Osu ólmetst kw’as e kw’étslexw te sth’óqwi

Osu ólmetst kw’as e kw’étslexw te sth’óqwi means ‘(You) wait until you see the fish’.

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Vocabulary and Structure

This phrase has the following structure:

Vocabulary:

• osu – this is a general sentence connector. Often it does not translate into English, but it is roughly equivalent to English and so.
• ólmetst – to wait for.
• kw’as – often this means that you, but here a better translation is until you.
• e – this is an untranslatable ‘particle’, it’s force is not well understood by linguists.
• kw’étslexw -‘to see’.
• te – ‘the’.
• sth’óqwi – ‘fish’.