Chíetoaı kọgu – 2nd Lesson

Notes

1. With jıo, we encounter a verb that may appear strange to an English speaker. It means “to be a house”, “to be a building”. Therefore, unlike English, Toaq does not use the equivalent of “to be” in this kind of phrase. Toaq has a lot of verbs that would be nouns in English.

2. The word ní carries a rising tone . It means “this” or “that”. Recall that in Toaq, the verb comes first in a sentence and is followed by the nouns. In this sentence, ní is the subject of the verb jıo: “Is a house this.”

3. We meet two pronouns: the personal pronoun jí (“I”, “me”) and the pronoun máq (“it”, “those things”).

4. bua means “to inhabit a place”. This is the first sentence we have encountered in which there are two nouns. The first noun is the thing which inhabits, and the second noun is the thing which is inhabited: “Inhabit I it.”

5. This sentence works as the previous one. jío (“the house”) carries a rising tone . Do not confuse it with jıo (“to be a house”). This similarity is not a coincidence – we will take a closer look at this pattern in the next lesson.

Exercises

Translate:

• De jío da. “The house is beautiful.”

• Cho jí cháq da. “I like the day.”

• Nıe máq háq da. “It is inside the food.”

• Chuq jí ní da. “I am eating this.”

• Jıo máq da. “It is a house.”

• Chuq jí da. Rú hıaı jí da. “I am eating. And I am laughing.”

Fill in the blanks:

• “I like this.” Cho jí ní da.

• “The food is inside the house.” Nıe háq jío da.

• “I am eating this.” Chuq jí ní da.

• “It is beautiful.” De máq da.

• “I live in it.” Bua jí máq da.