X̲wém kw’el kyó

My car is fast.

X̲wém kw’el kyó means ‘My car is fast’.

Literally it means:   ‘Fast (is) my car’.

Vocabulary and pronunciation

• x̲wém – fast
• kw’el – my (you would normally say tel for my; but you use kw’el when talking about distant objects, or objects that exist as possibilities
• kyó – car

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

As noted above,  the usual word for my is tel.  A more regular form of the phrase would therefore be X̲wém tel kyó. But because the car is distant or something discussed as a possibity, Elizabeth uses kw’el.