I want my car to be faster.
Olsu stl’í kw’es yeláwels x̲wém kw’el kyó means ‘I want my car to be faster’.
Literally it means: ‘So my want (is) that more fast (is) my car’.
Vocabulary and pronunciation
- osu – so (this is a general sentence connecter, not always translatable into English)
- -l – my (the ‘full’ form for my is tel, but in some structures it becomes just -l)
- olsu– so I (here the -l ending goes ‘inside’ of osu, to make olsu – so I)
- stl’í – a want, a need (see el stl’í kw’es)
- kw’es – that
- yeláwel – more (see yeláw)
- -s – the -s has several uses in the language, in this case it marks that there is a ‘third person’ subject (i.e. the thing we are talking about is not you or me). See futher notes on this ending below in this post.
- x̲wém – fast
- kw’el – my (you would normally say tel, but you use kw’el when talking about distant objects, or objects that exist as possibilities)
- kyó – car
Audio: Elizabeth Herrling
Note: this is an edited selection from a longer phrase. The full phrase will be covered in a following post.
Structure
The structure of this phrase is as follows:
Note that osu means so, but the ending -l (‘my’) can ‘split’ osu to make olsu – so my.
See …kw’es yeláwels x̲wém kw’el kyó for more information about the latter part of the phrase.
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