te kyós tl’ John

John’s car

Te kyós tl’ John means ‘John’s car’.

 Literally it means ‘the car of the John’.

Vocabulary and pronunciation

• te – the.
• kyó – car
• -s – you use this to mark that a third person (not me or you) possesses the object
• tl’ – the (you use this before proper names, like ‘John‘)

Some speakers would also say ‘John’ with the Halq’eméylem pronunciation, which would be like this: Chól.

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling
Note: the -s ending is not audible in the audio recording, probably because Elizabeth is speaking quite quickly. In slow speech, you would definitely add the –s ending in this phrase.

Structure

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

Related Examples

Here are some examples of similar phrases:

• te lá:léms tl’ John – John’s house
• te sqwemá:ys tl’ Mary – Mary’s dog
• te méles tl’ Sue – Sue’s child
• te sqáqs tl’ John – John’s little brother