…la tés kw’e Lhq’á:lets

…la tes kw’e Lhq’á:lets means ‘to reach Vancouver‘, or ‘…to get to Vancouver’.

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure

The phrase consists of these elements:

• la – an untranslatable auxiliary (‘helper’) verb, related to the meaning to go
• tés – to get to, to reach or to approach
• kw’e – the – You use kw’e for places and things remove from the place of speaking (note that the equivalent of ‘the‘ is required even with names, in most sentence patterns in the language, so you say literally the Vancouver, the Mary, etc.)
• Lhq’á:lets – Vancouver