or -éu | add -x |
| Third | a syllable with ä | add -ilor |
| Fourth | -ic or -íc | add -i |
| Fifth | -sc, -scu, or -x | change to -schti |
(Hint: You probably can come up with two possible alternatives for the singular of “liuns.”)
Answer
Liun (first declension) or liu (special first declension).
Did you get it?
Go ahead and look up those words in L’Översteir. Start with the one that seems most likely to be correct, and figure out the right word.
Answer
“Liun” means “lion!”
Did you get it?
Okay, let’s move on to “ambrulénts.” These liuns are very ambrulénts!
As you know, adjectives must have the same person and gender as the noun they’re modifying. And thankfully, the rules for pluralizing an adjective are the exact same as when pluralizing a noun!
So go back up the chart, and figure out the singular form of “ambrulénts.” (Hint: there’s only one possibility.)
Answer
Ambrulént.
Now, there are times when it can be a little more complicated, since some adjectives have a special feminine form for feminine nouns. We’ll tackle that later. For now, we’ll push on ahead with our sentence. So what are “las liuns ambrulénts?”
Answer
| Éu risguardéu | las liuns ambrulénts | es | els eiafunts caums | in el zupharc. |
| Pronoun and verb | article, noun, and adjective | conjunction | article, noun, and adjective | prepositional phrase |
| I look at | the angry lions | and | ? | ? |
Did you get it?
Okay, we already figured out that “es” meant “and” when we looked it up for the part of speech. So next, we’ll work on “els eiafunts caums.”
This time, I’ll let you try to translate the phrase on your own, without me taking you through it step-by-step. Use the pluralization chart above and L’Översteir, and figure out the meaning of “els eiafunts caums.”
Answer
| Éu risguardéu | las liuns ambrulénts | es | els eiafunts caums | in el zupharc. |
| Pronoun and verb | article, noun, and adjective | conjunction | article, noun, and adjective | prepositional phrase |
| I look at | the angry lions | and | the calm elephants | ? |
Did you get it?
If you didn’t get it right, take a moment and figure out where you went wrong. Don’t move on until you understand!
Finally, we’re left with “in el zupharc.” For this phrase, we’re going to take a different approach. Based on the context and words that might be cognates, what do you guess this might mean? Look up your guess in L’Översteir to see if you’re right. If not, try again. (If you still can’t guess, just look up “zupharc” directly.)
Answer
| Éu risguardéu | las liuns ambrulénts | es | els eiafunts caums | in el zupharc. |
| Pronoun and verb | article, noun, and adjective | conjunction | article, noun, and adjective | prepositional phrase |
| I look at | the angry lions | and | the calm elephants | in the zoo. |
Congratulations! You translated that whole sentence, even though it was a longer one and had a brand-new word in it!
We’re going to do one more, and it will be a bit more independent this time.
L’acáuntex inalt frequentămint viestretscha els clïents impirtints in l’acüvitorxhă fantasc.
Here are some hints as you get going:
- Break it into chunks, and take it one at a time!
- There are helpful cognates in there.
- Remember that articles elide into words beginning with vowels. Check back in Lesson One if you need to.
Hint
| L’acáuntex inalt | frequentămint viestretscha | els clïents impirtints | in l’acüvitorxhă fantasc |
| Noun (subject) and adjective | adverb and verb | noun (direct object) and adjective | prepositional phrase, with noun and adjective |
Answer
The tall accountant meets frequently with the important clients in the fancy restaurant.
Did you get it?
FURTHER PRACTICE
The Quick Reference section on the Resources page might be helpful.
1. Els mediceux menxhent la miðziueziun maiantì.
Hint
| Els mediceux | menxhent | la miðziueziun maiantì. |
| Noun (subject) | verb | noun (direct object) and adjective. |
Answer
The doctors eat the exquisite lunch.
2. El garatx virt sta osprei la casă es l’encinal moart.
Hint
| El garatx virt | sta | osprei la casă | es | l’encinal moart. |
| Noun (subject) and adjective | verb | preposition and noun (object of the preposition) | conjunction | noun (another object of the preposition) and adjective |
Answer
The green garage stands behind the house and the dead grove.
3. Voi açeitetz els prischti pieregrexheux sür el palc amplex.
Hint
| Voi | açeitetz | els prischti pieregrexheux | sür el palc amplex. |
| Pronoun (subject) | verb | noun (direct object) and adjective | prepositional phrase, with noun and adjective. |
Answer
You accept the fabulous prizes on the wide stage.
Write three more sentences of your own about this topic: an alien visits somewhere and discovers something very surprising.
