When katu is used after a verb or other phrase, it's used like the spanish "luego" which is so hard to explain in english. It's kind of like, "then," as in this conversation that I remembered from the beloved classic Wayne's World:
Garth: Fine, go!
Wayne: I'm gone!
Garth: Go *then*!
This would be in Guarani:
Garth: Oima, eho!
Wayne: Ahama!
Garth: Eho *katu*!
Or when you thank someone from a store, they might say Nde katu. Don't try to literally translate it, it's just like an emphasis.
Episode 16: More Adjectives & Pa
Today we’re going to continue with some good adjectives, these are going to be more about things than about people. But first, we’re going to start with a caboose that you will use a lot, especially with adjectives, and then we can practice it throughout the episode.
-Pa & -Mba
The caboose is -pa. It’s the root of Opa, which means "all done" or "finished!" -Pa means everything, or totally, or completely, or finished. When you use it with an adjective, such as fatty, it can mean that something is completely that adjective. For example, “This cow is all fatty,” would be Ko vaka ikyrapa. Or it can mean that a group of things are all something, such as: “They are all skinny.” Ipirupa hikuái. Or, it can mean that you’ve done something completely, or just finished doing something, such as “They drank all my terere.” Ho’upa che terere. Or, if you really want to put emphasis on it, you might combine pa with ite. This is a combo you’ll hear a lot -paite. To say they totally drank everything, Ho’upaite!
You’ll also hear -pa combined often with -ma, as in Ohopáma, to mean, "Everyone left already."
-Pa changes with nasals to become -mba. You may have heard me say a few episodes ago Oĩmbama. That’s another version of that Oĩma we already learned, Which means like, "Ok, it’s ready." Oĩmbama means, "Ok, everything’s all ready."
Let’s do a mini practice of that.
Jakarupáma. We finished eating lunch already.
Ajohéipama che ao. I washed all my clothes.
Mateo ho’upaite che terere. Matt drank all my terere.
Oguahẽmbama. Everyone has arrived.
Ñande soguepa. We’re all broke.
You are all fat. Pende kyrapa.
They’re all hungry already. Ha’ekuéra ivare’apáma.
This road is completely totally muddy. Ko tape ivaipaite.
I remember everything now. Che mandu’apáma. (Technically, this should be mandu'ambama, because of the nasal, but people just say it with pa)
You’re all lazy. Pende kaiguepa.
You’ll remember that -pa is also the caboose which acts like a question mark. But you’ll hear the difference. When you’re using this kind of -pa, to mean totality, you’ll hear a strong accent on the -pa. OhoPA. Everyone went. But if it’s a question, the accent will stay on the root word. Ohópa? Did they go?
More Adjectives
That’s just an overview, and now let’s learn some adjectives and practice that.
Today we’re going to learn adjectives that will be used more with things. In any language, there are going to be a ton of adjectives. Long, short, big, small, gross, smelly, etc. We’ll only be able to cover 10 in this episode, but look below in the part labeled Extra Credit for a list of more.
The first word for today is dirty, ky’a. I always confuse this with the word kyra, for fat. So to remember the difference, let’s pretend that the apostrophe in the middle of ky’a is like a coffee stain, because ky’a is dirty. You’ll hear ky’a when people talk about their messy houses, their dirty clothes, or you might hear a mother yell at her children, Iky’apaite nde sapatu. “You’re shoes are completely filthy.”
How would you say, “This cow is dirty.” Ko vaka iky’a.
How would you ask someone if the guampa is dirty? Iky’a piko la guampa.
How would you tell someone to wash the guampa that’s dirty? Ejohéi la guampa iky’ava.
What does this mean: Che atererese pero che guampa iky’a hína. “I want to drink terere but my guampa is dirty.”
If we’ve got dirty then we’ve got to have clean. This one is potĩ, with a nasal i. Here’s a little lesson in why that nasal is important. I saw in my dictionary that poti, without the nasal, means excrement, or, when used as a verb, to defecate. Usually you just hear kaka, as in ha’e okakata, but still. Anyway, how did we get on this topic? Just make sure you put that nasal on there! So if I just washed the guampa, and I want to say “It’s totally clean now,” I would say Ipotĩmbama. How about if you cleaned your table and you want to say, “The table’s clean now. Let’s eat lunch.” Ipotĩma la mesa, jakaru. The word clean should be easy to remember, because you already know the verb “to clean,” which is mopotĩ. Potĩ is just the root of that word, the adjective that means clean. How would you say, “I finished cleaning all my shoes.” Amopotĩmba che sapatu. How would you say, “All my shoes are clean.” Ipotĩmba che sapatu. With the chendale, because clean is an adjective.
Another good one is fast, which is pya’e. My host mom is always yelling at the kids to do their chores, Pya’eke!, using pya’e with that command exclamation point -ke. It’s technically Nde pya’éke! But it just comes out Pya’éke! How would you say, "My motorcycle is fast", using the word moto for motorcycle, like they do in Paraguay? Che moto ipya’e. How would you say, My moto is the fastest? Che moto la ipya’evéva.
Tuicha means big. Tuichaiterei means too big or really big. “My head is too big” would be Che akã ituichaiterei. Sometimes this can be used to say someone is pregnant. Ha’e ituicha could be “She’s pregant,” so cháke! You might also hear this as a synonym for “a lot” or “very”. People will say it rained tuicha, “rained a lot” or that someone was tuicha oka’u, “very” drunk.
Now let’s talk about the opposite of tuicha, big, which would be small. Here we have to back track a second, because I have something to tell you. Some adjectives don’t ever put the i in front of them, like to say, He is small. Small is michĩ. It’s just Ha’e michĩ. Why is this? I don’t know. The pattern seems to be that it’s the adjectives that begin with m or h. Sometimes people do put an i on the front of michĩ, but according to my peeps, that's not correct.
Some ways you will use michĩ is to say that something is michĩmi, like, "little bitty". If someone asks you if you’d like seconds, a lot of people respond, michĩmi. Or michĩve, a little bit more. But you will still hear this in the beginning of a sentence, like Michĩ ha’u kuri. “I just ate a little bit.” Or if someone gives you just a sliver of cake, you might say it’s Michĩeterei. "Too small." How would you say, “I want a little bit more.” Che aipota michĩve. How would you say, "Your moto is small." Nde moto michĩ. You might also hear people use michĩ to say there’s not enough of something, such as that food is Michĩeterei to feed everyone.
Another adjective that will not have an i on the front is the all important word for delicious, which is he. My host mom asks me at meal times, about the food, He piko, “Is it good?” And there is no acceptable answer except Heterei, super delicious It’s not the same as the word for yes, which is Héẽ, all nasaly. This is just h-e. He. How would you say, “I want to drink terere that’s delicious.” Che ha’use terere héva. How would you say, “My chipa is the most delicious.” Chipa, by the way, is a Paraguayan snacky snack. Che chipa la hevéva.
Another good one is ho’ysã, which means cold. You’ll hear this a lot with terere, to say, “Ooh that t-ray’s nice and cold.” Ho’ysã porã la terere. How about, “I want to drink water that’s nice and cold.” Ha’use y ho’ysã porãva. And here’s something I hear when one of the kids is late to eat, for example pizza. Eju jakaru. Ho’ysãmbáta nde pizza. That means, “Come on, let’s eat. You’re pizza’s going to get totally cold.” ***You will not use ho’ysã to say “I’m cold.” That would be Che ro’y, which will be explained in a future podcast.***
Then you’ve got the opposite. Haku. Hot. Haku is so clutch. In the summer, haku is practically a greeting. Haku, says one person, then the other says, Hakueterei. But, listen to me, you will never, never want to say, Che haku. Or maybe you will, if you’re an adult, doing adult things with another consenting adult. But other than that, if you want to say, “I’m hot,” as in the weather is causing me to sweat, it’s Haku chéve, or just haku.
And for our last word today, we’re going to learn how to say, a lot. This is heta. You’ll hear all the time, hetaiterei to mean, a lot a lot or too many. Heta porã means enough. Hetaiterei japuka. That means, "Oh, we laughed so much." Heta la outava. "Many people are going to come." ***I just heard someone say this and had to add it, that heta ikesuva means something has a lot of cheese. I don’t know, maybe a good topic of conversation***
Vocab list!
FYI in this conversation, you’re going to hear Héta, which is the way to say that something is going to be delicious. Didn’t want you to confuse that with heta.
Mba’e jakaruta Oscar?
Ndaikuaái. Mba’epa recocinata?
Hmm. Ikatu acocina pizza.
Ooh. Héta.
Héẽ. Ha nde rejapota la terere.
Oĩma.
Ha aipota y ho’ysãva.
Ha che aipota peteĩ pizza tuicha porãva. Heta akaruta.
Oĩma. Eho eru la terere. Pya’éke! Che uhéima.
1. This table’s too small.
Ko mesa michĩeterei.
2. This mandioca’s dirty.
Ko mandi’o iky’a.
3. Mmm, this terere’s nice and cold.
Mmm, ko terere ho’ysã porã.
Go now. Hurry!
Eho ko’ãga. Pya’eke!
I washed all my clothes.
Ajohéipama che ao.
6. Fernando has a lot of cows.
Fernando oreko heta vaka.
7. I want to eat sushi that is delicious. (And, by the way, Oscar informed me that chipa in Guarani is she-PA.)
Che ha’use chipa héva.
8. Bring water that’s cold please.
Erumi y ho’ysãva.
9. Is there a smaller table?
Oĩ piko peteĩ mesa michĩvéva?
10. You need shoes that are bigger.
Reikotevẽ sapatu ituichavéva.
Now Guarani first...
1. Ani regueraha ao ky’a.
Don’t wear dirty clothes.
2. Heta opuka cherehe hikuái.
They laughed a lot at me.
3. Heterei che pizza.
My pizza is super delicious.
4. Jaipota peteĩ computadora ipya’evéva.
We want a computer that’s faster.
5. Iky’apa che ao.
My clothes are completely dirty.
6. Ohopáma piko?
Did everyone leave already?
7. Hetaiterei roguata ko pyhareve.
Ugh, we walked so much this morning.
Pya’e ajohéipata che ao.
Real quick I’m going to wash all my clothes.
Ani re’u ko kesu. Itujáma.
Don’t eat this cheese. It’s old already.
10. Jastudiapáma.
We’re done studying now.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
michi puede ser i or no.
No usa i en frente
hata
ho’yse
haku
mombyru
Extra Credit
Here’s a list of some other good adjectives
hatã: hard
guasu: big
hu’ũ: soft
mbegue: slow
sa’i: few
tuja: old
puku: long
mbyky: short
karape: short (person)
yvate: tall
pyahu: new; young
hepy: expensive
he’ẽ: sweet
jyky: salty (food); funny, nice (person)
-Pa & -Mba
The caboose is -pa. It’s the root of Opa, which means "all done" or "finished!" -Pa means everything, or totally, or completely, or finished. When you use it with an adjective, such as fatty, it can mean that something is completely that adjective. For example, “This cow is all fatty,” would be Ko vaka ikyrapa. Or it can mean that a group of things are all something, such as: “They are all skinny.” Ipirupa hikuái. Or, it can mean that you’ve done something completely, or just finished doing something, such as “They drank all my terere.” Ho’upa che terere. Or, if you really want to put emphasis on it, you might combine pa with ite. This is a combo you’ll hear a lot -paite. To say they totally drank everything, Ho’upaite!
You’ll also hear -pa combined often with -ma, as in Ohopáma, to mean, "Everyone left already."
-Pa changes with nasals to become -mba. You may have heard me say a few episodes ago Oĩmbama. That’s another version of that Oĩma we already learned, Which means like, "Ok, it’s ready." Oĩmbama means, "Ok, everything’s all ready."
Let’s do a mini practice of that.
Jakarupáma. We finished eating lunch already.
Ajohéipama che ao. I washed all my clothes.
Mateo ho’upaite che terere. Matt drank all my terere.
Oguahẽmbama. Everyone has arrived.
Ñande soguepa. We’re all broke.
You are all fat. Pende kyrapa.
They’re all hungry already. Ha’ekuéra ivare’apáma.
This road is completely totally muddy. Ko tape ivaipaite.
I remember everything now. Che mandu’apáma. (Technically, this should be mandu'ambama, because of the nasal, but people just say it with pa)
You’re all lazy. Pende kaiguepa.
You’ll remember that -pa is also the caboose which acts like a question mark. But you’ll hear the difference. When you’re using this kind of -pa, to mean totality, you’ll hear a strong accent on the -pa. OhoPA. Everyone went. But if it’s a question, the accent will stay on the root word. Ohópa? Did they go?
More Adjectives
That’s just an overview, and now let’s learn some adjectives and practice that.
Today we’re going to learn adjectives that will be used more with things. In any language, there are going to be a ton of adjectives. Long, short, big, small, gross, smelly, etc. We’ll only be able to cover 10 in this episode, but look below in the part labeled Extra Credit for a list of more.
The first word for today is dirty, ky’a. I always confuse this with the word kyra, for fat. So to remember the difference, let’s pretend that the apostrophe in the middle of ky’a is like a coffee stain, because ky’a is dirty. You’ll hear ky’a when people talk about their messy houses, their dirty clothes, or you might hear a mother yell at her children, Iky’apaite nde sapatu. “You’re shoes are completely filthy.”
How would you say, “This cow is dirty.” Ko vaka iky’a.
How would you ask someone if the guampa is dirty? Iky’a piko la guampa.
How would you tell someone to wash the guampa that’s dirty? Ejohéi la guampa iky’ava.
What does this mean: Che atererese pero che guampa iky’a hína. “I want to drink terere but my guampa is dirty.”
If we’ve got dirty then we’ve got to have clean. This one is potĩ, with a nasal i. Here’s a little lesson in why that nasal is important. I saw in my dictionary that poti, without the nasal, means excrement, or, when used as a verb, to defecate. Usually you just hear kaka, as in ha’e okakata, but still. Anyway, how did we get on this topic? Just make sure you put that nasal on there! So if I just washed the guampa, and I want to say “It’s totally clean now,” I would say Ipotĩmbama. How about if you cleaned your table and you want to say, “The table’s clean now. Let’s eat lunch.” Ipotĩma la mesa, jakaru. The word clean should be easy to remember, because you already know the verb “to clean,” which is mopotĩ. Potĩ is just the root of that word, the adjective that means clean. How would you say, “I finished cleaning all my shoes.” Amopotĩmba che sapatu. How would you say, “All my shoes are clean.” Ipotĩmba che sapatu. With the chendale, because clean is an adjective.
Another good one is fast, which is pya’e. My host mom is always yelling at the kids to do their chores, Pya’eke!, using pya’e with that command exclamation point -ke. It’s technically Nde pya’éke! But it just comes out Pya’éke! How would you say, "My motorcycle is fast", using the word moto for motorcycle, like they do in Paraguay? Che moto ipya’e. How would you say, My moto is the fastest? Che moto la ipya’evéva.
Tuicha means big. Tuichaiterei means too big or really big. “My head is too big” would be Che akã ituichaiterei. Sometimes this can be used to say someone is pregnant. Ha’e ituicha could be “She’s pregant,” so cháke! You might also hear this as a synonym for “a lot” or “very”. People will say it rained tuicha, “rained a lot” or that someone was tuicha oka’u, “very” drunk.
Now let’s talk about the opposite of tuicha, big, which would be small. Here we have to back track a second, because I have something to tell you. Some adjectives don’t ever put the i in front of them, like to say, He is small. Small is michĩ. It’s just Ha’e michĩ. Why is this? I don’t know. The pattern seems to be that it’s the adjectives that begin with m or h. Sometimes people do put an i on the front of michĩ, but according to my peeps, that's not correct.
Some ways you will use michĩ is to say that something is michĩmi, like, "little bitty". If someone asks you if you’d like seconds, a lot of people respond, michĩmi. Or michĩve, a little bit more. But you will still hear this in the beginning of a sentence, like Michĩ ha’u kuri. “I just ate a little bit.” Or if someone gives you just a sliver of cake, you might say it’s Michĩeterei. "Too small." How would you say, “I want a little bit more.” Che aipota michĩve. How would you say, "Your moto is small." Nde moto michĩ. You might also hear people use michĩ to say there’s not enough of something, such as that food is Michĩeterei to feed everyone.
Another adjective that will not have an i on the front is the all important word for delicious, which is he. My host mom asks me at meal times, about the food, He piko, “Is it good?” And there is no acceptable answer except Heterei, super delicious It’s not the same as the word for yes, which is Héẽ, all nasaly. This is just h-e. He. How would you say, “I want to drink terere that’s delicious.” Che ha’use terere héva. How would you say, “My chipa is the most delicious.” Chipa, by the way, is a Paraguayan snacky snack. Che chipa la hevéva.
Another good one is ho’ysã, which means cold. You’ll hear this a lot with terere, to say, “Ooh that t-ray’s nice and cold.” Ho’ysã porã la terere. How about, “I want to drink water that’s nice and cold.” Ha’use y ho’ysã porãva. And here’s something I hear when one of the kids is late to eat, for example pizza. Eju jakaru. Ho’ysãmbáta nde pizza. That means, “Come on, let’s eat. You’re pizza’s going to get totally cold.” ***You will not use ho’ysã to say “I’m cold.” That would be Che ro’y, which will be explained in a future podcast.***
Then you’ve got the opposite. Haku. Hot. Haku is so clutch. In the summer, haku is practically a greeting. Haku, says one person, then the other says, Hakueterei. But, listen to me, you will never, never want to say, Che haku. Or maybe you will, if you’re an adult, doing adult things with another consenting adult. But other than that, if you want to say, “I’m hot,” as in the weather is causing me to sweat, it’s Haku chéve, or just haku.
And for our last word today, we’re going to learn how to say, a lot. This is heta. You’ll hear all the time, hetaiterei to mean, a lot a lot or too many. Heta porã means enough. Hetaiterei japuka. That means, "Oh, we laughed so much." Heta la outava. "Many people are going to come." ***I just heard someone say this and had to add it, that heta ikesuva means something has a lot of cheese. I don’t know, maybe a good topic of conversation***
Vocab list!
- -pa/mba: totally, completely, finished
- ky’a: dirty (Aiko ky'a = ridin' dirty. Just sayin')
- potĩ: clean
- pya’e: fast
- tuicha: big
- michĩ: small
- he: delicious
- ho’ysã: cold
- haku: hot
- heta: a lot
FYI in this conversation, you’re going to hear Héta, which is the way to say that something is going to be delicious. Didn’t want you to confuse that with heta.
Mba’e jakaruta Oscar?
Ndaikuaái. Mba’epa recocinata?
Hmm. Ikatu acocina pizza.
Ooh. Héta.
Héẽ. Ha nde rejapota la terere.
Oĩma.
Ha aipota y ho’ysãva.
Ha che aipota peteĩ pizza tuicha porãva. Heta akaruta.
Oĩma. Eho eru la terere. Pya’éke! Che uhéima.
1. This table’s too small.
Ko mesa michĩeterei.
2. This mandioca’s dirty.
Ko mandi’o iky’a.
3. Mmm, this terere’s nice and cold.
Mmm, ko terere ho’ysã porã.
Go now. Hurry!
Eho ko’ãga. Pya’eke!
I washed all my clothes.
Ajohéipama che ao.
6. Fernando has a lot of cows.
Fernando oreko heta vaka.
7. I want to eat sushi that is delicious. (And, by the way, Oscar informed me that chipa in Guarani is she-PA.)
Che ha’use chipa héva.
8. Bring water that’s cold please.
Erumi y ho’ysãva.
9. Is there a smaller table?
Oĩ piko peteĩ mesa michĩvéva?
10. You need shoes that are bigger.
Reikotevẽ sapatu ituichavéva.
Now Guarani first...
1. Ani regueraha ao ky’a.
Don’t wear dirty clothes.
2. Heta opuka cherehe hikuái.
They laughed a lot at me.
3. Heterei che pizza.
My pizza is super delicious.
4. Jaipota peteĩ computadora ipya’evéva.
We want a computer that’s faster.
5. Iky’apa che ao.
My clothes are completely dirty.
6. Ohopáma piko?
Did everyone leave already?
7. Hetaiterei roguata ko pyhareve.
Ugh, we walked so much this morning.
Pya’e ajohéipata che ao.
Real quick I’m going to wash all my clothes.
Ani re’u ko kesu. Itujáma.
Don’t eat this cheese. It’s old already.
10. Jastudiapáma.
We’re done studying now.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
michi puede ser i or no.
No usa i en frente
hata
ho’yse
haku
mombyru
Extra Credit
Here’s a list of some other good adjectives
hatã: hard
guasu: big
hu’ũ: soft
mbegue: slow
sa’i: few
tuja: old
puku: long
mbyky: short
karape: short (person)
yvate: tall
pyahu: new; young
hepy: expensive
he’ẽ: sweet
jyky: salty (food); funny, nice (person)
A Mini Lesson in Learning Guaraní
Today I was coming home from the city to my pueblo, in a van that runs back and forth every half hour. I sat in the front seat, next to the driver, and took my ipod out, like I always do, to listen to my American music while watching the Paraguayan hills go by.
But today I didn´t. Instead, I started a little Guaraní conversation with the driver. We ended up talking almost the entire way, and the two guys in the front joined in. I didn´t understand everything, of course. But I asked them to explain the words, and they did. I don´t remember them exactly, but I think I might recognize them the next time I hear them, and then maybe, when I want to say them, I´ll remember how they sound. Then bam, there´s another word in my Guaraní arsenal.
I tend to be too shy about my Guaraní, preferring to study my flash cards along rather than make a fool out of myself trying to talk to someone else. But, Guaraní is a language, for communicating, not for sitting alone in a room. So your homework is this, if you´re already in Paraguay: take out your earphones, put down your cell phone, get out of your house, and use your Guaraní. I guarantee that´s the fastest way to learn.
But today I didn´t. Instead, I started a little Guaraní conversation with the driver. We ended up talking almost the entire way, and the two guys in the front joined in. I didn´t understand everything, of course. But I asked them to explain the words, and they did. I don´t remember them exactly, but I think I might recognize them the next time I hear them, and then maybe, when I want to say them, I´ll remember how they sound. Then bam, there´s another word in my Guaraní arsenal.
I tend to be too shy about my Guaraní, preferring to study my flash cards along rather than make a fool out of myself trying to talk to someone else. But, Guaraní is a language, for communicating, not for sitting alone in a room. So your homework is this, if you´re already in Paraguay: take out your earphones, put down your cell phone, get out of your house, and use your Guaraní. I guarantee that´s the fastest way to learn.
Episode 15: Chendales & Chisme
It’s episode 15, and we’re going to be moving on with chendales and using them with adjectives. Today’s adjectives are usually used when talking about people. So you can understand a little more of that gossip! And by the way, the word for gossip is chisme. That’s an important one to know.
When you take just an adjective, you might use it in one of two ways. You might use it in the chendale construction that we’ve been studying, or you might just latch it on the back of a noun. Let’s look at the difference for a second.
Let’s use the example, porã. If I wanted to say, "You are pretty", I would use the chendale structure, Ne porã. Remember how we said that chendales are quasi-verbs? This is because when you use a chendale, you are implying the verb “to be”, which includes, am, is, are, etc. “She is pretty” is Ha’e iporã. That’s a chendale.
But you can also just tag on an adjective on the back of a word if it’s just describing something in the sentence, just tagging along. For example, “My pretty friend is dancing.” In this example, “pretty friend” would be amiga porã. In Guaraní, like in Spanish, you put the adjective behind the noun it’s describing. So “My pretty friend is dancing" would be Che amiga porã ojeroky. If you said, Che amiga iporã ojeroky, that would be, "My friend is pretty is dancing." That’s no good.
When the point of your sentence is to say that something is something, then you use the chendale. For example, “My friend is pretty” is Che amiga iporã. But if there is another verb in the sentence, you’re just going to throw the adjective on the back. Such as in "My pretty friend is dancing", the verb is dancing.
It’s like in greetings, when people say, Mba’e la pórte. That breaks down to "What is the situation? Pórte means situation. And when you respond, Iporã, you’re saying, "It is good."
***You might also have cause to say Ivai la pórte. Which means, "The situation is bad." Sometimes people just throw that out when they're talking about their problems.***
So let’s practice that.
What would be, “These clothes are ugly”?
Ko ao ivai.
What would be “I’m going to wear my ugly clothes”?
Che aguerahata che ao vai.
Another thing you’ll hear vai with is the word for road, tape, to mean the road is all muddy and whatnot.
So how would you say, "This road is muddy and whatnot."
Ko tape ivai.
How would you say, “I’m going to go on the muddy road”?
Ahata tape vaire. (You’ll remember that -re from Episode 13.)
How would you tell someone to go on the nice road?
Eho tape porãre.
And how would you say, “This road is nice”?
Ko tape iporã.
So hopefully you get the distinction. We’ll practice it a little bit more in the episode.
Let’s move on and check out some other adjectives that you use with people.
Let’s start with a favorite, fat. One of my favorite Paraguayan past times is listening to them talk about how fat I am, their daughters are, they are, etc. No American euphemisms here, thick-skinned, big-boned, nahániri. You are fat. And the word for fat is kyra. Che kyra is “I am fat”. Again, that “am” is just implied in the structure of the chendale. How would you say, “You are fat.” Nde kyra. How would you say, “You’re super fat.” Nde kyraiterei.
Let me pop in a side note here that we didn’t mention in the last episode, that iterei can also mean, "too", as in, you’re too fat, excessively fat. So iterei can be a good thing when latched on to nice adjectives, like pretty, nice or hard-working. Or it can be a bad thing if latched on to bad adjectives, such as ugly, expensive, or, fat. If you think about it, we use “too” for good and for bad, like this. “Aw, she’s just too cute.” Or “Ugh, that’s too expensive.” Like that.
So, if someone’s daughter is reaching for that extra slice of pizza, her mother might slap her hand and say, Nde kyraiterei. “You’re too fat.” Like I said, they don’t sugarcoat much in this country.
Kyra, by the way, can also be used to describe food. Just today we sat down to lunch, and there was grease floating on the plate. Oscar complained to his mom that her food was ikyraiterei. “Too fatty.”
Let’s move on to some other adjectives. If we’ve got fat, then we should get on to skinny, for after the diet. The opposite of kyra is piru, skinny. If I wanted to say that after my diet, “I will be skinny,” it would be, Che piruta. Or if a farmer wanted to complain that his cow was too skinny, he might say, Che vaka ipirueterei. How would you say, “Mariela is skinny.” Mariela ipiru or Ipiru Mariela.
With chendales, it’s common to hear the chendale first and then the thing or person you’re describing, just for effect. You might hear, Iporã che ermána, for “My sister is pretty.” Or Ikyra che vaka for “My cow is fat.” So here’s a little weirdo quirk of Guaraní. When you want to say “them” at the end of a sentence, you don’t use ha’ekuéra, you say hikuái. It’s like in English if you wanted to say, “Crazy, those guys.” You would say, “Crazy, hikuái.” In the dictionary they say it’s for him or her, too, but they say here that they only use it for them. So, in this format, if I wanted to say, “They are fat,” I might say, Ikyra hikuái. I know, it’s weird. End of side note.
Actually, let’s learn the word for crazy. It’s tavy. Using that structure I just talked about, how would you say, “Phh, crazy, those guys.” Phh, Itavy hikuái. Nde tavy is “You’re crazy.” It can also mean ignorant or like, without culture, is how my host mom explained it to me. You will hear all the time this phrase: Nde tavymaiko. So what does that mean? Let’s break it on down. Nde is you. tavy is crazy. ma is already or now. and iko is that question word. In it’s meaning, it’s kind of like, “What are you crazy?” How would you say, “Guarani is super crazy”? Guaraní itavyeterei.
Another thing people say about other people is that they are ñaña. This means, bad or mean. Vai means bad in other ways, but ñaña is used mostly for people. I once had an awesome fight with a four-year-old who said, Ne ñaña, to me. So I said, Ne ñaña. And he said, Nde. and I said Nde! And then I didn’t give him any of my gum. You’ll notice that ñaña is nasal, so you use the ne in front of it instead of nde.
If you want to make a chendale more of a temporary thing, you can use it with hína. For example, if your friend is usually a nice person, but she’s being a little snappy today, you can just say, Ne ñaña hína. This is like, “You’re currently being a jerkface,” instead of “You are mean,” as more of a general statement.
Here is a very important one jopara’ed from Spanish, which is guápo or guápa. Here you’ll see a little bit of the Spanish influence, where adjectives for men usually end in o, and adjectives for women usually end in a. If you’ve studied Spanish elsewhere in the world, you might know guápo as handsome, but in Paraguay, it means to be hardworking. If I pass my neighbor and she’s raking her lawn, I’ll give her a Nde guápa. And, it’s a fun little joke to respond, Che guápaite. "I’m totally hard-working!" On the guápa, you add that ite that we talked about. But notice again that it’s not, Che guápa ... ite. It’s combined to Che guápaite. It’s kind of weird, because we never tell people, oh you’re so hard-working, in English. But we tell people the opposite a lot, that they’re lazy and worthless.
*****
Now we’re going to look at some words, some cross dressers. They can be chendales or regular verbs, depending on what they’re wearing.
One of these cross-dressers is another word jopara’ed from Spanish, which is vale. Vale means to be worth something. You might hear someone say that money No vale nada, that their money isn’t worth anything, maybe because you need a thousand Guaraníes to buy a pack of gum. Or with people, it’s just like hard-working or worth something, a synonym of guápo. So if someone sees me washing the dishes, they might say Nde guápa or Nde vale, they’re pretty much the same thing. How would you say, "Pedro is hard-working." Pedro ivale. When used with chendales, it’s an adjective.
However, when used with the regular driver cars, vale can be a verb. It means to be worth something too, or to cost something. For example, I just heard the other day, Mbóy ovale. Remember that mbóy means “how much,” so Mbóy ovale means “How much does this cost?” How would you say, “How much does this cheese cost?” Mbóy ovale ko kesu.
You might also hear the phrase ovaléma. Which translates to mean, “That's enough already.” If I’m adding spices to the food and overdoing it, my host mom might say, Ovaléma and smack the spice out of my hand. Or you might use this when someone’s annoying you or when the kids are fighting. Ovaléma! Enough already!
Another verb cross-dresser that likes to swing both ways between chendale or a verb is jopy. Jopy means to squeeze, like with lemons to make juice. It can also mean to put one's nose to the grindstone. If I’m working on something and I really need to get it done, I might say, Ajopy hína. ***Jopy can also be used to press, as in to press a button.***
When you use it in a chendale, as an adjective, you’re describing someone that squeezes every bit of money, like a penny pincher. For a simple definition, it means cheap. Ha’e ijopy means “He’s cheap.” So, Ha’e ojopy means “He squeezes.” And Ha’e ijopy means “He’s cheap.”
And here’s a good one, drunk, another cross-dresser. The root of this is ka’u. Take a second and think which one would be “He is drunk,” like as in the temporary, and which one would be “He is a drunk,” like an alcoholic but without the meetings. That root again is ka’u... The right answer is that “He’s drunk” is Ha’e oka’u and “He is a drunk” is Ha’e ika’u. "I’m drunk" would be Che aka’u or "I’m a drunk" would be Che ka’u, using the chendale structure. Hola, Che Paulita. Che ka’u. Hola Paulita.
How would you say, “My sister is drunk already.”
Che ermána oka’uma.
How about: “He’s is totally drunk.”
Ha’e oka’uete.
How would you say, “You are a drunk.”
Nde ka’u.
And what does this mean? Nde reka’umaiko.
Are you drunk?
One way I remembered ka’u as “to be drunk” is that it sounds like ha’u, the word for to drink. Che ha’u, and that’s why che ka’u.
One more side note about ka’u is something that uses that -re we talked about in Episode 13. Remember how I said that sometimes -re means “because of”? Well, people will talk about crazy stuff that someone did while they were drunk, for example, “Martin mooned a whole bus of old ladies, ka’úre.” That ka’úre means “because he was drunk," or "bein’ all drunk.” Ka’úre he’i...Ka’úre ajapo. ***Ka’úre hapeguare, ndoikéi. "If I was drunk, it didn’t happen." ***
So those three cross-dressers we just went over, vale, jopy, and ka’u, are some examples of a few roots that you can use as verbs or as chendales. Those are the only examples of all the ones we’ve gone over so far that can do that. So it’s not like you can take any chendale and use it like that. You would never say Che akaigue. That’s always che kaigue.
And we’re going to end this episode with an important caboose that you will use with adjectives. This is -va, only they don’t pronounce the v, like usual. And when you put it on the back of an adjective, it means, "the one that is or the person who is that thing." If you were using this with porã, for example, porãva, that would mean, "who is pretty or that is pretty". “I’m looking for clothes that are pretty,” would be, Che aheka ao iporãva. “I want to buy cow that is fat” would be Ajoguase peteĩ vaka ikyráva. How would you say, “Do you know my friend that is skinny?” Nde reikuaa che amiga ipirúva?
Sometimes there are two ways you might hear something. For example. If you want to eat some nice, fresh mandioca, you could express it in two ways. You could say, I want to eat mandioca that is nice, which would be Che ha’use mandi’o iporãva. Or you could you a more simple sentence like I want to eat some nice mandioca. That could be Che ha’use mandi’o porã. The two works
And there’s one other construction you should know. It’s a way to say someone is the most something. The prettiest. The fattest. The most hard-working. Here’s an example of it. Che ermano la iguapovéva. It starts with a subject Che ermáno, my brother, la is the, and in this case, with the chendale, it’s translates to is that. So, my brother is the. then with the adjective, in this case guápo, and then ve meaning more, or in this case, most. Then va, that or who which is. So, mixing all that together, you get “My brother is the most hard-working." There’s a very classic Guaraní polka song that uses the word chika, which means girlfriend, and starts, Che chika la iporãvéva. "My girlfriend is the prettiest".
How would you say, “My cow is the fattest.”
Che vaka la ikyravéva.
My sister is the prettiest.
Che ermána la iporãvéva.
And that reminds me to remind you that chendales can be mixed all up with the cabooses. For example, “I want to be fat” would be Che kyrase. “He will be skinny” would be Ha’e ipiruta. He will be more skinny would be Ha’e ipiruveta. You can just mix them all in there.
Ok, let’s do a little review.
Now we test your skillz:
1. I want to be skinny.
Che piruse.
2. I’m hard-working but my sister is lazy.
Che guápa pero che ermána ikaigue.
3. That’s enough!
Ovaléma!
4. Who’s the most drunk?
Máva piko la oka’uvéva?
5. My shoes are too ugly.
Che sapatu ivaieterei.
6. He wants to dance with my skinny friend.
Ha’e ojeroky che amiga pirundi.
7. You guys are fat already.
Pende kyrama.
8. We’re drunk already.
Ñande jaka’úma.
9. I’m going with my mean sister.
Aháta che ermána ñañandi.
10. Vanessa is super cheap.
Vanessa ijopyeterei.
Guaraní first...
1. Oscar iguápo.
Oscar is hard-working.
2. Melissa iñañaeterei.
Melissa is super mean.
3. Che acenase sushi pero che amiga ijopy hína.
I want to eat sushi for dinner but my friend is being cheap.
4. Ani reka’uti.
Don’t get drunk.
5. Mariela la iporãvéva.
Mariela is the prettiest.
6. Ikyraiterei hikuái.
They are super fat.
7. Ha’e opurahéi vai ka’ure.
He sang badly being all drunk.
8. Fernando la iguápoveva.
Fernando is the most hard-working.
9. Nde kyra che ra’a!
Dude you’re fat.
10. Che ha’use mandio porã.
I want to eat some nice mandioca.
And a practice conversation:
Hola Oscar. Nde reikuaa piko moõ oho che vaka?
Nde vaka ikyrava?
No, la ipiruva.
Héẽ, no. Rehekama tapére?
Héẽ. Che vaka la iñañavéva.
Itavy, hikuái. Reipota aheka avei?
Gracias, che ra’a. Nde guápo.
-Hey Oscar. Do you know where my cow went?
-Your fat cow?
-No, the skinny one.
-Oh yeah, no. Have you looked in the street already?
-Yeah. My cows are the worst.
-They're crazy. Do you want me to look too?
-Thanks dude. You're hard-working.
New Words from this Week
Other words mentioned:
chika/o: girlfriend/boyfriend
chisme: gossip
pórte: situation
When you take just an adjective, you might use it in one of two ways. You might use it in the chendale construction that we’ve been studying, or you might just latch it on the back of a noun. Let’s look at the difference for a second.
Let’s use the example, porã. If I wanted to say, "You are pretty", I would use the chendale structure, Ne porã. Remember how we said that chendales are quasi-verbs? This is because when you use a chendale, you are implying the verb “to be”, which includes, am, is, are, etc. “She is pretty” is Ha’e iporã. That’s a chendale.
But you can also just tag on an adjective on the back of a word if it’s just describing something in the sentence, just tagging along. For example, “My pretty friend is dancing.” In this example, “pretty friend” would be amiga porã. In Guaraní, like in Spanish, you put the adjective behind the noun it’s describing. So “My pretty friend is dancing" would be Che amiga porã ojeroky. If you said, Che amiga iporã ojeroky, that would be, "My friend is pretty is dancing." That’s no good.
When the point of your sentence is to say that something is something, then you use the chendale. For example, “My friend is pretty” is Che amiga iporã. But if there is another verb in the sentence, you’re just going to throw the adjective on the back. Such as in "My pretty friend is dancing", the verb is dancing.
It’s like in greetings, when people say, Mba’e la pórte. That breaks down to "What is the situation? Pórte means situation. And when you respond, Iporã, you’re saying, "It is good."
***You might also have cause to say Ivai la pórte. Which means, "The situation is bad." Sometimes people just throw that out when they're talking about their problems.***
So let’s practice that.
What would be, “These clothes are ugly”?
Ko ao ivai.
What would be “I’m going to wear my ugly clothes”?
Che aguerahata che ao vai.
Another thing you’ll hear vai with is the word for road, tape, to mean the road is all muddy and whatnot.
So how would you say, "This road is muddy and whatnot."
Ko tape ivai.
How would you say, “I’m going to go on the muddy road”?
Ahata tape vaire. (You’ll remember that -re from Episode 13.)
How would you tell someone to go on the nice road?
Eho tape porãre.
And how would you say, “This road is nice”?
Ko tape iporã.
So hopefully you get the distinction. We’ll practice it a little bit more in the episode.
Let’s move on and check out some other adjectives that you use with people.
Let’s start with a favorite, fat. One of my favorite Paraguayan past times is listening to them talk about how fat I am, their daughters are, they are, etc. No American euphemisms here, thick-skinned, big-boned, nahániri. You are fat. And the word for fat is kyra. Che kyra is “I am fat”. Again, that “am” is just implied in the structure of the chendale. How would you say, “You are fat.” Nde kyra. How would you say, “You’re super fat.” Nde kyraiterei.
Let me pop in a side note here that we didn’t mention in the last episode, that iterei can also mean, "too", as in, you’re too fat, excessively fat. So iterei can be a good thing when latched on to nice adjectives, like pretty, nice or hard-working. Or it can be a bad thing if latched on to bad adjectives, such as ugly, expensive, or, fat. If you think about it, we use “too” for good and for bad, like this. “Aw, she’s just too cute.” Or “Ugh, that’s too expensive.” Like that.
So, if someone’s daughter is reaching for that extra slice of pizza, her mother might slap her hand and say, Nde kyraiterei. “You’re too fat.” Like I said, they don’t sugarcoat much in this country.
Kyra, by the way, can also be used to describe food. Just today we sat down to lunch, and there was grease floating on the plate. Oscar complained to his mom that her food was ikyraiterei. “Too fatty.”
Let’s move on to some other adjectives. If we’ve got fat, then we should get on to skinny, for after the diet. The opposite of kyra is piru, skinny. If I wanted to say that after my diet, “I will be skinny,” it would be, Che piruta. Or if a farmer wanted to complain that his cow was too skinny, he might say, Che vaka ipirueterei. How would you say, “Mariela is skinny.” Mariela ipiru or Ipiru Mariela.
With chendales, it’s common to hear the chendale first and then the thing or person you’re describing, just for effect. You might hear, Iporã che ermána, for “My sister is pretty.” Or Ikyra che vaka for “My cow is fat.” So here’s a little weirdo quirk of Guaraní. When you want to say “them” at the end of a sentence, you don’t use ha’ekuéra, you say hikuái. It’s like in English if you wanted to say, “Crazy, those guys.” You would say, “Crazy, hikuái.” In the dictionary they say it’s for him or her, too, but they say here that they only use it for them. So, in this format, if I wanted to say, “They are fat,” I might say, Ikyra hikuái. I know, it’s weird. End of side note.
Actually, let’s learn the word for crazy. It’s tavy. Using that structure I just talked about, how would you say, “Phh, crazy, those guys.” Phh, Itavy hikuái. Nde tavy is “You’re crazy.” It can also mean ignorant or like, without culture, is how my host mom explained it to me. You will hear all the time this phrase: Nde tavymaiko. So what does that mean? Let’s break it on down. Nde is you. tavy is crazy. ma is already or now. and iko is that question word. In it’s meaning, it’s kind of like, “What are you crazy?” How would you say, “Guarani is super crazy”? Guaraní itavyeterei.
Another thing people say about other people is that they are ñaña. This means, bad or mean. Vai means bad in other ways, but ñaña is used mostly for people. I once had an awesome fight with a four-year-old who said, Ne ñaña, to me. So I said, Ne ñaña. And he said, Nde. and I said Nde! And then I didn’t give him any of my gum. You’ll notice that ñaña is nasal, so you use the ne in front of it instead of nde.
If you want to make a chendale more of a temporary thing, you can use it with hína. For example, if your friend is usually a nice person, but she’s being a little snappy today, you can just say, Ne ñaña hína. This is like, “You’re currently being a jerkface,” instead of “You are mean,” as more of a general statement.
Here is a very important one jopara’ed from Spanish, which is guápo or guápa. Here you’ll see a little bit of the Spanish influence, where adjectives for men usually end in o, and adjectives for women usually end in a. If you’ve studied Spanish elsewhere in the world, you might know guápo as handsome, but in Paraguay, it means to be hardworking. If I pass my neighbor and she’s raking her lawn, I’ll give her a Nde guápa. And, it’s a fun little joke to respond, Che guápaite. "I’m totally hard-working!" On the guápa, you add that ite that we talked about. But notice again that it’s not, Che guápa ... ite. It’s combined to Che guápaite. It’s kind of weird, because we never tell people, oh you’re so hard-working, in English. But we tell people the opposite a lot, that they’re lazy and worthless.
*****
Now we’re going to look at some words, some cross dressers. They can be chendales or regular verbs, depending on what they’re wearing.
One of these cross-dressers is another word jopara’ed from Spanish, which is vale. Vale means to be worth something. You might hear someone say that money No vale nada, that their money isn’t worth anything, maybe because you need a thousand Guaraníes to buy a pack of gum. Or with people, it’s just like hard-working or worth something, a synonym of guápo. So if someone sees me washing the dishes, they might say Nde guápa or Nde vale, they’re pretty much the same thing. How would you say, "Pedro is hard-working." Pedro ivale. When used with chendales, it’s an adjective.
However, when used with the regular driver cars, vale can be a verb. It means to be worth something too, or to cost something. For example, I just heard the other day, Mbóy ovale. Remember that mbóy means “how much,” so Mbóy ovale means “How much does this cost?” How would you say, “How much does this cheese cost?” Mbóy ovale ko kesu.
You might also hear the phrase ovaléma. Which translates to mean, “That's enough already.” If I’m adding spices to the food and overdoing it, my host mom might say, Ovaléma and smack the spice out of my hand. Or you might use this when someone’s annoying you or when the kids are fighting. Ovaléma! Enough already!
Another verb cross-dresser that likes to swing both ways between chendale or a verb is jopy. Jopy means to squeeze, like with lemons to make juice. It can also mean to put one's nose to the grindstone. If I’m working on something and I really need to get it done, I might say, Ajopy hína. ***Jopy can also be used to press, as in to press a button.***
When you use it in a chendale, as an adjective, you’re describing someone that squeezes every bit of money, like a penny pincher. For a simple definition, it means cheap. Ha’e ijopy means “He’s cheap.” So, Ha’e ojopy means “He squeezes.” And Ha’e ijopy means “He’s cheap.”
And here’s a good one, drunk, another cross-dresser. The root of this is ka’u. Take a second and think which one would be “He is drunk,” like as in the temporary, and which one would be “He is a drunk,” like an alcoholic but without the meetings. That root again is ka’u... The right answer is that “He’s drunk” is Ha’e oka’u and “He is a drunk” is Ha’e ika’u. "I’m drunk" would be Che aka’u or "I’m a drunk" would be Che ka’u, using the chendale structure. Hola, Che Paulita. Che ka’u. Hola Paulita.
How would you say, “My sister is drunk already.”
Che ermána oka’uma.
How about: “He’s is totally drunk.”
Ha’e oka’uete.
How would you say, “You are a drunk.”
Nde ka’u.
And what does this mean? Nde reka’umaiko.
Are you drunk?
One way I remembered ka’u as “to be drunk” is that it sounds like ha’u, the word for to drink. Che ha’u, and that’s why che ka’u.
One more side note about ka’u is something that uses that -re we talked about in Episode 13. Remember how I said that sometimes -re means “because of”? Well, people will talk about crazy stuff that someone did while they were drunk, for example, “Martin mooned a whole bus of old ladies, ka’úre.” That ka’úre means “because he was drunk," or "bein’ all drunk.” Ka’úre he’i...Ka’úre ajapo. ***Ka’úre hapeguare, ndoikéi. "If I was drunk, it didn’t happen." ***
So those three cross-dressers we just went over, vale, jopy, and ka’u, are some examples of a few roots that you can use as verbs or as chendales. Those are the only examples of all the ones we’ve gone over so far that can do that. So it’s not like you can take any chendale and use it like that. You would never say Che akaigue. That’s always che kaigue.
And we’re going to end this episode with an important caboose that you will use with adjectives. This is -va, only they don’t pronounce the v, like usual. And when you put it on the back of an adjective, it means, "the one that is or the person who is that thing." If you were using this with porã, for example, porãva, that would mean, "who is pretty or that is pretty". “I’m looking for clothes that are pretty,” would be, Che aheka ao iporãva. “I want to buy cow that is fat” would be Ajoguase peteĩ vaka ikyráva. How would you say, “Do you know my friend that is skinny?” Nde reikuaa che amiga ipirúva?
Sometimes there are two ways you might hear something. For example. If you want to eat some nice, fresh mandioca, you could express it in two ways. You could say, I want to eat mandioca that is nice, which would be Che ha’use mandi’o iporãva. Or you could you a more simple sentence like I want to eat some nice mandioca. That could be Che ha’use mandi’o porã. The two works
And there’s one other construction you should know. It’s a way to say someone is the most something. The prettiest. The fattest. The most hard-working. Here’s an example of it. Che ermano la iguapovéva. It starts with a subject Che ermáno, my brother, la is the, and in this case, with the chendale, it’s translates to is that. So, my brother is the. then with the adjective, in this case guápo, and then ve meaning more, or in this case, most. Then va, that or who which is. So, mixing all that together, you get “My brother is the most hard-working." There’s a very classic Guaraní polka song that uses the word chika, which means girlfriend, and starts, Che chika la iporãvéva. "My girlfriend is the prettiest".
How would you say, “My cow is the fattest.”
Che vaka la ikyravéva.
My sister is the prettiest.
Che ermána la iporãvéva.
And that reminds me to remind you that chendales can be mixed all up with the cabooses. For example, “I want to be fat” would be Che kyrase. “He will be skinny” would be Ha’e ipiruta. He will be more skinny would be Ha’e ipiruveta. You can just mix them all in there.
Ok, let’s do a little review.
- With adjectives, you can put them in the chendale construction to mean that someone is something. Or you can just put them behind an noun in a sentence with another verb.
- Hikuái is the word you use for “them” when you want to add it on the back of a sentence.
- Fat is kyra.
- Skinny is piru.
- Ñaña means bad or mean.
- Tavy means crazy or ignorant.
- Guápo or guápa mean hard-working.
- Some other words are cross-dressers that you can also use as chendales or as verbs
- Such as vale, which is the same as guápo when used as an adjective. But you can also use it to mean “to be worth something”, using the regular verb driver cars. Also, you can say Ovaléma to mean “Enough already!”
- jopy, which as a chendale means to be cheap, or as a verb means to squeeze
- ka’u means to be a drunk as a chendale or to be drunk for the moment as a verb
- You can use -va on the back of adjectives to mean, the one that is or the thing that is that adjective. But you’re not really going to pronounce that v.
- You can use la before an adjective and véva after it to mean that something is the most of that adjective.
Now we test your skillz:
1. I want to be skinny.
Che piruse.
2. I’m hard-working but my sister is lazy.
Che guápa pero che ermána ikaigue.
3. That’s enough!
Ovaléma!
4. Who’s the most drunk?
Máva piko la oka’uvéva?
5. My shoes are too ugly.
Che sapatu ivaieterei.
6. He wants to dance with my skinny friend.
Ha’e ojeroky che amiga pirundi.
7. You guys are fat already.
Pende kyrama.
8. We’re drunk already.
Ñande jaka’úma.
9. I’m going with my mean sister.
Aháta che ermána ñañandi.
10. Vanessa is super cheap.
Vanessa ijopyeterei.
Guaraní first...
1. Oscar iguápo.
Oscar is hard-working.
2. Melissa iñañaeterei.
Melissa is super mean.
3. Che acenase sushi pero che amiga ijopy hína.
I want to eat sushi for dinner but my friend is being cheap.
4. Ani reka’uti.
Don’t get drunk.
5. Mariela la iporãvéva.
Mariela is the prettiest.
6. Ikyraiterei hikuái.
They are super fat.
7. Ha’e opurahéi vai ka’ure.
He sang badly being all drunk.
8. Fernando la iguápoveva.
Fernando is the most hard-working.
9. Nde kyra che ra’a!
Dude you’re fat.
10. Che ha’use mandio porã.
I want to eat some nice mandioca.
And a practice conversation:
Hola Oscar. Nde reikuaa piko moõ oho che vaka?
Nde vaka ikyrava?
No, la ipiruva.
Héẽ, no. Rehekama tapére?
Héẽ. Che vaka la iñañavéva.
Itavy, hikuái. Reipota aheka avei?
Gracias, che ra’a. Nde guápo.
-Hey Oscar. Do you know where my cow went?
-Your fat cow?
-No, the skinny one.
-Oh yeah, no. Have you looked in the street already?
-Yeah. My cows are the worst.
-They're crazy. Do you want me to look too?
-Thanks dude. You're hard-working.
New Words from this Week
- piru: skinny
- kyra: fat
- ñaña: mean
- tavy: crazy
- guápo/a: hard-working
- vale: adj. hard-working; v. to cost or be worth something
- jopy: adj. cheap; v. to squeeze or press
- ka’u: adj. a drunk; v. to get drunk
- hikuái: them (used at the end of sentences)
- -va: that is, who is, which is
Other words mentioned:
chika/o: girlfriend/boyfriend
chisme: gossip
pórte: situation
Chendales
Do you remember being in science class as a kid and looking at a chart of the periodic table of elements? Do you remember how all the elements are snuggled together in one chart, and then there’s like this whole other group that’s not even attached. And you thought: What’s so special about that group that they’re not even hanging out with all the other elements?
Well today we’re going to talk about the Guaraní version of those other elements. These are just off to the side in their own little clique.
They're called Chendales. These are just verbs conjugated in an entirely different way. They can also be adjectives or adverbs.
There’s some debate about whether Chendales are verbs or not. But we don’t care about that, we just want to know how to use them. The job of chendales is to usually to say that the subject, such as you, has a quality, is in a certain state or has a possession.
Let’s talk about that with ourselves, or che. The first use, to say that you have a quality, you would use an adjective, such as to say, "I’m pretty". Let’s use porã. You would start with che and then just attach che again to the verb. The pronoun, che, becomes the driver car. Che che porã. Since the che is repeated, many times it’s just left off. Che porã.
To describe a state you’re in, this is where it really gets fun. Let’s use the most popular one in Paraguay, kaigue. Kaigue translates to sluggish, as in lacking in energy. Kai is the word for burned, so I think it’s kind of like burned out. It’s 100 degrees outside and you don’t feel like doing anything. Che kaigue you might say. Or Che kaigue hína for I don’t feel like doing anything right now. Or Che kaigue che ra’a for "Dude I don’t feel like doing anything."
First let’s go through all the beginnings. They roughly follow the pattern of regular pronouns, but naturally with some curveballs thrown in.
First we had che, to say, I’m pretty. Che che porã.
The next is Nde. Nde nde kaigue. But here come the nasals, such as porã. The d in nde doesn’t want to hang out with the nasals, so when we want to say "You are pretty", we have to say nde neporã, or just Ne porã. This pattern will be followed with other pronouns, that the d will disappear with nasals.
Such as ñande. We are all pretty. Ñande ñane porã, but people will just say ñane porã. "We are all feeling lazy." Ñande kaigue.
Ore will stay the same, "Just us are lazy." Ore ore kaigue or just ore kaigue.
Peẽ is going to change a little bit and become Pende, or, with nasals, pene. Peẽ pene porã.
Or, sometimes, people will just ignore the whole nasals thing altogether and just say Pende porã and nde porã.
Now let’s talk about the beginnings for him, her and them, that ha’e and ha’ekuéra. This is super weird. The beginning for that is just an i, pronounced “E.”
Ha’e ikaigue. Karen iporã. This will change when the adjective begins with a vowel, but we are going to worry about that later.
You can use these with all the fun cabooses we’ve already learned. I’m feeling lazy already would be Che kaiguéma. “She will be pretty tonight” would be Ha’e iporãta ko pyharépe.
Now let’s look at some states of being that we might use. These are fun because people just throw them out in little bits, so you’re more likely to recognize them sooner and be able to use them easily. Che kaigue is practically the motto of Paraguay.
Another good one is to say, “I’m broke!” which is Che sogue. As I said, the correct form is Che che sogue, but I hear that so little that we’ll just do the Che sogue! How would you say, “Liam is broke already”? Liam isoguema.
Then there’s another important one, "to be hungry". This is vare’a. Che vare’áma is "I’m hungry already." Che vare’a hína is "I’m hungry!" Or you could combine the two: Che vare’áma hína. How would you say, “We all are hungry”? Ñande vare’a. What does this mean: Pauli ivare’áta. “Pauli is going to be hungry.”
If you’re feeling tired, like the tired you feel after working all day, you would use the word kane’o. After doing a bunch of chores, you might fall into a chair and say Che kane’õma. "I’m tired already."
There are other chendales that are more like action verbs. A good one is japu, which means "to lie or be a liar". You will hear this all the time when one friend is calling out another one out.
And for the last verb let’s look at, to remember, which is mandu’a. "I remember" is Che mandu’a. You’ll hear a lot, Ah, che mandu’áma. "I remember now."
Now we’re going to look at two really fun cabooses. They are ite and iterei. A lot of people who speak Guaraní say it’s much better than Spanish for expressing yourself and these are kind of part of that. They are for exaggerating your words. You will hear them all the time.
I’m was explaining this to my friend and she asked me what the equivalent was in English. For iterei, it’s so. Like "I’m sooooo tired." For this you would say Che kane’õiterei.
For ite, it’s more like totally. "I’m totally exhausted." Che kane’õite.
You can use these with regular verbs. With verbs, iterei means a lot. Amba’apoiterei means “I work a lot.”
These change a little bit, depending on in what letter the word ends. What I’m going to tell you hear isn’t the most important thing in the world, it just fits. Get the usage down first, then you can come back and perfect this part.
You are going to use ite and iterei with words that end in the strong vowel a, e, o.
But the beginning i will change to an e when the word ends with a weak vowel i,u or y.
Also, you just drop the beginning vowel if the word ends in a weak a,e, or o. Confusing, see? But just listen up for the changes. You'll be fine. Stop crying. I said stop crying.
The opposite of iterei and ite is ‘imi. This means a little bit. With adjective it can mean more or less, or kind of. To say “I’m a little bit hungry” would be Che vare’a’imi. How would you say, I’m a little tired? Che kane’õ’imi.
Soooooooooo....let's review
FYI: I will be mixing in some verbs from the first group of verbs from the previous podcast.
1. Do you remember already?
Ne mandu’áma piko?
2. He’s totally broke.
Ha’e isoguete.
3. You are going to be sluggish this afternoon.
Nde kaigueta ko ka’arúpe.
4. You’re lying
Nde japu hína.
5. I am so hungry right now.
Che vare’aiterei ko’ãga.
6. Shola was sluggish yesterday.
Shola ikaigue kuri kuehe.
7. Yesterday I bought sushi and now I am really broke.
Kuehe ajogua kuri sushi ha ko’ãga che sogueterei.
8. Dude I’m so bummin'.
Che kaigue, che ra’a.
9. Mateo’s looking for his cow.
Mateo oheka ivaka(pe). *With animals, you can use the pe, like you do with humans, or leave it off like you do with things. Maybe it depends on if you're a vegetarian or not. *
10. I was so hungry.
Che vare’aiterei kuri.
Now Guaraní first.
1. Apytase ko’ápe porque che kaigue.
I want to stay here because I’m feeling lazy.
2. Egueraha ko pizza Juliópe porque ivare’áma.
Take this pizza to Julio because he’s hungry.
3. Che avy’a porque Oscar oguahẽta ko’ára.
I’m happy because Oscar is going to arrive today.
4. Moõ piko amoĩ ra’e che pizza? Che vare’áma ha ha’use!
Where did I put my pizza? I’m hungry and I want to eat!
5. Ame’ẽ kuri che ipod Sashápe.
I gave my ipod to Sasha.
6. Mba’e piko rejogua?
What did you buy?
7. Egueraha ko pizza Spencerpe.
Take this pizza to Spencer.
8. Ejapomína la terere. Che kaigue’imi.
Please make the terere. I’m feeling a little lazy.
9. Ko’ẽro chemandu’áta.
Tomorrow I’ll remember.
10. Japracticáma
We practiced already.
New words for this episode.
1. pende/pene: peẽ beginning for chendales
2. i: chendal beginning for he/she/them
3. kaigue: to be sluggish
4. sogue: to be broke
5. vare’a: to be hungry
6. japu: to be a liar or to be lying
7. mandu’a: to remember
8. ite/ete/te: totally
9. iterei/eterei/terei: very or a lot
10. 'imi: a little bit
Well today we’re going to talk about the Guaraní version of those other elements. These are just off to the side in their own little clique.
They're called Chendales. These are just verbs conjugated in an entirely different way. They can also be adjectives or adverbs.
There’s some debate about whether Chendales are verbs or not. But we don’t care about that, we just want to know how to use them. The job of chendales is to usually to say that the subject, such as you, has a quality, is in a certain state or has a possession.
Let’s talk about that with ourselves, or che. The first use, to say that you have a quality, you would use an adjective, such as to say, "I’m pretty". Let’s use porã. You would start with che and then just attach che again to the verb. The pronoun, che, becomes the driver car. Che che porã. Since the che is repeated, many times it’s just left off. Che porã.
To describe a state you’re in, this is where it really gets fun. Let’s use the most popular one in Paraguay, kaigue. Kaigue translates to sluggish, as in lacking in energy. Kai is the word for burned, so I think it’s kind of like burned out. It’s 100 degrees outside and you don’t feel like doing anything. Che kaigue you might say. Or Che kaigue hína for I don’t feel like doing anything right now. Or Che kaigue che ra’a for "Dude I don’t feel like doing anything."
First let’s go through all the beginnings. They roughly follow the pattern of regular pronouns, but naturally with some curveballs thrown in.
First we had che, to say, I’m pretty. Che che porã.
The next is Nde. Nde nde kaigue. But here come the nasals, such as porã. The d in nde doesn’t want to hang out with the nasals, so when we want to say "You are pretty", we have to say nde neporã, or just Ne porã. This pattern will be followed with other pronouns, that the d will disappear with nasals.
Such as ñande. We are all pretty. Ñande ñane porã, but people will just say ñane porã. "We are all feeling lazy." Ñande kaigue.
Ore will stay the same, "Just us are lazy." Ore ore kaigue or just ore kaigue.
Peẽ is going to change a little bit and become Pende, or, with nasals, pene. Peẽ pene porã.
Or, sometimes, people will just ignore the whole nasals thing altogether and just say Pende porã and nde porã.
Now let’s talk about the beginnings for him, her and them, that ha’e and ha’ekuéra. This is super weird. The beginning for that is just an i, pronounced “E.”
Ha’e ikaigue. Karen iporã. This will change when the adjective begins with a vowel, but we are going to worry about that later.
You can use these with all the fun cabooses we’ve already learned. I’m feeling lazy already would be Che kaiguéma. “She will be pretty tonight” would be Ha’e iporãta ko pyharépe.
Now let’s look at some states of being that we might use. These are fun because people just throw them out in little bits, so you’re more likely to recognize them sooner and be able to use them easily. Che kaigue is practically the motto of Paraguay.
Another good one is to say, “I’m broke!” which is Che sogue. As I said, the correct form is Che che sogue, but I hear that so little that we’ll just do the Che sogue! How would you say, “Liam is broke already”? Liam isoguema.
Then there’s another important one, "to be hungry". This is vare’a. Che vare’áma is "I’m hungry already." Che vare’a hína is "I’m hungry!" Or you could combine the two: Che vare’áma hína. How would you say, “We all are hungry”? Ñande vare’a. What does this mean: Pauli ivare’áta. “Pauli is going to be hungry.”
If you’re feeling tired, like the tired you feel after working all day, you would use the word kane’o. After doing a bunch of chores, you might fall into a chair and say Che kane’õma. "I’m tired already."
There are other chendales that are more like action verbs. A good one is japu, which means "to lie or be a liar". You will hear this all the time when one friend is calling out another one out.
And for the last verb let’s look at, to remember, which is mandu’a. "I remember" is Che mandu’a. You’ll hear a lot, Ah, che mandu’áma. "I remember now."
Now we’re going to look at two really fun cabooses. They are ite and iterei. A lot of people who speak Guaraní say it’s much better than Spanish for expressing yourself and these are kind of part of that. They are for exaggerating your words. You will hear them all the time.
I’m was explaining this to my friend and she asked me what the equivalent was in English. For iterei, it’s so. Like "I’m sooooo tired." For this you would say Che kane’õiterei.
For ite, it’s more like totally. "I’m totally exhausted." Che kane’õite.
You can use these with regular verbs. With verbs, iterei means a lot. Amba’apoiterei means “I work a lot.”
These change a little bit, depending on in what letter the word ends. What I’m going to tell you hear isn’t the most important thing in the world, it just fits. Get the usage down first, then you can come back and perfect this part.You are going to use ite and iterei with words that end in the strong vowel a, e, o.
But the beginning i will change to an e when the word ends with a weak vowel i,u or y.
Also, you just drop the beginning vowel if the word ends in a weak a,e, or o. Confusing, see? But just listen up for the changes. You'll be fine. Stop crying. I said stop crying.
The opposite of iterei and ite is ‘imi. This means a little bit. With adjective it can mean more or less, or kind of. To say “I’m a little bit hungry” would be Che vare’a’imi. How would you say, I’m a little tired? Che kane’õ’imi.
Soooooooooo....let's review
FYI: I will be mixing in some verbs from the first group of verbs from the previous podcast.
1. Do you remember already?
Ne mandu’áma piko?
2. He’s totally broke.
Ha’e isoguete.
3. You are going to be sluggish this afternoon.
Nde kaigueta ko ka’arúpe.
4. You’re lying
Nde japu hína.
5. I am so hungry right now.
Che vare’aiterei ko’ãga.
6. Shola was sluggish yesterday.
Shola ikaigue kuri kuehe.
7. Yesterday I bought sushi and now I am really broke.
Kuehe ajogua kuri sushi ha ko’ãga che sogueterei.
8. Dude I’m so bummin'.
Che kaigue, che ra’a.
9. Mateo’s looking for his cow.
Mateo oheka ivaka(pe). *With animals, you can use the pe, like you do with humans, or leave it off like you do with things. Maybe it depends on if you're a vegetarian or not. *
10. I was so hungry.
Che vare’aiterei kuri.
Now Guaraní first.
1. Apytase ko’ápe porque che kaigue.
I want to stay here because I’m feeling lazy.
2. Egueraha ko pizza Juliópe porque ivare’áma.
Take this pizza to Julio because he’s hungry.
3. Che avy’a porque Oscar oguahẽta ko’ára.
I’m happy because Oscar is going to arrive today.
4. Moõ piko amoĩ ra’e che pizza? Che vare’áma ha ha’use!
Where did I put my pizza? I’m hungry and I want to eat!
5. Ame’ẽ kuri che ipod Sashápe.
I gave my ipod to Sasha.
6. Mba’e piko rejogua?
What did you buy?
7. Egueraha ko pizza Spencerpe.
Take this pizza to Spencer.
8. Ejapomína la terere. Che kaigue’imi.
Please make the terere. I’m feeling a little lazy.
9. Ko’ẽro chemandu’áta.
Tomorrow I’ll remember.
10. Japracticáma
We practiced already.
New words for this episode.
1. pende/pene: peẽ beginning for chendales
2. i: chendal beginning for he/she/them
3. kaigue: to be sluggish
4. sogue: to be broke
5. vare’a: to be hungry
6. japu: to be a liar or to be lying
7. mandu’a: to remember
8. ite/ete/te: totally
9. iterei/eterei/terei: very or a lot
10. 'imi: a little bit
Episode 13: Let’s talk REHE rehe
Check out the new video!
During the Verb Extravaganza we mentioned a few verbs that took the rehe form, without really explaining what the rehe form is. And I thought, "If I were listening to this podcast, I might have said, 'Well thanks a lot jerk face.'" So, in an effort to not be a jerk face, I’m going to go ahead and explain what rehe is. We’re also going to talk about how it changes when it’s mixed with pronouns.
The tough thing about rehe is that it doesn’t have a very clean-cut definition. Rehe is like the Spanish word por, which still gives me trouble, because it can be translated to so many different little words.
When used with verbs, rehe latches on to the back of the person or thing receiving the verb, a lot like -pe. It can translate to mean you’re doing that verb to a person, about a person, on a person, or because of a person. The best thing to do is just memorize which verbs use it.
Another thing about rehe is that it can be shortened to just re. But for our purposes right now, we’re just going to use rehe.
REHE with Pronouns
One of the uses of rehe is to mean at, as in, to look at. Maña is one of the verbs we went over in the last episode that uses rehe, and it means to look at something, like if you said "I’m looking at Sasha", you would say, Amaña Sasha rehe. Rehe is just kind of like a replacement for pe that you use with a short list of verbs.
Rehe gets a little special when mixed with the pronouns, such as che, nde, and ha’e. This is a pattern we will begin to see with a lot of things. With many cabooses, including -pe, when we mix them with the pronouns, they have a slightly different pattern. And usually, the pattern goes all out of whack when it comes to mixing it with ha’e and ha’ekuéra. Let’s check out how it works with rehe.
Ok, so how about if someone’s looking at me? In this case “at me” would be cherehe. “At you” would be nderehe. So far this list isn’t so crazy, but then we get to looking “at him” or “at her”. This takes a wild turn and is hese, almost nothing like the others in the pattern. So “I look at him” is Che amaña hese. We start with che because I’m doing the verb, then amaña, conjugated to go with the che, and then hese is the “at him.” He is receiving the stare, maybe because he’s hot.
Then we go back to normal. “At just us” is orerehe. “At all of us” is ñanderehe. The you all form, which you’ll remember is peẽ, is a little weird when combined with rehe. It’s penderehe. That pende will replace peẽ in a lot of these patterns where the pronouns are mixed with cabooses. Lastly we have the them form, which is always going to be buddies with the he or she form. When they are weirdos, they are weirdos together. So to say at them is hesekuéra.
Here’s that list again.
Cherehe
Nderehe
Hese
Orerehe
Ñanderehe
Penderehe
Hesekuéra
Let’s practice that list, and then we’ll move on to more verbs that use rehe.
Katie looks at me.
Katie omaña cherehe.
You look at me.
Nde remaña cherehe.
He looks at me.
Ha’e omaña cherehe.
Katie looks at Luis.
Katie omaña Luis rehe.
Katie looks at him.
Katie omaña hese.
I look at them.
Che amaña hesekuéra.
We look at them.
Ore romaña hesekuéra.
They look at us.
Ha’ekuéra omaña orerehe.
They looked at him.
Ha’ekuéra kuri omaña hese.
He looked at them.
Ha’e omaña kuri hesekuéra.
Ok, got it?
More Verbs That Use Rehe
Now we’re going to look at other verbs that use rehe, and how rehe translates in those cases.
When we use rehe with maña, we’re saying that we’re looking at someone. There’s another case where rehe means "at", and that is with the verb "to laugh", as in to laugh at someone. The verb “to laugh” is puka. I might want to say, “Paraguayans laugh at me,” because it happens so often. That would be, Paraguayos opuka cherehe. Or the Paraguayans might want to say, “We laugh at Paulita.” That would be, Japuka Paulita rehe. How would you say, “I laughed at Rosa.” Che apuka Rosa rehe. What does this mean? Ñande japuka hese. “We laughed at him.”
With some verbs, you might use rehe or pe depending on the situation. Let’s look at these examples where rehe can be translated to mean “about.” The first verb we’ll cover is “to talk.”
If I say, “I’m talking to Pamela,” I would say, Che añe’ẽ Pamelápe. But if I want to say “I’m talking about Pamela,” then I would say, Che añe’ẽ Pamela rehe.
You’re going to use this in two instances. You might want to say people are talking nicely about someone or talking badly about someone. So here you would use oñe’ẽ porã to say, to talk well about someone, to compliment them, or maybe to say good things about them. To say talk badly, we’re going to use the opposite of porã, which is vai. Vai means "ugly" or "bad", or, when used after a verb, "badly". So to say "They speak badly of Rossana", it’s Oñe’ẽ vai Rossana rehe.
Another example of when you could use pe or rehe, depending on the situation, is when using “to ask”, porandu. If I ask someone something directly, I would use pe, because I’m asking them, they are directly receiving my question. “I’ll ask Sandra” is Aporanduta Sandrape. But if I ask about Sandra, then the rehe comes in. “I’ll ask about Sandra” is Aporanduta Sandra rehe. This is also used in to ask for someone. If you go to a house and ask for Sandra, they’ll yell to Sandra: Oporandu nderehe! And in some sentences both the -pe and the rehe might be used. “I will ask Vanessa about Oscar” is Aporanduta Vannessape Oscar rehe.
And just a little side note here.
When you want to add on cabooses to ñe’ẽ pora or ñe’ẽ vai, you would add the caboose after the porã or the vai. This goes for all adverbs. Adverbs you’ll remember from middle school, are words that describe verbs. They’re usually marked with an -ly on the end in English. So, for example, if I wanted to say, "They are going to speak well of him," It would be, Oñe’ẽ porãta hese. Or, they spoke well of him, Oñe’ẽ porã kuri hese. Same thing with any other verb with porã or vai. "She is going to clean well" would be Ha’e omopotĩ porãta. Ok, end of side note.
Rehe as "about"
The next verb that uses rehe as “about” is the word for “to think,” when referring to thinking about something. This word is joparaed from the Spanish pensar to become pensa. So to say, “I think about Oscar” is Apensa Oscar rehe. “Who are you thinking about” would be, Mávarehe repensa hína. It sounds weird to put the rehe on the máva until you think about it in correct grammatical form, which would be, “About whom are you thinking?” There the who and the about are together, just like in Guaraní. How would you say, “Are you thinking about Luis?” Nde repensa hína Luis rehe.
Rehe as _
Sometimes rehe doesn’t really have a good translation in English. It just means that this thing is receiving this special verb that needs rehe.
One example is when you want to say that you need someone for a minute. Mateo talked about this in the last episode. Aikotevẽ nderehe is “I need you for a minute.” How would you say, “Rebecca, Susan needs you for a minute.” Rebecca, Susan oikotevẽ nderehe.
Another one is the word for to touch, which is a new vocab word. This word is poko. I remembered this because it sounds like to poke, which is a kind of touching. “Don’t touch my pizza” is Ani repoko che pizza rehe. Can you tell what this means? Máva piko opoko hína cherehe. “Who’s touching me?” That’s a good one for a crowded Paraguayan bus.
One last one that’s like this is another new vocab word which means “to attend to something” or “to mind something”. This is ñatende. If your cell phone is ringing, you might ask someone to answer it, or attend to it, using this word and rehe after the word celular, which is cell phone in Spanish. Eñatendemi che celular rehe. Or if your little sister Suzy is crying, you might tell your mom, Añatendeta Suzy rehe. "I’m going to attend to Suzy." Or if your water is boiling over and someone sees it, they might yell at you, Eñatendeke la y rehe. Watch that water! *Ñatende can also mean to attend to a customer at a store, to pay attention to someone. When I lost something, my host mom told me Eñatendena (my stuff).*
Rehe as "on your person"
Now let’s look at how you can use rehe to mean “on your person” when talking about wearing something or having something on you.
For example, we can use this with the verb, reko, which means "to have". Let’s ask someone if they have some money on them. Let’s say cinco mil, which is the common way of referring to five thousand Guaranies, about enough to get a hamburger and a coke. So, to say, “Do you have five mil on you?”, you would say, Nde rereko 5 mil nderehe. That nderehe means “on you.” “Do you have your cell on you?” would be, Rereko nde celular nderehe. To say, “I’ve got my cell on me,” would be, Areko che celular cherehe.
Or you could say you’re going to wear something, such as a necklace or jewelry, on you. For this you would use the verb gueraha or raha, that verb that means to take or to wear. And let’s use this with the words for clothes, ao. You know how I remember this word? It sounds like "Ow," and when you’re a girl a lot of times your clothes hurt, so you say “Ow!” If I want to say, I’m going to wear these clothes, I would say, Aguerahata ko ao cherehe. To say, “Fred wore this shirt this morning” is Fred ogueraha hese ko ao ko pyhareve. Can you tell what this means: Reguerahata ko ao nderehe ko pyhare. “Are you going to wear these clothes tonight?”
Rehe as "for"
We use this with the word for “to pray”, which is ñembo’e. If you want to say, “I pray for you,” it’s Añembo’e nderehe. “She prays for Miguel” is Oñembo’e Miguel rehe. “She prays for him” is Oñembo’e hese.
And now let’s talk about rehe as it’s used like any ol’ caboose. In these cases, it’s more likely just going to be re, so to get you used to that, we’ll use re in the examples. In many cases, -re like this translates to “for.”
You already use this caboose. It’s tucked in there in the word for why, mba’ére. So what does mba’ére break down to? Mba’e is what, and re is for, so mba’ére breaks down to “for what”, which is another way to say, why?
You might use re to say, I bought this pizza for cinco mil. Let’s break down the sentence. For I bought, we’re going to use the verb jogua, "to buy". Che ajogua. This pizza. ko pizza. For cinco mil. Cinco milre. The “for” gets put on the back, which is weird for us English speakers. Che ajogua ko pizza cinco milre.
To say, “How much did you buy this pizza for?”, It again might make more sense to rearrange it in the grammatically correct way: “For how much did you buy this pizza?” Because here, like in Guaraní, the for is together with the “how much.” In Guarani, you’re going to latch the re onto the word mbóy. You’ll remember that mbóy means “how much” or “how many”. So then “ For how much did you buy this pizza?” is Mbóyre rejogua ra’e ko pizza.
This kind of “for” mean “in exchange for something.” Along these lines you might say, "I paid for this month," for which we’re going to use the Spanish word mes for month. Apaga ko mesre. "He’s going to pay for this month." Opagáta ko mesre. Or, "I already paid for you." You might use this example on a bus. Apagáma nderehe. How would you ask someone, “Could you pay for me?” Ikatu repaga cherehe.
Or you might use “for” as in a length of time. For example, “I’m going to Brazil for two months”. For the two months, you would use the Spanish dos meses. Ahata Brazilpe dos mesre.
This leads us to another thing they say, which is when you want someone else to decide. This translates to “por vos” in Spanish, or “depende de vos.” Like, it depends on you. If someone asks what you want for lunch, you might say, depending on you, which would be nderehe and then they add on a little n-t-e which we’ll cover more later. So it comes out, nderehente. It unfortunately doesn’t have a very clean translation, but what you need to know is that if you want someone else to decide, you would just say to them, nderehente. For example, if someone asks what movie you want to watch, and you want to say, "I don’t know, whatever you want," you could say, Ndaikuaái. Nderehente.
Other uses for Re(he) as a caboose
Re can also means “in”. You would use this to say you saw someone in the street. The word for street is tape. I remembered this because it’s spelled like tape, and from up high a road just looks like a long piece of tape. So to say, "I saw Julia in the street" would be Ahecha Juliape tapére.
Re can also mean "through" or "by way of", as in, “I’ll go by way of this road.” Ahata ko tapére.
One last way you can use re is to mean “with,” when referring to food. As in, "I want to eat Lucky Charms with milk". The word for milk is kamby. With milk, then, is kambýre. Ha’use Lucky Charms kambýre. How would you say, “They ate pizza with cheese.” Ha’ekuéra ho’u pizza kesúre.
Ok, to review, let’s go over verbs that use rehe.
Rehe as “for”
ñembo’e: to pray for someone
Rehe as “at”
maña: to stare at
puka: to laugh at
Rehe as “on”
gueraha: to wear on
reko: to have on you
Rehe as “about”
porandu: to ask about
ñe’ẽ porã/vai: to speak well/badly about
pensa: to think about
Rehe to indicate reception of verb
kotevẽ: to need someone for a moment
ñatende: to attend to something
poko: to touch something
New words
rehe/re: for, about, of, on
vai: ugly or bad
pensa: to think
ñatende: to attend to something
poko: to touch
tape: street
hese: about, to, or for him or her
hesekuéra: about, to or for them
penderehe: about, to or for you all
ao: clothes
Examples:
Oscar, mba’e óra recenase.
Ndaikuaái, nderehénte.
Hmm, apensa hína pizzarehe. Nde re’use,
Héẽ, ha’use pizza kesúre.
Nde recocinata?
Nahániri. Nde.
Bueno.
Oscar, what time do you want to eat dinner?
I don’t know, depends on you.
I’m thinking about pizza. Do you want to eat that?
Yeah, I want to eat pizza with cheese.
Are you going to cook it.
Nope. You are.
Alright.
1. They talk badly about him.
Ha’ekuéra oñe’ẽ vai hese.
2. What are you looking at?
Mba’ére remaña hína?
3. Mariela, I need you for a moment.
Mariela, aikotevẽ nderehe.
4. They laughed at me at school.
Ha’ekuéra opuka cherehe escuelápe.
5. I’m going to stay in Asunción for two months.
Apytata Paraguaýpe dos mesre.
6. Don’t touch my pizza.
Ani repoko che pizza rehe.
7. Please pray for Susan.
Eñembo’emi Susan rehe.
8. I’m thinking about sushi.
Apensa hína sushi rehe.
9. For how much did you buy your cow?
Mbóyre rejogua ra’e nde vaka?
10. Do you have your cell phone on you?
Nde rereko nde celular nderehe?
Now for the Guarani first. With some of these we’re going to practice rehe being shortened to re, so listen up for that.
1. Ani reñe’ẽ vai hese.
Don’t talk badly about him.
2. Agueraháta ko ao cherehe.
I’m going to wear these clothes.
3. Nde vaka oho tapére.
Your cow went in the street.
4. Mba’ére repensa hína?
What are you thinking about?
5. Ha’use pizza kesúre.
I want to eat pizza with cheese.
6. Eñatendemi che celulare.
Answer my cell please.
7. Ha’ekuéra opuka che aóre.
They’re laughing at my clothes.
8. Che érmana opensa hína Juliore.
My sister is thinking about Julio.
9. Aháta escuelápe. Eñatende ne érmanare.
I’m going to school. Watch your sister.
10. Daniel oñe’ẽ porã Tiffanyre.
Daniel speaks well of Tiffany.
More verbs that use rehe if you want to work ahead. My you are studious.
During the Verb Extravaganza we mentioned a few verbs that took the rehe form, without really explaining what the rehe form is. And I thought, "If I were listening to this podcast, I might have said, 'Well thanks a lot jerk face.'" So, in an effort to not be a jerk face, I’m going to go ahead and explain what rehe is. We’re also going to talk about how it changes when it’s mixed with pronouns.
The tough thing about rehe is that it doesn’t have a very clean-cut definition. Rehe is like the Spanish word por, which still gives me trouble, because it can be translated to so many different little words.
When used with verbs, rehe latches on to the back of the person or thing receiving the verb, a lot like -pe. It can translate to mean you’re doing that verb to a person, about a person, on a person, or because of a person. The best thing to do is just memorize which verbs use it.
Another thing about rehe is that it can be shortened to just re. But for our purposes right now, we’re just going to use rehe.
REHE with Pronouns
One of the uses of rehe is to mean at, as in, to look at. Maña is one of the verbs we went over in the last episode that uses rehe, and it means to look at something, like if you said "I’m looking at Sasha", you would say, Amaña Sasha rehe. Rehe is just kind of like a replacement for pe that you use with a short list of verbs.
Rehe gets a little special when mixed with the pronouns, such as che, nde, and ha’e. This is a pattern we will begin to see with a lot of things. With many cabooses, including -pe, when we mix them with the pronouns, they have a slightly different pattern. And usually, the pattern goes all out of whack when it comes to mixing it with ha’e and ha’ekuéra. Let’s check out how it works with rehe.
Ok, so how about if someone’s looking at me? In this case “at me” would be cherehe. “At you” would be nderehe. So far this list isn’t so crazy, but then we get to looking “at him” or “at her”. This takes a wild turn and is hese, almost nothing like the others in the pattern. So “I look at him” is Che amaña hese. We start with che because I’m doing the verb, then amaña, conjugated to go with the che, and then hese is the “at him.” He is receiving the stare, maybe because he’s hot.
Then we go back to normal. “At just us” is orerehe. “At all of us” is ñanderehe. The you all form, which you’ll remember is peẽ, is a little weird when combined with rehe. It’s penderehe. That pende will replace peẽ in a lot of these patterns where the pronouns are mixed with cabooses. Lastly we have the them form, which is always going to be buddies with the he or she form. When they are weirdos, they are weirdos together. So to say at them is hesekuéra.
Here’s that list again.
Cherehe
Nderehe
Hese
Orerehe
Ñanderehe
Penderehe
Hesekuéra
Let’s practice that list, and then we’ll move on to more verbs that use rehe.
Katie looks at me.
Katie omaña cherehe.
You look at me.
Nde remaña cherehe.
He looks at me.
Ha’e omaña cherehe.
Katie looks at Luis.
Katie omaña Luis rehe.
Katie looks at him.
Katie omaña hese.
I look at them.
Che amaña hesekuéra.
We look at them.
Ore romaña hesekuéra.
They look at us.
Ha’ekuéra omaña orerehe.
They looked at him.
Ha’ekuéra kuri omaña hese.
He looked at them.
Ha’e omaña kuri hesekuéra.
Ok, got it?
More Verbs That Use Rehe
Now we’re going to look at other verbs that use rehe, and how rehe translates in those cases.
When we use rehe with maña, we’re saying that we’re looking at someone. There’s another case where rehe means "at", and that is with the verb "to laugh", as in to laugh at someone. The verb “to laugh” is puka. I might want to say, “Paraguayans laugh at me,” because it happens so often. That would be, Paraguayos opuka cherehe. Or the Paraguayans might want to say, “We laugh at Paulita.” That would be, Japuka Paulita rehe. How would you say, “I laughed at Rosa.” Che apuka Rosa rehe. What does this mean? Ñande japuka hese. “We laughed at him.”
With some verbs, you might use rehe or pe depending on the situation. Let’s look at these examples where rehe can be translated to mean “about.” The first verb we’ll cover is “to talk.”
If I say, “I’m talking to Pamela,” I would say, Che añe’ẽ Pamelápe. But if I want to say “I’m talking about Pamela,” then I would say, Che añe’ẽ Pamela rehe.
You’re going to use this in two instances. You might want to say people are talking nicely about someone or talking badly about someone. So here you would use oñe’ẽ porã to say, to talk well about someone, to compliment them, or maybe to say good things about them. To say talk badly, we’re going to use the opposite of porã, which is vai. Vai means "ugly" or "bad", or, when used after a verb, "badly". So to say "They speak badly of Rossana", it’s Oñe’ẽ vai Rossana rehe.
Another example of when you could use pe or rehe, depending on the situation, is when using “to ask”, porandu. If I ask someone something directly, I would use pe, because I’m asking them, they are directly receiving my question. “I’ll ask Sandra” is Aporanduta Sandrape. But if I ask about Sandra, then the rehe comes in. “I’ll ask about Sandra” is Aporanduta Sandra rehe. This is also used in to ask for someone. If you go to a house and ask for Sandra, they’ll yell to Sandra: Oporandu nderehe! And in some sentences both the -pe and the rehe might be used. “I will ask Vanessa about Oscar” is Aporanduta Vannessape Oscar rehe.
And just a little side note here.
When you want to add on cabooses to ñe’ẽ pora or ñe’ẽ vai, you would add the caboose after the porã or the vai. This goes for all adverbs. Adverbs you’ll remember from middle school, are words that describe verbs. They’re usually marked with an -ly on the end in English. So, for example, if I wanted to say, "They are going to speak well of him," It would be, Oñe’ẽ porãta hese. Or, they spoke well of him, Oñe’ẽ porã kuri hese. Same thing with any other verb with porã or vai. "She is going to clean well" would be Ha’e omopotĩ porãta. Ok, end of side note.
Rehe as "about"
The next verb that uses rehe as “about” is the word for “to think,” when referring to thinking about something. This word is joparaed from the Spanish pensar to become pensa. So to say, “I think about Oscar” is Apensa Oscar rehe. “Who are you thinking about” would be, Mávarehe repensa hína. It sounds weird to put the rehe on the máva until you think about it in correct grammatical form, which would be, “About whom are you thinking?” There the who and the about are together, just like in Guaraní. How would you say, “Are you thinking about Luis?” Nde repensa hína Luis rehe.
Rehe as _
Sometimes rehe doesn’t really have a good translation in English. It just means that this thing is receiving this special verb that needs rehe.
One example is when you want to say that you need someone for a minute. Mateo talked about this in the last episode. Aikotevẽ nderehe is “I need you for a minute.” How would you say, “Rebecca, Susan needs you for a minute.” Rebecca, Susan oikotevẽ nderehe.
Another one is the word for to touch, which is a new vocab word. This word is poko. I remembered this because it sounds like to poke, which is a kind of touching. “Don’t touch my pizza” is Ani repoko che pizza rehe. Can you tell what this means? Máva piko opoko hína cherehe. “Who’s touching me?” That’s a good one for a crowded Paraguayan bus.
One last one that’s like this is another new vocab word which means “to attend to something” or “to mind something”. This is ñatende. If your cell phone is ringing, you might ask someone to answer it, or attend to it, using this word and rehe after the word celular, which is cell phone in Spanish. Eñatendemi che celular rehe. Or if your little sister Suzy is crying, you might tell your mom, Añatendeta Suzy rehe. "I’m going to attend to Suzy." Or if your water is boiling over and someone sees it, they might yell at you, Eñatendeke la y rehe. Watch that water! *Ñatende can also mean to attend to a customer at a store, to pay attention to someone. When I lost something, my host mom told me Eñatendena (my stuff).*
Rehe as "on your person"
Now let’s look at how you can use rehe to mean “on your person” when talking about wearing something or having something on you.
For example, we can use this with the verb, reko, which means "to have". Let’s ask someone if they have some money on them. Let’s say cinco mil, which is the common way of referring to five thousand Guaranies, about enough to get a hamburger and a coke. So, to say, “Do you have five mil on you?”, you would say, Nde rereko 5 mil nderehe. That nderehe means “on you.” “Do you have your cell on you?” would be, Rereko nde celular nderehe. To say, “I’ve got my cell on me,” would be, Areko che celular cherehe.
Or you could say you’re going to wear something, such as a necklace or jewelry, on you. For this you would use the verb gueraha or raha, that verb that means to take or to wear. And let’s use this with the words for clothes, ao. You know how I remember this word? It sounds like "Ow," and when you’re a girl a lot of times your clothes hurt, so you say “Ow!” If I want to say, I’m going to wear these clothes, I would say, Aguerahata ko ao cherehe. To say, “Fred wore this shirt this morning” is Fred ogueraha hese ko ao ko pyhareve. Can you tell what this means: Reguerahata ko ao nderehe ko pyhare. “Are you going to wear these clothes tonight?”
Rehe as "for"
We use this with the word for “to pray”, which is ñembo’e. If you want to say, “I pray for you,” it’s Añembo’e nderehe. “She prays for Miguel” is Oñembo’e Miguel rehe. “She prays for him” is Oñembo’e hese.
And now let’s talk about rehe as it’s used like any ol’ caboose. In these cases, it’s more likely just going to be re, so to get you used to that, we’ll use re in the examples. In many cases, -re like this translates to “for.”
You already use this caboose. It’s tucked in there in the word for why, mba’ére. So what does mba’ére break down to? Mba’e is what, and re is for, so mba’ére breaks down to “for what”, which is another way to say, why?
You might use re to say, I bought this pizza for cinco mil. Let’s break down the sentence. For I bought, we’re going to use the verb jogua, "to buy". Che ajogua. This pizza. ko pizza. For cinco mil. Cinco milre. The “for” gets put on the back, which is weird for us English speakers. Che ajogua ko pizza cinco milre.
To say, “How much did you buy this pizza for?”, It again might make more sense to rearrange it in the grammatically correct way: “For how much did you buy this pizza?” Because here, like in Guaraní, the for is together with the “how much.” In Guarani, you’re going to latch the re onto the word mbóy. You’ll remember that mbóy means “how much” or “how many”. So then “ For how much did you buy this pizza?” is Mbóyre rejogua ra’e ko pizza.
This kind of “for” mean “in exchange for something.” Along these lines you might say, "I paid for this month," for which we’re going to use the Spanish word mes for month. Apaga ko mesre. "He’s going to pay for this month." Opagáta ko mesre. Or, "I already paid for you." You might use this example on a bus. Apagáma nderehe. How would you ask someone, “Could you pay for me?” Ikatu repaga cherehe.
Or you might use “for” as in a length of time. For example, “I’m going to Brazil for two months”. For the two months, you would use the Spanish dos meses. Ahata Brazilpe dos mesre.
This leads us to another thing they say, which is when you want someone else to decide. This translates to “por vos” in Spanish, or “depende de vos.” Like, it depends on you. If someone asks what you want for lunch, you might say, depending on you, which would be nderehe and then they add on a little n-t-e which we’ll cover more later. So it comes out, nderehente. It unfortunately doesn’t have a very clean translation, but what you need to know is that if you want someone else to decide, you would just say to them, nderehente. For example, if someone asks what movie you want to watch, and you want to say, "I don’t know, whatever you want," you could say, Ndaikuaái. Nderehente.
Other uses for Re(he) as a caboose
Re can also means “in”. You would use this to say you saw someone in the street. The word for street is tape. I remembered this because it’s spelled like tape, and from up high a road just looks like a long piece of tape. So to say, "I saw Julia in the street" would be Ahecha Juliape tapére.
Re can also mean "through" or "by way of", as in, “I’ll go by way of this road.” Ahata ko tapére.
One last way you can use re is to mean “with,” when referring to food. As in, "I want to eat Lucky Charms with milk". The word for milk is kamby. With milk, then, is kambýre. Ha’use Lucky Charms kambýre. How would you say, “They ate pizza with cheese.” Ha’ekuéra ho’u pizza kesúre.
Ok, to review, let’s go over verbs that use rehe.
Rehe as “for”
ñembo’e: to pray for someone
Rehe as “at”
maña: to stare at
puka: to laugh at
Rehe as “on”
gueraha: to wear on
reko: to have on you
Rehe as “about”
porandu: to ask about
ñe’ẽ porã/vai: to speak well/badly about
pensa: to think about
Rehe to indicate reception of verb
kotevẽ: to need someone for a moment
ñatende: to attend to something
poko: to touch something
New words
rehe/re: for, about, of, on
vai: ugly or bad
pensa: to think
ñatende: to attend to something
poko: to touch
tape: street
hese: about, to, or for him or her
hesekuéra: about, to or for them
penderehe: about, to or for you all
ao: clothes
Examples:
Oscar, mba’e óra recenase.
Ndaikuaái, nderehénte.
Hmm, apensa hína pizzarehe. Nde re’use,
Héẽ, ha’use pizza kesúre.
Nde recocinata?
Nahániri. Nde.
Bueno.
Oscar, what time do you want to eat dinner?
I don’t know, depends on you.
I’m thinking about pizza. Do you want to eat that?
Yeah, I want to eat pizza with cheese.
Are you going to cook it.
Nope. You are.
Alright.
1. They talk badly about him.
Ha’ekuéra oñe’ẽ vai hese.
2. What are you looking at?
Mba’ére remaña hína?
3. Mariela, I need you for a moment.
Mariela, aikotevẽ nderehe.
4. They laughed at me at school.
Ha’ekuéra opuka cherehe escuelápe.
5. I’m going to stay in Asunción for two months.
Apytata Paraguaýpe dos mesre.
6. Don’t touch my pizza.
Ani repoko che pizza rehe.
7. Please pray for Susan.
Eñembo’emi Susan rehe.
8. I’m thinking about sushi.
Apensa hína sushi rehe.
9. For how much did you buy your cow?
Mbóyre rejogua ra’e nde vaka?
10. Do you have your cell phone on you?
Nde rereko nde celular nderehe?
Now for the Guarani first. With some of these we’re going to practice rehe being shortened to re, so listen up for that.
1. Ani reñe’ẽ vai hese.
Don’t talk badly about him.
2. Agueraháta ko ao cherehe.
I’m going to wear these clothes.
3. Nde vaka oho tapére.
Your cow went in the street.
4. Mba’ére repensa hína?
What are you thinking about?
5. Ha’use pizza kesúre.
I want to eat pizza with cheese.
6. Eñatendemi che celulare.
Answer my cell please.
7. Ha’ekuéra opuka che aóre.
They’re laughing at my clothes.
8. Che érmana opensa hína Juliore.
My sister is thinking about Julio.
9. Aháta escuelápe. Eñatende ne érmanare.
I’m going to school. Watch your sister.
10. Daniel oñe’ẽ porã Tiffanyre.
Daniel speaks well of Tiffany.
More verbs that use rehe if you want to work ahead. My you are studious.
- pena (something/someone) rehe: to pay attention to or to worry about something/someone
- japysaka (something/someone) rehe: to pay attention, listen to or attend to something/someone
- ñangareko (something/someone) rehe: to care for something/someone
- ma'ẽ (something/someone) rehe: to watch or observe something/someone
- mandu'a (something/someone) rehe: to remember something/someone ***this is a chendale, which we'll talk about in Episode 14***
- japo porã (something/someone) rehe: to do someone good, like medicine
- japo vai (something/someone) rehe: to do you bad, like what greasy chicken wings do to your stomach
- menda (something/someone) rehe: to marry something/someone, or, hopefully, just someone
- jeko (something/someone) rehe: to lean on something/someone. This can be used literally, or figuratively, like leaning on someone as in, using all their money
Episode 12: Verb Extravaganza
Hello there. Now that we’ve talked a lot about verbs, we’ve just got a bunch for you to learn. These all follow the same pattern of just using the verb driver cars we’ve already talked about. There are no new big ideas, so I thought I’d just make one big combo-pack podcast as a vocabulary booster so we can move on to other things.
You may want to use this podcast in one of several ways. I’ve broken the verbs up into 5 groups of 10. What I would suggest is that you learn them one list of 10 at a time. I’m not going to start integrating them all into the podcast reviews at once. I’ll start using the first group first and slowing mix them in by group, so that you can be learning these vocab words along with other new concepts as well. Or you might just want to take a break from listening to the next lesson until you have them all down. Whatever floats your boat.
You might want to listen to the whole list of 50 once, as you might find a word you’ve been wondering how to say. But after that, just focus on one list at a time or you’ll get overwhelmed and make yourself nuts.
I would suggest making flashcards with each word, with the root and then all the conjugations written below. This helps recognize them in conversation, because agueru sounds like a whole different word from pegueru. Then plant those flashcards anywhere you might have using while waiting a few minutes, in your purse or wallet, in your car, in your jail cell...
Jaha!
Group 1: Most Common
Group 2: Things you do during the day
Group 3: Stuff your body does
Group 4: Things you do to or with someone else
Group 5: Random Leftovers
Peho pestudiake!
You may want to use this podcast in one of several ways. I’ve broken the verbs up into 5 groups of 10. What I would suggest is that you learn them one list of 10 at a time. I’m not going to start integrating them all into the podcast reviews at once. I’ll start using the first group first and slowing mix them in by group, so that you can be learning these vocab words along with other new concepts as well. Or you might just want to take a break from listening to the next lesson until you have them all down. Whatever floats your boat.
You might want to listen to the whole list of 50 once, as you might find a word you’ve been wondering how to say. But after that, just focus on one list at a time or you’ll get overwhelmed and make yourself nuts.
I would suggest making flashcards with each word, with the root and then all the conjugations written below. This helps recognize them in conversation, because agueru sounds like a whole different word from pegueru. Then plant those flashcards anywhere you might have using while waiting a few minutes, in your purse or wallet, in your car, in your jail cell...
Jaha!
Group 1: Most Common
- gueru (ru): to bring. Che agueruta kesu. I will bring cheese. The command eru can be used to mean to pass, like "Pass the salt."
- gueraha (raha): to take. Elmer ogueraha kuri pizza escuelápe. Elmer took pizza to school. You can also use this to mean, "to wear."
- maña: to look at or to watch. Emañami. Look.
- heka: to search for something. Aheka hína che érmanope. I’m looking for my brother.
- me’ẽ: to give. Ha’ekuéra ome’ẽse ko ipod Juliope. They want to give this ipod to Julio.
- moĩ: to put. Moõ piko amoĩ ra'e che terere? Where did I put my terere?
- jogua: to buy. Eho ejoguave kesu. Go buy more cheese. This is sometimes used to mean "to look like."
- pyta: to stay or to be located, or to be left. La escuela opyta Paraguaype. The school is located in Asunción. Apytata ape ko kaárukue. I´m gonna stay during this afternoon
- guahẽ: to arrive. Laura oguahẽta ko’ẽrõ. Laura will arrive tomorrow. You will also here guahẽ used as like a word to tell people to enter. Peguahẽ.
- vy’a: to be happy or to have fun. Che avy’a Paraguaipe. I am happy in Paraguay. People will often as you: Revy’a piko Paraguaipe? Are you happy in Paraguay?
Group 2: Things you do during the day
- páy: to wake up. Epáyma! Get up already!
- pu'ã: to get up, like out of bed or stand up, or to figuaratively raise yourself up. Mba’e óra opu’ãta Pooja? What time is Pooja getting up? You'll see a Paraguayan bumper sticker: Ñamopu’ã Paraguay: We’re going to raise up Paraguay.
- rambosa: to eat breakfast. Eju, ñarambosátama. Come, we’re going to eat breakfast now.
- jahu: to shower or bathe. Ahata ajahu. I’m going to shower.
- ñemonde: to dress yourself. Ajahuta ha upéi añemondeta. I’m going to shower and then I’m going to get dressed.
- pytu’u: to rest. Che érmana opytu’usema. My sister wants to rest already. This is sometimes used during terere to mean you’re going to take a break from drinking for a minute.
- karu: to eat lunch or just to eat. Eju jakaru. Come let’s eat.
- cena: to eat dinner (from the spanish cenar). Mba’e ñacenata? What are we having for dinner?
- ñeno: to lay down. Sharon oñenota. Sharon’s going to lay down.
- ke: to sleep. Akesema. I want to sleep already.
Group 3: Stuff your body does
- jeroky: to dance. Jajerokyta ko pyhare? Are we going to dance tonight?
- guata: to walk. Aguatase escuelápe. I want to walk to school.
- purahéi: to sing. María opurahéise. Maria wants to sing.
- guapy: to sit. Peguapyke. Sit!
- hecha: to see. Rehecha piko che sapatu? Have you seen my shoes?
- hendu: to hear. Rehendúpa? Do you hear?
- puka: to laugh. Ha’ekuéra opuka ko pyhare. They laughed this morning.
- mboty: to close. Emboty la puerta. Close the door. Puerta is spanish for door. Because I couldn't say close the cheese.
- typei: to sweep. Etypeimi ko asaje. Please sweep this afternoon.
- johéi: to wash. Ejohéimina la guampa. Please wash the guampa. (Guampa is the cup used to drink terere.)
Group 4: Things you do to or with someone else
- hetũ: to kiss or to smell. Ahetũse Brad Pittpe. I want to kiss Brad Pitt. Or I want to smell Brad Pitt! (The pe is for receiving the action.)
- henói: to call. Ehenói Larape. Call Lara.
- nupã: to punish, to hit or beat. Ainupãse Suzype. I want to beat Suzy.
- mbo’e: to teach. Ambo’eta escuelápe. I’m going to teach in the school.
- ñeha’a: to try or to struggle to do something. As a response to someone asking if you speak Guaraní: Añeha’a hína.
- sapukái: to yell. Mava piko osapukái hína. Who is yelling?
- hayhu: to love. Ahayhu Jesuspe. I love Jesus.
- ha’arõ: to wait. Eha’arõke! Wait!
- tykua: to serve, like terere or maté. Nde retykuata ko’ára. You’re going to serve today.
- su’u: to bite or chew. Ani reisu’u ne érmanape. Don’t bite your sister.
Group 5: Random Leftovers
- ke: entrar (aireal) Peikeke! Enter!
- ñembo’e: to pray. Ahata añembo’e. I’m going to pray.
- kytĩ: to cut. Aikytĩ hína la mandi’o.
- topa: to find. Atopama che vaka. I found my cow already.
- pytyvõ: Eho eipytyvõ ne érmanape. Go help your sister.
- mbogue: to turn off, Embogue che ipod. Turn off my ipod.
- kotevẽ: to need. (aireal). Aikotevẽ terere! (You might say this on the hottest days.)
- pe’a: sacar or to open something: to take something out, remove something. Mba’e repe’a kuri? What did you open?
- porandu: to ask. Eporandu Oscarpe. Ask Oscar.
- scrivi: to write. Ascrivi hína che Messangerpe. I’m writing in my Messenger. (They use Windows Live Messenger a lot in Paraguay!)
Peho pestudiake!
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