Lesson One

To begin, we’re going to translate a simple sentence:

Ian went to the store.

As you might remember from school, each of these words is one of the different parts of speech. You probably learned these labels when you were in school, but let’s remind ourselves now.

Ian	went	to	the	store.
Noun (being used as the subject)	Verb (past tense)	Preposition	Article (definite article)	Noun (being used as the object of the preposition)

Usually, we don’t need to think about these labels. We know what sounds “right,” and that’s good enough. But if we’re translating into a different language, we need to be careful. Different languages put together these bits in different ways.

Anyway, let’s get started!

The basic structure of sentences is mostly the same in Talossan, thankfully. We start off with the noun or pronoun that we’re using as the subject: Ian. (This is the Talossan version of the common English name John).

Now we need our verb. Do you know the Talossan verb for “went?” I don’t! Let’s look it up in the L’Översteir, the online dictionary!

Here’s a tip: the “dictionary form” of a verb is the infinitive form of the verb. In English, that’s the form with the word “to,” like “to fly” or “to run.” The infinitive form of “went” is “to go.” So we look up “go” in l’Översteir.

Aha! There it is! The word “ir” means “to go!”

But since we don’t want to say “Ian to go,” we need the correct format. Click the little book icon on the right, and l’Översteir will give you all the different forms! Ian isn’t going to the store right now, so we want the past form of the verb.

This is a list of the different numbers and persons you can use for a word. You probably remember that “I” and “we” are first person, “you” is second person, and “he/she/it” are third person. And that’s exactly what we see here!

First, there’s all the singular forms (“éu veneveu” means “I went”). After those three, then there’s all of the plural forms (“noi venevent” means “we went.”) Since there’s only one Ian, and we’re talking about him as though we were talking to someone about a third person, so we want the third person singular form.

There it is, on the right in bold: veneva. To say “Ian went” in Talossan, we say Ian veneva.

Okay, let’s see how far we’ve gotten.

Ian	went	to	the	store.
Noun (being used as the subject)	Verb (past tense)	Preposition	Article (definite article)	Noun (being used as the object of the preposition)
Ian	veneva	?	?	?

Looks like we need to tackle the prepositional phrase “to the store” next!

The preposition in Talossan for “to” is usually à. (It’s sometimes “àð” if there’s a word starting with a vowel right after it, but that’s not going to be the case here.)

Ian veneva à

Now we just need “the store.” Don’t bother trying to do the article “the” by itself — l’Översteir includes that sort of thing (and after a little practice, you’ll remember on your own, anyway, since you use articles a lot).

There we go… “the store” is la marcă!

Ian	went	to	the	store.
Noun (being used as the subject)	Verb (past tense)	Preposition	Article (definite article)	Noun (being used as the object of the preposition)
Ian	veneva	à	la	marcă.

Now, it might seem like we’re done, but actually there’s a tricky bit here. In Talossan, it’s pretty common for words to elide together. When words “elide,” it means that they combine together sometimes. This is very common with prepositional phrases. If you’re using à to mean “to,” then it usually elides with the article right after it.

Elision happens because it’s often pretty awkward to say some sounds close to each other. If you try to pronounce Ian veneva à la marcă, it’s weird to say all those A sounds. So some of them get squished together.

To elide together our à la, we just make them into one word (àla) and then remove the last vowel: àl. (You also do this if your preposition is “àð.”)

Ian veneva àl marcă.

Okay, now it’s your turn! Let’s send Ian on another errand. Please use l’Översteir and what you’ve learned to translate the following sentence into Talossan:

Ian will run to the park.

Words to translate

Ian

will run

to

the

park.

If you get stuck on any particular word, use the expandable sections below to help you.

How did you do? Are you ready for the next lesson?