Gúko chỉetoaı – 2nd Lesson

Notes

1. With jỉo, 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 , which shows that this word is a noun. 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 jỉo: “Is a house this.”

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

4. bủa 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 jỉo (“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:

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

• Chỏ jí cháq da.
  “I like the day.”

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

• Chủq jí ní da.
  “I am eating this.”

• Jỉo máq da.
  “It is a house.”

• Chủq jí da. Ru hỉaı jí da.
  “I am eating. And I am laughing.”

Fill in the blanks:

• “I like this.”
  Chỏ jí ní da.

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

• “I am eating this.”
  Chủq jí ní da.

• “It is beautiful.”
  Dẻ máq da.

• “I live in it.”
  Bủa jí máq da.