Yilawelhát osu yétl’q’tes te lá:léms—tsqwóqwiyel

Monday he paints his house—it becomes green.

Yilawelhát osu yétl’q’tes te lá:léms—tsqwóqwiyel means ‘Monday he paints his house—it becomes green‘.

Vocabulary and Pronunciation

• Yilawelhát –Monday
• osu –so, and so (this is a general sentence connector, often it does not translate into English)
• yétl’q’t – here, to paint (it)
• -es -here marks that a ‘third person’ (in this case, the understood ‘he’) is doing the action. This ending is required with certain verbs
• lá:lém – house
• -s – here the -s means ‘of’, indicating that the house is possessed by understood ‘he’
• tsqwóqwiyel – becoming green

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

The –es ending on yétl’qt is required because the subject (here, understood ‘he’) is a ‘third person’ (i.e. neither you nor me.  Certain verbs require this –es ending whenever they have a third person subject.