Sthémelts qesu le xwá tsqwá:y te lá:léms.

Tuesday his house becomes green.

Sthémelts qesu le xwá tsqwá:y te lá:léms means ‘Tuesday his house becomes green‘.

Literally it means ‘Tuesday and.so becomes green the house (of him)‘.

Vocabulary and Pronunciation

• Sthémelts –Tuesday
• qesu –and so
• le – an untranslatable ‘auxiliary’ (‘helper’) verb, a reduced form of lam – to go
• xwá – to become
• tsqwá:y – green
• te – the
• lá:lém – house
• -s – here the –s means ‘of’, indicating that the house is possessed by understood ‘he’

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure

The structure of this phrase is as follows: