Guaraníme

Correction on katu!

2010-09-06T05:47:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-01T10:35:00.001-07:00

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!

-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

2010-05-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

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.

Episode 15: Chendales & Chisme

2010-05-20T09:25:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2010-04-15T12:24:00.000-07:00

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

Episode 13: Let’s talk REHE rehe

2010-03-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

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.

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

This is complicated stuff, so don't get frustrated if you can't remember it all on the first day! Good luck!

Episode 12: Verb Extravaganza

2010-02-12T12:26:00.000-08:00

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

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!

Episode 11: Commando

2010-01-27T11:46:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to episode 11.

Today we’re going to be talking about commands. How do you give commands in Guaraní, to dogs or even people? For once, it’s simple and easy! All you do for a command to one person is put an e on the front of it. It takes the softer e sound. So if I wanted to tell you to study, I’d say, Estudia. If I wanted to tell you to practice, I’d say epractica. How would you tell someone to clean? Emopotĩ.

If you’re talking to more than one person, you put a pe on the front of it, which is easy to remember because you use that beginning when talking to multiple people anyway. So if a teacher wanted to tell all her students to study, she’d say: Pestudia. How would you order a few people make cheese? Pejapo kesu.

Now, some of these commands can come out sounding a little harsh, like, Who do you think you are, ordering me to make cheese? So Paraguayans have some cabooses that they latch on to let the receiver of the command know just how serious you are. The first one translates to “please,” and that is mi. Pejapomi kesu means "Please make cheese." How would you say “Sandra, Please study.” Sandra, estudiami.

The other one is more of a pleading caboose. My host sister uses it all the time when she’s whining to her mom. This is na. It’s kind of like, come on. When a mother has asked her daughter to clean her room three times and is asking her again, she’ll say, Emopotĩna. Or you might hear it like, "Come on, let’s go," which would be jahana. As you see here, you can use that “Let’s” form with these cabooses as well.

Sometimes you’ll hear the mi and the na combined, like, “come on, please. Like, “Mariela, please, come on, make pizza.” Mariela, ejapomina pizza. Sometimes it almost sounds like na should be followed with, “I’ll be your best friend.” So how would you say: “Maria, please cook tonight.” using mi and na? Maria, ecocinamina ko pyhare.

For the next caboose, the gloves come off. This caboose is usually used to mean: "I’m serious." This is ke. Now let’s say that mother has lost her temper and she wants to say, “Clean right now!” She would say, Emopotĩke! Ko’ãga! How would you yell at someone to get out of your house, using that sẽ verb that means to leave? Esẽke!

Ke is not always used for seriousness, but sometimes more for emphasis. For example, I’ve heard it used to encourage customers to come into a shop. Think of it as an exclamation mark on a command, whether good or bad. You’ll also hear this with Jaha, to mean, "Let’s go!" Jahake!

Sometimes you want to tell someone to not do something. For this you would use “don’t” in English, right? Well the equivalent of that is ani. After ani, you would just use the regular driver car, which for one person would be re-, like "Don’t you eat my pizza." Ani re’u che pizza. For more than one person, it’s pe-. For example, "Don’t you all use my shoes." Ani peiporu che sapatu. What would be, to one person: “Don’t use my ipod." Ani reiporu che ipod. How about, to a bunch of people: “Don’t talk right now.” Ani peñe’ẽ ko’ãga. How would you tell someone, “Don’t go to Asuncion tomorrow.” Ani reho Paraguaype ko’ẽrõ.

Sometimes you’ll hear ani by itself, just used to say “Don’t.” Or you might hear Anike!, like when one sister is hitting another sister, for a stronger “Don’t!” with an exclamation mark.

You’ll also hear the caboose ti used with ani, tacked on to the verb, which is like “Please don’t.” Like a negative version of mi. You might hear a father tell his daughter not to go out that night. Ani resẽti ko pyhare. How would you say, “Please don’t drink my terere”? Ani re’uti che terere.

Another caboose you might here with ani is a good one. This is ve. This means "more". You’ll hear Anive like when someone’s tickling someone, to mean, “No more!” But you can use ve with any verb, like to say, “I want to drink more terere.” Aterereseve. How would you ask someone to make more pizza? Ejapove pizza.

The irregular verbs have their own forms of commands. For come it’s eju or peju. For go it’s eho or peho. Eat is he’u. I hear that a lot at the dinner table. He’uke Paulita. for "Eat!" or He’uve for "Eat more!" Or pe’u for more than one person. Say something is ere, the same form for you say. Use peje for multiple people.

Now let us review what we have learned today, my special little students.

-mi: please
-ke: strong command
-na: pleeeease, pleading
ani: don’t
ti: negation on a command
ve: more
eju: come (command)
eho: go (command)
he’u: eat (command)
ere: say (command)

Conversations
Pauli, mb’ae rejapota ko’ara?
Ndaikuaái.
Emopotĩmi ha upei jastudia Guaraní.
Héẽ, bueno.

Pauli, what are you going to do today?
I don’t know.
Please clean and then let’s study Guaraní.
Ok, good.

Convo 2
Oscar, ehomi ecocinama la mandi’o.
Cheiko?
Héẽ, nde.
Mba’ére?
Che acocina kuri kuehe.
Pero aterere hína.
Ehoke!
Oĩma.

Oscar, please go cook the mandioca.
Me?
Yes, you.
Why?
Because I cooked it yesterday.
But I’m drinking terere.
Go!
Ok!

And now sentences...
1. (To a few people) Go study.
Peho pestudia.

2. Come on, please cook pizza.
Ecocinamína pizza.

3. Eat more pizza Julio.
He’uve pizza Julio.

4. Don’t eat more pizza Helen.
Ani re’uve pizza Helen.

5. (To a bunch of people with an exclamation mark.) Get to work!
Pemba’apóke!

6. Don’t talk to Carlos.
Ani reñe’ẽ Carlospe.

7. Don’t come tomorrow.
Ani reju ko’ẽro.

8. (to your siblings) Don’t eat my pizza.
Ani pe’u che pizza.

9. Let’s drink terere!
Jatereréke.

10. (to guests) Eat more!
Pe’uvéke!

11. Mateo, eju jaterere.
Mateo, come here, let’s drink terere.

12. Aníke reiporu che sapatu.
Don’t use my shoes.

13. Anivéna reñe’ẽ.
Please don’t talk more.

14. Eho eñe’ẽ nde érmanandi.
Go talk to your sister.

15. Ani re’uti che terere.
Please don’t drink my terere.

16. Pepracticavéke!
Practice more!

17. Ani recambiati.
Please don’t change.

18. Ani reiporu che ipod ko’ára.
Don’t use my ipod today.

19. Jahana. Atererese.
Let’s go. I want to drink terere.

20. Pestudia ko pyharekue.
Study tonight.

2010-01-19T12:20:00.000-08:00

Episode 10: Jopara!

2009-12-09T06:52:00.000-08:00

In most parts of Paraguay, Spanish and Guaraní are as inseparable as pig fat and ground corn. Sometimes when I ask people if a word is Spanish or Guaraní, they have to think for a minute. They’re so used to just using them together without thinking about where one language ends and the other begins.

Today we’ll talk about how you can use the both languages together. There’s a system for using Spanish verb cars in the Guaraní trains. So if you already know Spanish it’s going to be a big boost. Some Spanish verbs have all but replaced their Guarani counterparts. Although somewhere out there there’s probably a Guaraní word for it, almost no one knows it or uses it.

Jaha!

The first Spanish verb we’ll look at is the word for “to practice”, which is practicar. If you asked someone how to say “to practice” in Guaraní, they’d probably just shrug and say, Practica no más, like, "Just use the Spanish." So let’s say we want to use this word to say in our Guaraní Jopara, "I’m practicing." On the front end, what you’re going to do is simply add the driver car. For I, che, it would be the a, right?

On the back end, you’ll notice that all verbs in Spanish end in an “r.” That “r” is going to be karate chopped off and left to die in the river. So now we have Che apractica. And then you can just add on whatever caboose you want.

"I’m practicing." Che apractica hína.
"I want to practice. Che apracticáse.
Nde repracticátapa. “Are you going to practice?”

Another word used like this is the word vender, which means "to sell". Let’s practice using this to say, "You all sell pizza." Take vender and add the driver car we need, which for you all is pe. Then we’ll karate chop off the r, and we have Pevende pizza. So how would you ask, using piko, "Do you all sell terere?" Peẽ pevende piko terere. How would you say “I sell terere?” Che avende terere. How about “They sell pizza." Ha’ekuéra ovende pizza. And what does this mean: Ñande ñavende y. “We sell water.” There you heard that ña, because vender has an n in it, so it’s considered nasal.

Moving on we got cocinar, "to cook". “I will cook tonight.” Che acocinata ko pyhare. “You all will cook today.” Peẽ pecocinata ko’ára. And what does this mean: Nde recocina ra’e keuhe. “Did you cook yesterday?”

Something you should be doing a lot of is studying. “To study” is estudiar. If the Spanish verb starts with a vowel, it kind of gets eaten up by the Guaraní beginning. So "I study" is Che astudia. "You study" is Nde restudia. “Are you all studying?” is Peẽ pestudia piko.

Another good one is “to change”, which is cambiar. So how would you accusingly say to someone, “You changed.” Nde recambia kuri. How about, “They will change.” Ha’ekuéra ocambiata. And what does this mean: Ore rocambiase. We want to change.

Other commonly mixed Spanish verbs:
English → Spanish → Guaraní 

to read → leer → lee
to eat dinner → cenar → cena 
to iron → planchar → plancha
 to cross → cruzar → cruza
 to rent → alquilar → alquila
 to invite → invitar → invita
 to accompany → to acompañar → acompaña
 to pay → pagar → paga

Other ways in which Guaraní and Spanish are mixed:

A lot of times a Guaraní caboose is just latched on to a Spanish word. This happens a lot with question cabooses. You’ll hear, for example, Quépa. Which is the Spanish qué, for "what", and the question caboose, pa, to mean, “What?” Or you’ll hear Quién piko, with the Spanish quién, for “who” and the question caboose piko. *Another good one is sipa? Which is si, "yes" in spanish, and the question caboose -pa. Kind of like Right? Yeah?*

Another thing that is tacked on is that -pe, which means in, to or at. "At school" would be escuelápe, with the Spanish escuela for school. "At the corner" would be Esquinápe, with the Spanish esquina for corner. And here’s where things start to make me crazy. Esquina has an n in it, so you’d think it was nasal and that you would use -me, but people just don’t. They use -pe. That’s all I have in the way of explanation.

Also, you’ll never hear the days of the week in Guaraní. But you will hear that -kue ending, for example, to say, on Saturdays. "On Saturdays I go out." You would take the Spanish word for Saturday, which is sábado, and add the -kue. Sabadokue asẽ. "On Saturdays I go out."

Let’s go over the days of the week and save you a Google search.
Monday is lunes.
Tuesday is martes
Wednesday is miércoles
Thursday is jueves
Friday is viernes
Saturday is sábado
Sunday is domingo.

"On Mondays they work." Monday being lunes, you would say, Luneskue omba’apo. You can use this as well to say something like, "Monday afternoon." That would be Lunes ka’aru. "Thursday night." Jueves pyhare.
Also, when you want to say you’re going to do something during a certain month, you would use the month plus -pe, again -pe whether or not they have an m or n.

Those Spanish months are:
January: enero
February: febrero
March: marzo
April: abril
May: mayo
June: junio
July: julio
August: agosto
September: septiembre
October: octubre
November: noviembre
December: diciembre

So Ahata Brazilpe enerope is “I’m going to Brazil in January.”

One more thing is that you will use Spanish for numbers higher than 5, but we’ll have to go over those another time.

Sometimes the word will be in Spanish, but they’ll just pronounce it with the Guaraní accent. What is that? In Guaraní, words are stressed on the last syllable, unless there’s an accent in another part of the word. For example, the word for table in Spanish is mesa. When you want to Guaraníze the word, it becomes, mes-A (accent on that last a). Another word that is Guaranízed is vaca, which in Spanish is cows. In Guaraní, it’s vaka, and the c turns into a k. This happens a lot in Jopara.

Another letter that changes is the h. In Spanish, you don’t pronounce h’s. The word for "sister" is hermana, and it begins with an invisible h. When this word get’s Guaranízed, it’s ermána, without the h. Because in Guaraní, you pronounce h. So to keep the pronunciation, they take off the h. Also, an accent appears over the middle a, so that it’s not hermanA. The placement of accent marks is about the last thing you need to worry about, but just know that if a word doesn’t end with an emphasis, there’s an accent mark in there somewhere. While we’re on the subject, you should know that the word for "brother" is ermáno.  

 And here are two words that are just Spanish Spanish, mixed in. The first one is for "but", like “I wanted to eat ice cream, but my stupid brother ate it all.” This kind of but is just pero in Spanish. I wanted to eat ice cream, pero my stupid brother ate it all. Let’s say in Guaraní, “Julie says yes, but Marcos says no”. Julie he’i héẽ, pero Marcos he’i nahániri. How about, “I want to eat sushi, but you want to eat pizza”. Che ha’use sushi, pero nde re’use pizza. And what does this mean: Añe’ẽse Oscarpe pero ohoma. “I want to talk to Oscar but he went already.”

  Another good one is the word for “because,” which is porque. Why are you going to the kitchen? Porque ha'use pizza. "Because I want to eat pizza."

Another word you will use is the word for "the". In Spanish, this can be feminine, la, or masculine, el. In Guaraní, you just use the feminine la borrowed from Spanish. You’ve said this before in Mba’e la pórte. La pórte is "The situation". So Mba’e la pórte is “What’s the situation?” or “What’s up?”

There aren’t strict rules about it, but I think you can just hear when you should put in the. Like if you were planning on cooking a pizza and you wanted to ask, "Did you cook the pizza?", you would use it. Nde recocinama la pizza.

But continuing the the "Me Tarzan, you Jane" kind of sound, you can use the la or many times just leave it out.

 There’s this other set of words that are almost like Spanish, but I think they were Guaranízed farther back. It’s not just one letter that’s changed, but it’s almost like someone who speaks Guaraní trying to speak in Spanish.   

Here’s an example. The word for "shoe" in Spanish is zapato. The word for shoe in Guaraní is sapatu. I doubt the Guaraní people were saying sapatu for shoe before the Spanish Conquistadors came, but now it’s considered part of the language. “I want to use your shoes” would be Che aiporuse nde sapatu. You’ll notice they don’t put a plural on this for shoes, shoe or shoes is sapatu. “I have one shoe” would be Che areko peteĩ sapatu. What would be, “Where are my shoes,” using piko as the question word. Moõ piko oime che sapatu.

Another is the Spanish word queso, which means "cheese", and is kesu in Guaraní. "I want to eat cheese" would be Ha’use kesu. "Do you want to eat cheese" would be Nde re’use piko kesu. How about, "My cheese is all gone?" Opa che kesu.   

For one last word, let’s talk about how they say Paraguay in Guaraní. When you want to say the country of Paraguay, it’s Paraguai, and you change the ending y to an i. They do use that spelling with the y, but it’s the name for the capital city, Asunción. And since it ends in y, it’s pronounced Paraguay (with the ug). To say, "in Asunción", it’s Paraguaýpe. "I’m going to go to Asunción" is Ahata Paraguaýpe. "They will come to Asunción tomorrow." is Ha’ekuéra outa Paraguaýpe ko’ẽrõ. What would be, “We go to Asunción on Saturdays,” using the ore form? Ore roho Paraguaýpe sábadokue.

   Ok, let’s practice.
  1. I practice Guarani on Mondays.
 Che apractica Guarani luneskue.   

2. I want to change my shoes. 
Acambiase che sapatu.

  3. He knows how to make cheese.
 Ha’e ojapokuaa kesu.  

4. I’m going out with my sister Saturday.  
Asẽta che ermánandi sábadope.

  5. Just us are going to study on Mondays.  
Ore roestudiata luneskue.   

6. Pecocinakuaa piko? 
Do you all know how to cook?   

7. Ore rojapo pizza vierneskue.  
We make pizza on Fridays.

  8. Revendetapa nde vaka enerope? 
Will you sell your cow in january?

  9. Mba’épa acocinata ko viernes pyhare? 
What will I cook this friday night?  

10. Moo piko jahata Paraguaýpe?
Where will we go in Asuncion?   

Here's a conversation:
 Mba’éichapa Oscar. 
Iporã. Ha nde. Mba’éichapa reiko. 
Aiko porã. Mba’e rejapo.  
Ahata amba’apo.  
Ha upéi? Mba’e rejapota ko ka’aru.  
Aterereta, ha upéi amopotĩta. Ahatama.
Jajotopata.  Jajotopata.
Jaterereta ko ka’aru.  
Oĩma!  

That was:
“How are you doing Oscar?”
 “I’m good, and you?”
 “I’m good. What are you up to?” 
“I’m going to work.”
 “And then? What are you going to do this afternoon?”
 “I’m going to drink terere, then I’m going to clean. I’m going now, see ya!”
 “See ya. We’ll terere this afternoon.”  
“Ok!”    

Episode 9: Irregular Verbs, Bleh

2009-11-11T12:42:00.000-08:00

Mba’éichapa. This is Guaranime. Podcasting, in English, from the Glory Land of Guarani, here in Yataity, Paraguay, this is Paulita.

I just wanted to let you all know that I have quasi-fixed the problem of seeing how words are spelled. If you have an MP3 player that has a video screen, such as an ipod, you can look at the screen during the podcast, and the words will pop up. In between I just put in some pretty pictures of Paraguay. If you push the little center button on an ipod three times, they’ll be nice and big.

Ugh, today we’re talking a irregular verbs. It’s not fun, but you’ll use them a lot, so it’s important. Irregular verbs don’t really follow a pattern, those little poo-faces. The irregular verbs are these: to come, to go, to say, to eat or drink, to fall, to swim, and to drink water, which has its own special verb on top of just saying, “I drink water.” Today we’re just going to look at to come, to go, to say and to eat or drink, and save those others for another time.

The only way to do this is to get out a pen and paper. Make a little chart. Down the left side of the paper put all the pronouns, che, nde, ha’e, peẽ, ñande, ore, and ha’ekuéra. Then across the top, write as the column titles: to come, to go, to eat or drink, to say. If you want to do this in an Excel spreadsheet, I support that. Or if you’re too lazy, you can just look up the one I put below. I support that too.

Let’s go through them one at a time, and as we do, you can fill in the chart. What you’ll notice is that all these verbs almost have a pattern, but a few of the little rascals ruin it. With each word, we’ll talk about the pattern that’s almost there, and which ones spoil it for everyone. It might seem overwhelming at first, but just listen now and then you can break it up into chunks for memorization later.

Let’s start with “to come”. We already know “I come”, which is Che aju, so if you want to write it out you can fill in the first box with aju. For most of the “to come,” forms, you could just treat it as the verb is ju and add the beginnings we already know. So, “You come” is Nde reju. It’s with the he or she form that we run into trouble. Inexplicably, to say “he comes” or “she comes”, it’s Ha’e ou. As with all the other verbs, the ha’e and the ha’ekuéra verb forms are going to be the same. So for they come, he comes or she comes, you use the ou.

You’ll hear this a lot with hína. Ou hína Karen is “Karen’s coming”. Something else you’ll hear this combined with a lot is “to come” and that future -ta and then the question caboose -pa. You’ll use this to ask if someone is coming later. To say, “Is Shola going to come?” is Shola outapa. “Will you come” is Rejutapa.

Continuing on, we have the pattern just using the ju and the regular beginnings. “You all come” would be what? Peẽ peju. How about, “Will you all come?” Peẽ pejutapa. Then, “We all come.” Ñande jaju. “Just us come.” Ore roju.

Moving on to “to go.” We know this for the first person, which is Che aha. And in this case, the first person is the brat, along with the ñande form. We already know that form, jaha, as well, which means “let’s go” or “we all go.” Ok, well all the others are going to follow a pattern with a root of ho, like hi-ho Silver. So you go is Nde reho. "He or she goes" is Ha’e oho. "You all go" is Pee peho. What would be “Just us go”? Ore roho. "They go?" Ha’ekuera oho.

One of the things you will hear all the time is Ohoma. Like if someone’s asking if Suzy’s around, but Suzy already left, they’ll say, Ohoma Suzy. Or you might hear it with that question caboose iko. Ohomaiko Suzy? Héẽ, ohoma.

The next word is “to eat and to drink”, the root of which is just an ‘u, kind of weird. And, unfortunately, these are all weird. “I eat or drink” is Che ha’u, as we already know. "You eat" is re’u, which is not all that surprising. ***You might also hear he'u instead of re'u, although technically that is the command: eat. But you might hear, Mba'e he'uta: "What are you going to eat?"He eats" gets a little weird because it’s got an h on the front, and is ho’u. "You all eat" is Peẽ pe’u. “We all eat” is Ñande ja’u. This Ja’u is also that form which means let’s eat. “Just us eat,” Ore ro’u. “They eat” is Ha’ekuéra ho’u.

Lastly we have “to say”, the root of which is an ‘e. “I say” is Che ha’e. "You say" is a weirdo, as
"you say" is Nde ere. My Guarani tutor uses this all the time, to ask me, "What will you say?", for an example. She says Mba’e ereta. "He said or she said", you will hear all the time in conversations, it’s Ha’e he’i. ***You will also hear all the time: Mba'e he'i: "What did he/she say?"*** How about “You all say.” Out of absolutely nowhere, this has a j in it. Peẽ peje. To say “we all say” is Ñande ja’e. "Just us say" is Ore ro’e. "They say" is ha’ekuéra he’i.

Here’s a little side note on the word: he’i, and how you can use it to mean “What does that mean.” The literal translation is a little weird. Let’s say you want to know what the word kuehe means. What would ask is, Mba’épa he’ise 'kuehe.' Literally, this translate to, “What does kuehe want to say,” right? But in use it translates to “What does kuehe mean?” And to answer, the person would say, “Kuehe he’ise 'yesterday.'” Kuehe wants to say yesterday, kuehe means yesterday. End of side note.

Basically, these irregular verbs are just 28 words that you have to memorize separately. But there are some tricks to help you.

What are some patterns we can pick out here, horizontally across our chart? Well, the we’s, ñande and ore, give us something. For the ñande form words, they all start with ja-. And for all the ore words, they all start with ro-. Same thing with the Peẽ form, they all start with pe-.

This will help you guess in conversation, which is basically just what you need to do. When you want to use one of these, but you’re not sure exactly what it is, just guess. If you’re wrong, people will correct you and that will help you learn. You’ll say, Suzy he’e and people will say, he’i and it will go like that until you’ve got them down. Also, listen for these in conversation.

Another good tactic is to make flashcards of each word and put all the forms on the other side. If you can get the rhythm of reciting all of them, that might help you come up with the right one when you need it.

Or you might want to break it up into little goals. Learn all of the forms of one word, then go onto the next.

Just don’t get all overwhelmed and fry things, like I did.

Ok, now we’re going to review like nobody’s business. I made the mistake of not getting these down pat for a really long time, and I think it will be best if you just rock these out.

I’m going to break the review into 4 sections. You might just want to practice a section a day, because it’s probably too much to do in one day. The point is that it will drive you crazy if you just kind of know these, so you want to know them well.

Part 1. We’re going to review them in order of the word, starting with the English.
Part 2. We’re going to review them in order of the word, going from Guarani to English
Part 3 I’m going to mix up the order and ask them in English
Part 4, We’re just going to do 10 sentences like the usually review.

Ok, jaha.

Part 1.

To come:
I come: Che aju
You come: Nde reju
He or she comes: Ha’e ou
You all come: Pee peju
We all come: Ñande jaju
Just us come: Ore roju
They come: Ha’ekuéra ou
Command to come: Eju

To go:
I go: Che aha
You go: Nde reho
He or She goes: Ha’e oho
You all go: Pee peho
We all go: Ñande jaha
Just us go: Ore roho
They go: Ha’ekuéra oho

To eat or drink:
I eat: Che ha’u
You eat: Nde re’u
He or she eats: Ha’e ho’u
You all eat: Pee pe’u
We all eat: Ñande ja’u
Just us eat: Ore ro’u
They eat: Ha’ekuéra ho’u
Command form to eat: He’u

To say:
I say: Che ha’e
You say: Nde ere
He or she says: Ha’e he’i
You all say: Pee peje
We all say: Ñande ja’e
Just us say: Ore ro’e
They say: Ha’ekuéra he’i

Part 2. We’re going to review them in order of the word, now going from Guarani to English
To come:
Che aju: I come
Nde reju: You come
Ha’e ou: He or she comes
Pee peju: You all come
Ñande jaju: We all come
Ore roju: Just us come
Ha’ekuéra ou: They come

To go:
I go: Che aha
You go: Nde reho
Ha’e oho: He or She goes
Pee peho: You all go
Ñande jaha: We all go
Ore roho: Just us go
Ha’ekuéra oho: They go

To eat or drink:
Che ha’u: I eat
Nde re’u: You eat
Ha’e ho’u: He or she eats
Pee pe’u: You all eat
Ñande ja’u: We all eat
Ore ro’u: Just us eat
Ha’ekuéra ho’u: They eat

To say:
Che ha’e: I say
Nde ere: You say
Ha’e he’i: He or she says
Pee peje: You all say
Ñande ja’e: We all say
Ore ro’e: Just us say
Ha’ekuéra he’i: They say

Part 3
Ok, now the big mix-up in English first:
We all come: Ñande jaju
Just us go: Ore roho
They say: Ha’ekuéra he’i
He or she eats: Ha’e ho’u
Just us say: Ore ro’e
They go: Ha’ekuéra oho
You all come: Pee peju
You eat: Nde re’u
You all say: Pee peje
They eat: Ha’ekuéra ho’u
You go: Nde reho
You say: Nde ere
We all eat: Ñande ja’u
We all say: Ñande ja’e
He or She goes: Ha’e oho
You come: Nde reju
He or she says: Ha’e he’i
You all go: Pee peho
I eat: Che ha’u
He or she comes: Ha’e ou
I go: Che aha
Just us come: Ore roju
Just us eat: Ore ro’u
I come: Che aju
You all eat: Pee pe’u
We all go: Ñande jaha
I say: Che ha’e
They come: Ha’ekuéra ou
Part 4: Sentences

1. Do you all want to eat pizza?
Peẽ pe’use piko pizza

2. Are you going to go tomorrow?
Nde rehotapa ko’ẽrõ

3. What did you say to Sasha?
Mba’e ere ra’e Sashape.

4. We want to eat pizza this afternoon.
Ore ro’use pizza ko ka’aru.

5. Is Oscar going to go tonight?
Oscar ohotapa ko pyhare

6. Máva piko ho’u ra’e che pizza.
Who ate my pizza?

7. Ohoma Justin.
Did Justin go already?

8. Moõ piko peho kuehe.
Where did you all go yesterday?

9. Araka’e piko ja’uta sushi.
When are we all going to eat sushi?

10. Obama outa Paraguaipe.
Obama’s coming to Paraguay.

Episode 8: Question Words

2009-11-05T15:22:00.000-08:00

Mba’éichapa. How are things? Good, I hope. I have a little tweak on something we talked about last week, using oiko to mean something works. Like food that’s just ok, oiko, it’s work, it’ll do the trick. And then I said that Oiko porã means that it works well. Well apparently, there is a third level I was previously unaware of, the top level of "That really works very well," would be Oikoite. This is a combo we’ll learn about later, but just so you know, if you want to say that anything works really well, it’s oikoite. If someone asks about the food they made you, Oiko? The best thing you can say about it is Oikoite.

Ok, now on to today’s lessons: Questions!

For the most part, when a stranger comes up to in Paraguay and just starts jabblin’ in Guaraní, they’re probably asking you some kind of question. Who are you? What’s your name? Where’s the nearest liquor store? Today we’re going to figure out what those question are and how to answer. First we’ll look at how questions are formed in Guarani, then we’ll learn how to use those question words, such as who, what, when and where.

As a mostly oral language, Guaraní doesn’t have question marks. Instead, they have little cabooses that show they’re asking a question. Let’s start looking at these while using our old buddy mba’e as an example. You’ll remember that mba’e means “what”.

One of the cabooses you will hear to show that someone is asking “What?” is Like, "whaaaat?" Sometimes you’ll also hear someone just say piko. Mba’e piko.piko. I picture this like in a cartoon when a question mark just pops over someone’s head. Or I guess you could translate it as like, “really?”

You’ll hear piko a lot with that word oĩ, which mean to be, as in, Oĩ pizza, “There’s pizza.” So to ask, “Is there pizza?”, you’d say Oĩ piko pizza. How would you say “Is there sushi?” Oĩ piko sushi?

Sometimes you will hear this shortened to just iko. In my host family, when the mom calls one of the kids, they always respond with Mba’eiko! Like, “Suzy!” “Whaaaaaat?” Mba’eiko! That sounds familiar, right? The two words kind of meld together. It’s not Mba’e...iko. It’s Mba’eiko.

Another of these endings that will form a question is -pa. You’ll hear this thrown in to the sentence wherever to show that the sentence is a question. Mba’epa is another way to say “What?” You’ll also hear Chepa, to mean, me? Like, “Go milk the cows." Chepa.

Also, sometimes when the siblings in my host family are fighting, one says, Mba’epa nde? And that is Mba’e + pa + nde, the word for “you”. It’s kind of like, “What’s your deal?” “What do you want?” Mba’pa nde?

Another one that is invented and not in the Guaraní books is pio. My expert on the down and dirty street language laughed when I tried to find this in the books. He said it’s invented but also the one they use most. Mba’epio, you might hear. Or, you might just hear it shortened even more to just io. Using pio, how would you ask, “You?” Ndépio. How about “You’re going to speak?” Ndépio reñe’ẽta. How about “I’m going to speak?” Chepio añe’ẽta. How about “You’re going to speak in Guarani?” Ndepio reñe’ẽta Guaranime.

In that example, you could put the question caboose, pio, after then noun, nde, or the verb, reñe’ẽ. Or some people just throw them on the back of the sentence as if they really were question marks. I think it depends on what you’re question emphasizes. For example, this one is “You are going to speak in Guaraní," with the emphasis on you. If someone were going to say, “You’re going to skydive?,” the pio would probably come after the skydive. Think of which word sounds like it might be written in italics.

We also need to go over one more tidbit. It’s kind of like -kuri’s twin brother, that steps in once it’s question. This is the caboose -ra’e. You’re going to attach -ra’e to the back of verbs, as in questions about the recent past, such as, “Did you clean?” Ndépa remopotĩra’e. “Did they go out?” Ha’ekuérapio osẽra’e. Just like -kuri, ra’e is optional. You’re going to use it when it makes things clearer. But you can leave it off when it’s obvious that you’re asking about the past. If I say, “Did you clean yesterday,” I could phrase it as Kuehe remopotĩ piko. And because I started out with the word for yesterday, it’s obvious that I’m talking about the past tense.

Now let’s figure out what those strangers might be mumbling to us in Guaraní. We can use that old reporter’s guide, the Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

Number one, who? “Who used my ipod?” The word for “who” is spelled máva, but I have never heard anyone pronounce the v in this word, so it comes out ma-a. So let’s use piko on this one. “Who used my ipod?” How would we start with “Who” as a question. Máva piko then we’ll continue on, using the third person with that aireal verb "to use", which is poru. So now we have Máva piko oiporu, and then my ipod, che ipod. Máva piko oiporu che ipod.

How about, "Who’s going to clean?" Máva piko omopotĩta. What does this mean: Máva piko ojapo ko sushi. "Who made this sushi?"

(***When someone says, "Did you hear that Stacy made out with that crazy guy?" And you want to say, "Stacy who?", in Guaraní you put the "who" before Stacy. So you'd say, "Máva Stacy?"***)

Something else you might hear with máva is the caboose, ndi, with means “with”. Mávandi is “with whom,” With whom am I rollin’ to the party? I’m going with Rebecca would be Aha Rebeccandi. How about, “I will work with Liam.” Amba’apota Liamndi. How about, “With whom will I speak?” using pa as the question word. Mávandipa añe’ẽta.

Ok, so we got the who, now on to the what. You already know the word for what, which is mba’e. One of the questions you’ll hear a lot with this is Mba’e rejapo, which means “What are you doing?” Kind of like, “What’s up?” Mba’e rejapo doesn’t have a pa or a piko, right, so how will the other person know it’s a question? Well, would it make more sense for me to say, “Hey, what are you doing?” Or “Hey, what you do"? That’s just another lesson in the spirit of Guaraní, that if we know what you’re saying, no worries. So you’ll hear some questions without a question caboose, if it’s obvious that it’s a question.

Another phrase you’ll hear with mba’e as a question is mba’epe, that pe which means “in, to or at.” In this case, mba’epe, it’s mostly used as “in what.” If I say Ahata Brazilpe, “I’m going to Brazil,” someone might say, Mba’epe, In what. As in, am I going in a bus or in a plane.

Something else you’ll hear with mba’e is Mba’e reipota. What does that mean? It means “What do you want.” Whoa, easy, a little rude, right? Not really in Guaraní, think of it as "May I help you?"

How would you ask, “What are you going to do today?”, putting the -pa ending on the mba’e. Mba’epa rejapota ko’ara. How about “What are you making?”, again using -pa. Mba’epa rejapo hína.

FYI, mba’e can also mean, "which"? As in "which one"? You also might hear this combined that word oiko, mba’e piko oiko, to mean, “What happened?”

How about “when”? When is, akara’e. But this is more of a when in a general sense. If you’re asking when today, like what time, people are more likely to use, Mba’e óra, which is “what hour”, with the Guaraní “what” and Spanish hora, (Guaranize to be spelled óra,) which is hour. You can also use mba’e día, which is “what day,” with the Spanish día for day. Akara’e is more for time in general. “When will I go” would be Araka’e piko ahata. What time are we cleaning today would be Mba’e óra ñamopotĩta ko’ara. How about "When will you use my ipod?," using the -pa ending after araka’e. Araka’epa reiporuta che ipod.

Ok, now how about where. Where is moõ, like cows moõ. To remember this I thought, Where are the cows? Moõ. Or that’s where. Moõ I hear a lot with piko. Free beer! Moõ piko. Or you might use this a lot with that ime verb we learned in the last podcast. To say "where is", like where is my sushi? Moõ oime che sushi. A question you’ll hear all the time is Moõ reho. Where are you going? Moõ reho. Reho is the you form of "to go", wheras aha is the first person. We’ll get to irregular verbs in the next episode, although I really don’t want to because they suck. Anyway, Moõ reho. So how would you say, "Where’s my sushi?" Using -piko. Moõ piko oime che sushi. And what does this mean? Moõ reho Suzyndi. “Where are you going with Suzy?”

The idea of “why” is kind of broken into two parts. One is used more for the past tense. “Why did you punch your brother in face?” That one is mba’ére. This is why. The other one is more “for what, why?” And that is ma’erã. (Also spelled marã) In Spanish, this is “para que.” I can’t help but think of that because my host mom always yells it at me when I spend money. Para que did you buy another pair of shoes.

I guess you could say the mba’ére is more about the past, about causes. Like if I said, I think my dog is sick, someone would say, Mba’ére? Why? Ma’erã is more about the future. For what. Ma’erã reipota y. “For what do you want water?" I think in a lot of cases you could use either one.

How is mba’éicha. You’ll use this alot with pa. And now you realize that you’ve been walking around saying Mba’éichapa, which is just “How,” like a cartoon indian. When you’re not using it as a greeting, mostly you’ll use Mba’éichapa with oiko, to mean what’s the deal with something or how does something work. Oiko comes from iko, that word that you’ll remember means to work or function. Mba’éichapa oiko the stock market. Mba’éichapa oiko quantum physics. You can also use it more literally, like, “How did you make this sushi?” Mba’éichapa rejapora’e ko sushi.

Next we have mboy, which means how much or how many. You’ll use this in the store. Sometimes someone will pick up and item and just look at the cashier and say, Mboy. You can also use this with that verb sẽ, which means to go out but also means to cost. If you want to ask how much something costs, you can just hold it up and say Mboýpa osẽ. How would you say, “How many are there?” Mboýpa oĩ.

piko, pio, io: ?, really?
pa: ?
máva: who
ndi: with
araka’e: when
moõ: where
mba’ére: why
ma’erã: for what
mboy: how much
ra’e: ? in past tense

1. When will I know? (use pa)
Araka’epa aikuaata?

2. How much does this sushi cost? (use piko)
Mboy piko osẽ ko sushi.

3. Who will make pizza tonight? (use piko)
Máva piko ojapota pizza ko pyhare.

4. What time do you all want to terere today?
Mba’e órapa petererese ko’ara.

5. Where is my sushi? (pio)
Moõ pio che sushi.

6. Mba’ere oiporura’e che y.
Why did they use my water?

7. Ma’erãpio remopotĩta mandi’o.
For what are you going to clean the mandioca?

8. Mavandi ahata Brazilpe.
With whom am I going to Brazil?

9. Mba’éichapa peiko.
How ya’ll doin?

10. Nde ikatu remopotĩ ko’ara
Can you clean today?

Episode 7: Good Stuff and Aireals

2009-10-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

Good Stuff was invented by my friend Mateo. Every so often he calls me and says I got some good stuff for ya, only he doesn’t use the word stuff. This means that he’s figured out how to say something really useful and just has to tell me. I grab a pen and he gives me a random list. Today for the first half of the episode I just got some Good Stuff for you. It’s just a random list of words that I looked at and I was like, “Ah! We haven’t gone over that yet.” Then in the second half of this episode my Good Stuff will ever so smoothly segue into talking about a kind of verb called Aireals.

Jaha.

Ok, beginning with Good Stuff:

The first one is just good times. This word is Cháke! It begins with a Ch, which should have an s-h sound, but people usually pronounce it just like it has an H. Cháke che ra’a! you might say when someone is tripping. It can also be like when someone’s dancing all crazy, possibly doing the shimmy. Cháke, Cháke! If someone starts doing the robot, you can just go straight for the nahániri.

The next word I know I’ve mentioned, and everyone who’s in Paraguay knows what it is. But I don’t want to forget those of you who haven’t come to Paraguay yet. That word is terere. Terere is a delicious iced drink made of crushed yerba leaves. It’s also a custom that is so important, sitting around drinking terere. It might just be more important than mandi’o, but that’s a pretty tough call. We’ll have a whole terere lesson in the future, but for now I just want you to know what it is. It’s a noun, but you can also use it as a verb. To say, “Let’s drink terere,” you can just say, Jaterere. To say, “I’m drinking terere”, it’s Aterere hína. What would be, “Just us are going to drink terere.” Ore roterereta.

The next word is your friend. This word is ikatu. It means “can”, as in “Can Jimmy come out and play?” Or “to be able to.” To say, “I can go” is Che ikatu aha. The most beautiful thing about ikatu is that, like any strong woman, it doesn’t change for anybody. Che ikatu, nde ikatu, ha’e ikatu... (fade)

The ikatu is always before the other verb in a question, and we’ll learn how to ask questions in the next episode. But sometimes, in a statement, it will be tacked on like a caboose, but without the i. ***In this case, it means then, as in Jahakatu, "Let´s go then."***

Ikatu also means “maybe” or “possibly.” Like, “Will you make me sushi tomorrow?” Eh, ikatu. Just a warning, though, about the cultural use of this word. Paraguayans don’t like to say “no” directly, so a lot of times they say, “maybe,” which is “no.” So if someone asks them a question, like, “Will you come to my grandmother’s 90th birthday?”, they’ll just respond with ikatu, which means “could be” and which means “no.” Once someone asked me if we’d do something later, and I said ikatu because I really did mean “maybe”. But he was mad because he thought I’d said “no.”

The next verb is the only other one in Guaraní that I know of that also doesn’t change for anybody. This is ha’e. Wait, you say, ha’e means “him or her”. I know. Ha’e suffers from multiple personality disorder. It could be “him or her,” and now I’m going to tell you that it is “to be” as well. And there will be one more definition coming down the line a little later.

“To be” is one big idea in English, right? You can be fat or be angry or be American or be in your house. “To be” encompasses a lot of things, from the temporary location where you are for five minutes to your origin that you will keep for your whole life. It can be an emotion that will pass or a physical trait that will never change.

That’s not how it is in Guaraní. Guaraní follows that patterns of “to be” that Spanish follows. I’m going to use Spanish just as a reference for those of you who are familiar with it. If you don’t know Spanish, don’t worry about it.

The first kind of “to be” is the big kind of “to be”. In Spanish, this word is ser. In Guaraní, ha’e is this kind of “to be.” The work ser is derived from the same Latin root from which we derive “essence” in English, or so that’s what this here book says. I don’t usually go around throwing out knowledge of Latin roots. Anyway, with this kind of “to be,” we can think about everything that is more about the essence of a person, an inherent quality or characteristic. This is for big stuff like your origin. I am American. Che ha’e Americana. Or your physical characteristics. I am blond. Che ha’e rubia. Your profession. I am a volunteer. Che ha’e voluntaria. Think of things that won’t change, just like the verb ha’e doesn’t change.

The thing about this ha’e is that people don’t use it all that often. Usually, in Guaraní, it’s more of like a “Me Tarzan, you Jane” kind of sound. “I am American” could be Che Americana. I am a volunteer, Che voluntaria. My Guaraní tutor said that because ha’e means so many things, people just leave it out.

The other kind of “to be” is kind that can change. This is the equivalent of estar in Spanish, and, says my book, estar is derived from the same Latin root as “state.” So then, this kind of “to be” is for temporary states or conditions. In Guaraní, this word is ime.

So to say, “I am,” we’re going to say Che, then add the a like usual, then the verb, ime. Che aime. I am.

Now, I am what? With this you’re going to use those temporary things, such as where you are. “I am in Paraguay” is going to be Che aime Paraguaipe. “You are in Paraguay.” Nde reime Paraguaipe. What would be “Paulita is in Yataity.” Paulita oime Yataitype.

There’s another Guaraní word for estar, to be, which is iko. Iko is more of that state, like “How are you?” “How are things going?” “How la living Biggie Smalls? That kind of how are you. Sometimes in a greeting, someone asks, Mba’echapa reiko?, which is like, “How is it going?”, people will answer, Aiko porã. Kind of like, “I’m living good.”

Oiko kind of means to work, as in to function. Paraguayans also use it as kind of like an, "eh, it works." Like if you throw a meal together from what you have, and it’s not the most delicious. You taste it and your buddy asks, “Is it good?” You’d could say, Oiko. It’ll do the trick. If it is actually good, you might say, Oiko porã.

***Oiko can also mean "to happen". Mba´e oiko is "What happened?"***

There is also another way to describe states, such as being tired, but we’ll have to save that for another episode.

Aireals

When you change the driver car for ime or iko, then, they’re going to have an ai, which makes this a dirty fakeout of another kind of verb, which is called an Aireal. It’s no big deal, so don’t panic. With Aireal verbs, all you’re going to do is add an i after the normal verb beginning driver cars. That’s it. Just think these as a little kid on the train that says, “I want to ride up front.” So “i” is just riding up front, in the driver car. Hence, when these verbs are in the first person, they start with a ai, with second person rei and so on. So you might think when you hear aime that it’s an Aireal, but it’s not. When we get to more complicated conjugations, it will be important to know the difference.

How about the rest of the aireals? How are you going to spot them? Well, mostly they are those that begin with k, p, n or s. But some begin with t. Over time as well, you’ll just here them and get used to the sound with the i in there.

Let’s look at the aireal kuaa, which means “to know” or “to understand.” Let’s practice the beginnings. Basically it’s just more of an “i” sound on the end. I know is Che aikuaa. You know. Nde reikuaa. She knows. Ha’e oikuaa. You all know. Peẽ peikuaa. Just us know. Ore roikuaa. We all know. Ñande jaikuaa. They know. Ha’ekuéra oikuaa. The ñande beginning will change to ñai when the aireal verb is nasal.

So how about “I know Suzy.” Here we’re going to revisit that caboose -pe. When you have an action and someone is, excuse me, the direct object, meaning they receive the action directly, then you’re going to add a -pe to the end of their name. These are called direct objects and we’ll talk more about them later. “I punch Suzy” is going to be “I punch Suzype”. When you have animals, you can either use it or leave it off. -Pe is going to have a few more uses as we go along.

So let’s go back to “I know Suzy.” We’re going to say, Che aikuaa Suzype. How about, “He knows Joan.” Ha’e oikuaa Joanpe. How would you say, “They know Tessa”? Ha’ekuéra oikuaa Tessape.

Side note: You’re going to use kuaa as a verb like this when you want to say you know a place or you know someone, but you’re going to use kuaa as a caboose when you want to say you know how to do something. "I know how to speak" would be, Che añe’ẽkua. So what would be, “I know how to speak in Guaraní”? Che añe’ẽkuaa Guaraníme. ***Sometimes kuaa as a caboose like this can also mean "to be able to". Remba'apokuaa ko'ãga can mean, "Can you work now?"*** End of side note.

Another real aireal is pota, which means “to want.” “I want water” would be, Che aipota y. How about “She wants mandioca”? Ha’e oipota mandi’o.

And here we have another side note, because, much like kuaa, pota is going “to be”, this is not a thing, but a verb. I’m not going to use pota for this kind of want, when I want to do a verb. When I want to do something, I’m going to use a caboose, which is -se. So I want to be in Paraguay will be Che aimese Paraguaype. “He wants to work” would be Ha’e omba’apose. How about “They want to know”? Ha’ekuéra oikuaase. End of side note. Back to aireals.

Another good one is poru. I use this a lot with the caboose -se, to say things like, “I want to use your scissors.” This sounds like weird phrasing in English, but aiporuse is a common thing to hear in Guaraní.

Now let’s review

Your 10 new vocab words:

terere: yerba drink
ikatu: can, am able to
ha’e: am, is, are
ime: to be, location
iko: live, go
kuaa: to know
...kuaa: v.e. to know how
pota: to want
...se: v.e. to want to
poru: to use

1. I want to drink terere now
Che atererese ko’ãga.

2. You can use my mandioca.
Nde ikatu reiporu che mandi’o.

3. They are Paraguayans.
Ha’ekuéra ha’e Paraguayos.

4. Jesus is in Brazil
Jesus oime Brazilpe.

5. We all want water.
Ñande jaipota y.

Now with the Guaraní first.

6. Che aikuaa Carlospe.
I know Carlos.

7. Ha’ekuéra omba’apokuaa.
They know how to work

8. Fernando ha’e Paraguayo.
Fernando is Paraguayan.

9. Ha’e oipuruse che camara ko’ẽrõ.
He wants to use my camera tomorrow.

10. Ha’e omopotĩse kuri kuehe.
She wanted to clean yesterday.

Extra credit:
More aireal verbs:
kotevẽ: to need
kytĩ: to cut
nupã: to hit, to beat (someone)
piro: to peel
poka: to twist, to wring
pytyvõ: to help, to cooperate
su’u: to bite or chew
typei: to sweep

More aireal dirty fake-outs:
ike: enter
imo’ã: to think
ity: to throw

Episode 6: Time

2009-09-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

Hello! How are things? Today we are going to be talking about time, but before we do I have a few announcements.

1. It’s come to my attention that on the last episode I used a word in the review that I had taken out of the vocab list for that episode and hence never explained. I ask that you please just remember that I am grossly underpaid. However, I apologize.

That word was guereko. This means “to have”. So “I have” is Che aguereko. This verb also has a shorter version, which is reko, which is what all the cool kids use, or at least I do. They’re interchangeable. I once heard a woman use one and then the other two sentences later. There will be a few instances of this, so let’s just establish now that when we have a review where you have to answer with the Guaraní, we’ll use the longer version of the word. But when it comes to listening and replying in English, you may hear one of the two forms. “I got mandioca” could be Che aguereko mandi’o or Che areko mandi’o.

2. Here’s another point on the shorter version theme. We’re going to change it up a little and you might hear on the review some of those personal pronouns, like che or ha’e, go missing. Because the verbs are specific to people in Guaraní, sometimes they just leave off the pronoun if it’s obvious. So “I got mandioca” could just be Areko mandi’o. We’ll keep using pronouns when you have to answer in Guaraní, but in listening, you’ll start to hear some of the sentences without pronouns and you’ll have to infer from which verb beginning is used who we’re talking about. So from Jareko mandi’o you can tell from the ja- beginning that it’s going to be, “We got mandioca.”

3. Want to thank those who sent me e-mails and wish them good luck in your studies of esoteric indiginous languages of South America. As for the rest of you, I’d love to hear from you at guaranime@gmail.com for questions or rave reviews of the podcast. Please keep all complaints to yourself.

4. You may have noticed that the podcast descriptions in iTunes have been looking a little funktified. All these tildes and accents are messing things up. So I will be going about the apparently quite complicated process of cleaning this up. When this is ready, if you’re listening to the podcast on an ipod, you can press the center button four times to see a word list as we go through.

Ok, party time. Wait, we don’t know how to say party time yet, so instead of party it will have to be work. Let’s pretend that I am working day and night, saving up for a teat lift for my pig I work in the morning. I work in the afternoon. I work at night. How do we say these things? Morning, noon, night?

Let’s start with the morning and look at how would we say, “I work during the morning.”

You already know, “I work”. Che amba’apo. Now we need to know how to say, “during the morning.” Well, the word for morning is pyhareve.

Now the word you’re going to use that kind of means “during” is going to be a caboose that you latch on to whatever time you’re talking about. That caboose is ...kue. So, “during the morning” is pyharevekue. And “I work during the morning” is Che amba’apo pyharevekue.

What would be “We all work in the morning?” And remember that mba’apo is a nasal verb. Ñande ñamba’apo phyharevekue.

Side note: There are a few times when you’re not going to use the ...kue. For example, when something already happened, people usually use the ...pe. We’ll learn how to use past tense in a minute. You can also use ...pe when it’s just a momentary thing, more like “in the morning” instead of “during the morning”. Also, sometimes people just leave it off. “I’ll see ya in the morning” could just be Jajotopata pyhareve. And, as usually, people are really pretty loose with the rules on this. Also, I have found that the answer largely depends on who you ask.

After the morning you have the early afternoon, mid-day, when you should be eating lunch then napping in the hammock. They call it “siesta” in Spanish. In Guaraní that is asaje. So how would you say, “during siesta.” asajekue. How would you say, “Let’s go during siesta”? Jaha asajekue.

A little later you have the afternoon. This is kind of weird to Americans, because we don’t break up the afternoon into two parts. But this is the later of the two, when you’ve woken up from the nap and are drinking terere. That’s going to be called ka’aru. That’s a chopped word with an apostrophe right in the middle. Ka’aru. So “during the afternoon” is ka’arukue. How would you say, “I will come during the afternoon?” Che ajuta ka’arukue.

Next you naturally have night time. This is weird and confusing because the word for night sounds almost exactly like the morning. Night is pyhare. How I remember the difference is that “ve” means “see” in Spanish. And since the word for morning has that “ve” on the end of it, I think, you see in the morning but not at night. Pyhareve, morning. Pyhare, night.

There are other ways to describe when you do something, such as “I’m working right now.” The word for “now” is ko’ãga. Something that you’ll see a few different places is that ko. Ko means “this”. So you could kind of break this down to think, this second, now. How would you say, using hína as well for the -ing ending, “I’m working right now.” Che amba’apo hina ko’ãga.

Another example of ko meaning “this” is the word for “today”, ko’ára. Ko meaning “this” and ára meaning “day”. This day, today. How would you say, “Today we will all work”? Ko’ára ñande ñamba’apota.

Side bar tip: You can also use ko with pyhareve to mean “this morning”, ko pyhareve. Or with asaje or ka’aru or pyhare. “Tonight” would then be what? “Ko pyhare.”

To say yesterday you say kuehe. Kuehe, all my troubles seemed so far away. And well, if we’re talking about yesterday we’re going to need to know how to use the past tense. Guaraní has an interesting system for using the past tense. There are a few different cabooses you could use, depending on if you’re talking about yesterday or back in your Nam days. Today we’ll just talk about the most common one. This is the caboose ...kuri. “I worked yesterday” is going to be Che amba’apo kuri kuehe.

Here’s a little tip on that one. If you mention the time frame before the verb, let’s say “Yesterday I worked.” If you’ve already said yesterday, you don’t have to add the ...kuri. Many things are like this in Guaraní. It’s like, if we get what you’re saying, you don’t have to worry about grammatical points. So “Yesterday I worked” could be Kuehe amba’apo kuri or just Kuehe amba’apo. We would never in English say “Yesterday I work”, but it flies in Guaraní.

And let’s round out the vocab with the word for tomorrow, which is ko’ẽrõ . So in looking this up, it breaks down really interestingly. Ko’e is the verb which means “to wake up”, and rõ is the conditional, kind of like, if I wake up...then there will be tomorrow. We’ll learn about those words later, so don’t worry about remembering them now, I just love the way words are made up in Guaraní. Let’s practice with, “Tomorrow you all will work”. Ko’ẽrõ peẽ pemba’apota.

You already know another time-oriented phrase, which is Ha upéi? This literally means “and then?” People use it as a greeting, like “What’s up?” But you can also use it when people are telling a story. So I was met this hottie... “Ha upéi?” Or you can just use it when talking. “Amba’apokuri pyharevekue ha upéi asẽ.” What does that mean? “I worked in the morning and then I went out.”

Now let’s practice.

1. I’ll do it tonight.
Che ajapota ko pyharekue.

2. They did it yesterday.
Ha’ekuéra ojapo kuri kuehe.

3. Auxi cleaned during the morning.
Auxi omopotĩ kuri pyharevekue.

4. Let’s go now.
Jaha ko’ãga.

5. I will speak to Rossana tomorrow.
Che añe’ẽta Rossanape ko’ẽrõ.

Now switching to Guaraní first.

6. Jajotopata ko pyhare.
We’ll see each other tonight.

7. Ajuta asajekue.
I’ll come during siesta.

8. Ha’ekuéra osẽta ko pyhare.
They’re going to go out tonight.

9. Che ha’u y ko pyhareve.
I drank water this morning.

10. Oĩkuri mandi’o.
There was mandioca.

1.pyhareve: morning
2. asaje: siesta
3. ka’aru: afternoon
4. pyhare: night
5. ...kue: during
6. ...kuri: past tense
7. ko’ãga: now
8. ko’ára: today
9. ko’ẽrõ: tomorrow
10. kuehe: yesterday
*guereko: to have
*reko: to have

Episode 5: Nasal vs. Oral

2009-09-07T13:49:00.001-07:00

Today’s show is brought to you by the letter y.

Today we’re talking about how the alphabet is different in Guaraní and what that means for your sanity.

Let’s dive right in and start with that letter y? What is that? That’s the letter y, who unfortunately fell on his head in Paraguay and now is not quite right.

And, congratulations, because you just learned the word for water. Yes, water is now y. Mmm, hmm, nothing like some ice cold y. Oh, and by the way, ha’u, that word we learned for “I eat” is a word you can also use to mean “I drink”. “I drink water” is Che ha’u y.

Now what about those other letters? Like a cheap soap opera in its 10th season, it turns out there’s an evil twin! Who has an evil twin? All the vowels, and even some constanants. And what must all evil twins have? A mustache! So, any time you see vowel with a mustache, or what some people might call a tilde, that means it’s going to make the whole word nasal. These are those words that sound like you’re holding your nose when you say them. For example, porã, that word that means good or pretty, has the nasal evil twin of the “a” at the end.

What other letters make a word nasal? The rule is that anything with n, m, or a evil twin letter is nasal. Sometimes even consonants have evil twins with mustaches. Accents do not count on this one. Words that are not nasal are called orals.

Why is being nasal so evil? Because like any good plot twist, it makes things more complicated. For example. Remember how the ñande form has two beginnings and I said we’d talk about the second one later? The first one is the ja-, right?. Well, the second you use when the verb is a dirty nasal. And that beginning is going to be ña-. (PAUSE) That’s an “n” with a tilde, just like the beginning for ñande, so the beginning is also a nasal. You’ll notice the nasalies like to hang with their own kind.

Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you have the verb: japo, to do or make. No n or m or evil twin in sight, which means this word is oral. So to say, “We make”, we’re going to use that regular ja- beginning and say: Ñande jajapo. Now let’s take another, new verb, ñe’ẽ, which means “to speak”. This one’s got double evil twins, on the beginning n and the last e. “I speak” is going to be Che añe’ẽ. If you wanted to say, “We speak,” you can’t just use the ja-. The ja- refuses to be in the same word with the nasal evil twins. The nasal evil twins poisoned his half-brother in season 4. So when a word has a m, n, or a nasal evin twin, you have to use the ja-’s own evil twin, ña-. So then, if the verb “to speak” is ñe’ẽ, then what is “we speak”? Ñande ñañe’ẽ.

The ñande form is the only verb beginning that changes with nasal vowels. But some other random stuff changes as well.

Remember that ending we learned -pe, which means “in, to or at”? Well, -pe changes as well with nasals. -Pe becomes -me. You can see that the ending changes to have the “m” in it, one of the indicators of the dirty nasals. Remember they like to hang with their own kind.

As a desperate attempt to make sense of all this, let’s use the example, “We speak in Guaraní.” “We speak” is that Ñande ñañe’ẽ. And to say “in Guaraní”, you’re going to use that ending that means “in or at.” It’s a little different translation, as before we were talking like in a building, whereas now it’s in a language. We speak in Guaraní. So which would you use, the -pe or the -me? Remember that the rule is that if a word contains a m, n or evil twin mustache, it’s nasal. So, since Guaraní has an “n” in it, we would use the -me. So how would you say “We speak in Guaraní?” Ñande ñañe’ẽ Guaraníme.

And now you get what Guaraníme means. “In Guaraní.” It also had this english, beer me kind of sock it to me in Guaraní sound that I liked. Anyway.

If I can just pop in a little side note tip here. When you use the word ñe’ẽ, you’re also going to use that word ending caboose -pe, when mention who you’re talking to. You’ll put that on the end of someone’s name when you want to say you’re talking to them. I will speak to Carlito is going to be, “Che añe’ẽta Carlitope.” It’s kind of another translation of “to”, as in “to someone.” Ok, end of side note.

How about some more nasal verbie verbs. A good one that hopefully you’ll use is mba’apo. There’s that sneaky m-b beginning. This word means “to work.” So “I work” is Che amba’apo. One of the things you’ll hear among people just passing in the street, when the other asks what they’re doing, is they’ll say, “Amba’apo hína.” I’m workin’ hard hard for the money, basically. Being hardworking is highly valued in Paraguay, so don’t be afraid to brag about it. So what would be, “We all work.” Ñande ñamba’apo.

The next word translates to this all-purpose spanish word “salir.” Salir is one of those words with a definition three inches long. It can mean to go out, to leave, to appear, to cost, to date someone or to turn out, as in “How’d your pizza turn out?” The word in Guaraní is sẽ. “I go out” is Che asẽ. “I’m going to go out” is Che asẽta. “I’m going to go out too” is Che asẽta avei. What would be “Just us are going to go out”? Ore rosẽta.

One more nasal verb, which means to clean, is mopotĩ. "I’m going to clean" would be Che amopotĩta. How about “You all cleaned already”? Peẽ pemopotĩma.

***

Of what we’ve already studied, only one other word changes with the nasal. However, caution: almost no one uses this. I’m almost reluctant to mention it. It’s kind of like the use of “whom” in English. People who know how to use it, do, and people who don’t know how to use it don’t, and roll their eyes at the people who do. So, store this in whatever compartment of your brain you want, or don’t. But just to let you know, that technically, -kuéra plural ending changes to -nguera when the noun is nasal. I’m not going to use this on the podcast because my goal is to teach people to speak like Paraguayans, not like ruler-weilding Guaraní professors. And we’re not going to really count it as a vocab word.

But while we’re on the topic, what are some nasal nouns? A very important one is mba’e. There’s a sneaky little m on the front of that word, in the letter combination m-b that you’ll hear a lot. Mba’e is a very key word. It’s the basis of mba’echapa. By itself it means “what.” It also means “thing” or “situation”. In my little dictionary there’s a whole column of words that begin with mba’e. So, if you want to say “things”, plural, you would technically say, “Mba’e nguera,” and people would stare at you like how my friend stared at me when I tried to pull that one out. He shook his head and said “Mba’e kuéra, boba,” which means, “Just say Mba’e kuéra, you idiot.” Again, shame will be your best teacher.

Another nasal noun is akã, which means “head”. Let’s try an example with this. Let’s say for example that someone asks if you need to write a phone number down, but you have it memorized. How would you say, “It’s already in my head”? I’ll remind you that “it is already” is going to be that “oĩma” that we went over in episode 4. Oĩma che akãme.

To round out our 10 vocab words, let’s throw out mandi’o, which is like the dinner roll of Paraguay. It’s a root vegetable, “yuca” in English, that they eat with everything. Gotta have the mandi’o. It’s got that “m”, so it’s nasal.

At first, it will be difficult in conversation to pick out what is nasal and what’s oral and know what to use. But over time, you’ll pick up on it and know which is which. When you get to that point, call me and tell me what it’s like.

y: water
ña-: nasal v.b. for we
ñe’ẽ: to speak
-me: nasal ending for in, to, at
mba’apo: to work
sẽ: to go out, leave, turn out
mopotĩ: to clean
mba’e: what, thing, or situation
akã: head
mandi’o: mandioca

***BIG FAT JERK-FACE ALERT!*** I am a big fat jerk-face because I put a word in the review that I was going to put in this episode but cut, and hence never explained. That word is guereko. It's a verb that means "to have." I will be caned for my carelessness in episode 6.

Continue on if you can ever learn to trust again...

1. You have water.
Nde reguereko y.

2. I will speak to Pedro.
Che añe’ẽta Pedrope.

3. You’re all going to go out.
Peẽ pesẽta.

4. I have it in my head.
Che aguereko che akãme.

5. I will eat mandioca.
Ha’uta mandi’o.

Now Guaraní first.

6. Opa che y.
My water’s all gone.

7. Ha upéi?
And then?

8. Che ha’e mba’e kuéra Guaraníme.
I say things in Guaraní.

9. Oĩma che mandi’o.
My mandioca’s ready.

10. Opa che ra’a.
All done man.

Ok, that’s it. If you’re studying with flashcards, I would suggest that you somehow mark on one side or the other if something is nasal or oral, or if it’s used with nasals or orals. It will help you learn. Hope you appreciated today's lesson and all the "That's what she said" jokes I repressed to preserve your innocence.

Episode 4: How & Why

2009-08-23T13:52:00.000-07:00

Mba’e la porte. I’m Paulita and this is Guaraníme. You’ve probably been hit with a lot of doubts about Guaraní, about your ability to learn it, or about it being worth it. So in this episode we’re going to step back and take a look at the big picture. The how and the why you’re going to do this. Then for vocab we’re just going to throw out 10 fun phrases you can start using right away.

I took my recorder to go talk to my buddies Sasha and Mateo about their experience with Guarani. Both of them have been studying the language since they arrived and are pretty much conversing full time in Guarani. (Listen to the podcast for their tips.)

I think they said it pretty well, but just wanted to say, not knowing Guarani sucks. I sit there while people are telling jokes, all laughing. Day in, day out. It sucks.

For a while I used to get mad because Paraguayans wouldn’t speak Spanish around me. But Spanish is not their language, Guaraní is.

Even if my Guaraní is never perfect, knowing a little and continuing to learn it is fun. I can yell back at creepy guys on the street when they say creepy things to me in Guaraní. I can chat with little old ladies sitting on their porches, and when I do, they giggle and go ‘Oh’ and clap their hands. Don’t you want to make little old ladies giggle and clap?

It boils down to the fact that if you know Guaraní, your time in Paraguay will be more fun.

Ok, so that covers the Why, Now let’s move onto the how. From my experience and some Googling, here are those 10 tips to help you learn Guaraní.

1. Find a buddy. Find someone else in this whole wide world who is also trying to learn Guaraní. There’s actually a Facebook group called Guaraní. Go there and hunt for someone. This will give you someone to practice and comiserate with. It will also keep you from quitting. You can write each other little Guarani emails.

2. Make flashcards. I take a 3x5 card from the life supply my family sent me. I fold it in half lengthwise then widthwise, then cut it into four. You can also just use paper. I write the Guaraní word on one side and the definition on the other, old-school style, and make endless stacks. That photo I use on my podcast is my stack of flashcards piled up next to my guampa, the cup used for drinking terere. I think I have about a million. Go through the stacks, quizzing yourself, from both sides of the card. This way you keep track of each word, and you know it won’t leave your stack until you’ve learned it.

3. Get all the parts down. I recently learned that a different part of your brain activates when you hear a word than when you see it, so you’ve got to get these words all up in every part of your brain. That means thinking about hearing, speaking, reading and writing. Though, ok, no one’s going to kill you if you never learn to read or write in Guaraní. For me, unfortunately, I learned that I’m a visual learning. People tell me words but, until I write it down, it just flies though my head. So the cards work for me. But I also make sure I’m actively listening and making myself try new words, so that the words don’t just become letters on a card, but sounds in my mind as well. Also, if you get bored doing one thing, like reading flash cards, you can change to something, like listening to the podcast again or yelling at stray dogs in Guaraní, so that you can be less bored but still be working on your language skills.

4. Work with mnemonic devices. Get a picture in your mind when learning a word, or make up a funny litte pun story. Make up a dirty joke about it, whatever makes you laugh and makes the word stick. This can get tough because Guaraní is so different from anything your brain has every heard before. I mean, what kind of device am I going to use to remember that myaky means wet? You have to get pretty creative. Whenever I think of it, I’ll try to share the ones I use.

5. “Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.” That’s one of my favorite quotes by a guy named Edmund Burke. Even if the frustration inside you says that you’ll never learn Guaraní, there has to be some part of you that knows that if you just learn 3 words a day, you’ll be able to speak Guaraní in a year. And you will be awesome. (1,000 words, by the way, is how many they say you need to get by in a language.) So every time you catch yourself saying, I’ll never learn Guaraní, go study for 10 minutes. If all is lost, take a day, eat some ice cream, then keep going. If I can learn Guaraní, with frequent bouts of despair and all, anyone can.

6. Start speaking as soon as you can. Prepare to be laughed at. After a few times, the laughter will stop, conversation will begin. I still remember the first time I said something in Guaraní and it wasn’t like, "Ha ha, Paulita said something in Guaraní." I had said I’m going to eat lunch, and they just said, “Ok, jajotopata.” And I was like, “It works!” This also helps you attach Guaraní to real life, helps you realize that this really is just normal every day speech for some people in the world, the people you now hang out with.

7. Don’t be mad at Guaraní. Don’t ask Guaraní, why Guaraní, why? Why are you so complicated? Why do you have so many little rules? Why do you make my throat hurt? We don’t ask why, we just ask how. Sometimes you will come across something, and it will just freak you out. When I found out about the existence of the subjunctive tense in Spanish, I was mad for 6 months before I accepted it and sat down to learn it. I probably could have had it down in two months if I had used my pissy energy for studying. If something is making you mad or frustrated, you just have to say, I’m not going to learn that today. You might have to listen to the podcast again in a few weeks, or read the lesson over and over. That’s ok. If you can’t seem to get past something, ask someone else to explain it. It might just be that you need to look at it from a different angle. You just have to accept Guaraní for what Guaraní is, a crazy little language that’s almost nothing like English, and decide to learn it or not. If it feels hard and frustrating, that’s because it is hard and frustrating, but so are a lot of things worth doing.

8. Get a local tutor. This can be a professor that you pay, that you might even be able to get Peace Corps to pay for, if you´re a volunteer, or this could just be your little host brother that you pay with lollypops. Either way, you’re working with someone in the community, showing that you’re hard-working, and giving others around you a sense of responsibility and pride in your learning their language.

9. Do today’s work. Don’t let your mind wander to how you didn’t study yesterday, or how you’ll never get past this part. Just do today. They don’t welcome little kids to kindergarten and say, This will take you 12 years. They just say, This is the letter A. Just get what you need done each day, inch along from where you are, and soon you will have climbed Mt. Guarani.

10. Start now. Oh look, you already did. Good for you.

Ok, so, let’s just a little fun for the love of Pete. Today we’re just going to go over 10 things that are just fun to say in Guaraní. No big gramatical concepts, just stuff you can start using immediately. I’ll pause after each new word for repetition.

The first is E’a. It’s just kind of like a gasp or like “Oh!” in Guaraní. Like if I told my host mom, I ate 15 empanadas for lunch. She’d say “E’a!”

This next is like a the nicer version of a cuss word, kind of like saying poop instead of the sh*t. It’s Nde rasóre. I’ll let you figure out the cuss word and what it means on your own. This is used like the Guaraní version of “Darn it!”

The next phrase is che ra’a. You’ve got the che, which in this case means “my” and ra’a means son. A lot of times I hear it more like “che ra.” Anyway, people use it, mostly between men, kind of like “man”. You’ll hear this a lot with Nde rasóre. “Nde rashore che ra’a.” Or it could be combined with E’a. E’a che ra’a. The other day I heard a terrible story on the radio, and the announcer ended it with “terible che ra’a.”

Another good one to follow up with Che ra’a is Nahaniri, which means “no.” People just use “no” as well, but nahaniri is kind of like more for emphasis. Like when a little kid picks up your camera, you can say, “Nahaniri che ra’a.”

And if you know how to say “No,” now we got to throw in there yes. It’s a good one. The word is “Héẽ.” We’ll be going over nasal stuff in the next episode. It’s just really fun to say. Once you know it, you’ll hear it all the time, when one person is talking, and the other’s just leaning back saying, “Héẽ, Héẽ,” like, yeah, yeah.

The next is like “let’s go!” And it’s the ñande form, that inclusive we, of to go. You’ll remember that the Ñande form is usually going to start with that ja- sound. And if “I go” is aha, let’s all go is jaha. So whenever we’re all waiting around to head out somewhere, one person usually stands up and says Jaha! It’s one of those words that is so universal, volunteers use it amongst themselves all the time.

This next one you’ll use a lot. I know I did. It was one of the first things I learned in Guaraní. The word is Nantendei. This means “I don’t understand”. When I lived with my first family, every time I said this word sparked about three minutes of laughter and the repeating of “nantendei” followed by more hoots of laughter. I got used to it.

Next and nearly as important is the Ndaikuaái. This means “I don’t know.” Sometimes it’s used alone or you can put the “Che” in front of it, “Che ndaikuaái”. I started using this with my current host family, and for months they found it hilarious to just walk around shaking their heads and saying ”Ndaikuaái. Ndaikuaái.” I got used to it.

Then there’s the word for “Ok,” which is Oĩma. The parts literally break down into “It is already.” Or it could also mean that something is ready. Oĩma. Ready. So like when you’re trying to negotiate for a house to rent, and you’ve already talked everything out and all there is left to do is shake hands, you can say, “Oĩma.”

There’s another word you can throw out to mean finished. That’s Opa. When you’re all done washing your clothes, you can lift up your hands and huff and say, “Opa.” A lot of times you’ll hear this combined with the ending for already, -ma. “Opama.” Is kind of like, Finished already.

e’a: Oh! (gasp)

nde rasóre: Darn it

che ra’a: my son, used between men

nahániri: no

heẽ: yes

jaha: let´s go

ndaikuaái: I don´t know

nantendei: I don´t understand

oĩma: ready

opa: done

1. What’s the word for “Oh!”
E’a

2. How do you say, “Ok!” or “Ready”
Oĩma

3. How do you say, “I don’t understand,” using it with the word for “I”.
Che ndaikuaái

4. How do you say, “Let’s go!”
Jaha

5. How do you say, “Finished!”
Opa

6. What would you say if you slammed your finger in the door?
nde rasóre

7. What would you say if someone asks if you want to drink terere (hint: this is always Yes)
Héẽ

8. What would you say if someone just walks up to you and starts speaking in Guarani?
Nantendei

9. How do you stop a kid from picking up your camera?
Nahaniri.

10. What’s the phrase meaning “my son” that you use kind of like “man.”
Che ra’a

Ok, now we’re going to move on to the Review. You might need a t-ray break in between.

1. Yes, I will go to Paraguay.
Heẽ, ahata Paraguaype.

2. Let’s go to Paraguay.
Jaha Paraguaype.

3. I already finished all my pizza.
Opama che pizza.

4. My pizza’s ready.
Oĩma che pizza.

5. You’re all making pizza already.
Peẽ pejapoma pizza.

Now we’re switching to the Guarani first...

6. Che ha’uma che sushi.
I ate my sushi already.

7. E’a, che ha’u nde pizza.
Oh, I ate your pizza.

8. Jaha Paraguaype.
Let’s go to Paraguay.

9. Nde rasóre!
Darn it!

10. Opama
All done!

Episode 3: Humble Beginnings

2009-08-09T11:05:00.000-07:00

Mba’e la porte. Che Paulita and this is Guaraníme. Today we’re going to talk more about what your mean old grammar teacher called personal pronouns. These are those stand-in words we use so we don’t have to keep repeating names over and over: I, he, she, them, us. We’ll also talk about the verb beginnings for each pronoun.

As we already learned, we use the word Che when referring to ourselves. Remember how to say “I make?”, as in “I’m making pizza... che ajapo pizza. When the action is going on right now, you can choose to use that hina verb ending or leave it off. Today we’re going to leave it off, for simplicity’s sake. We’re going to use japo throughout the episode, as we talk about the verb beginnings, those driver cars, that go with every pronoun, such as the a beginning that goes with the che. Che ajapo pizza.

So, I am che. Who are you? To say you in Guaraní is nde. The word begins with n-d, but you barely hear that n and it’s practically all d. You actually already learned this in Episode 1, when saying Ha nde. To break that down, ha means “and” and nde is "you". Ha nde. I could go for a delicious cocktail. Ha nde?

Let’s see how that sentence “I make pizza”, Che ajapo pizza changes when we want to say “You make pizza.” Instead of the Che we’re going to use nde. The verb, japo, is going to stay the same, but we’re going to change the “ah” sound on the front. Instead of the “ah” that you use for first person, you’re going to put re-. That’s the verb beginning, the driver car, for the second person, for you. So then how are we going to say “You make pizza.”? Nde rejapo pizza. Now in some areas of Paraguay, they leave off the r when pronouncing words, and you’ll just hear like ejapo. So just be aware of that. Like in Episode 2 when my buddy didn’t really pronounce the v in avei. It’s kind of like that.

In Guaraní, there’s also a “you all,” or “ya’ll” where I come from. This would be the Spanish equivalent of ustedes. In Guaraní, it’s Peẽ. Peẽ is spelled like pee, as in, I drank terere for an hour and now I have to pee. The last e has a tilde on it, which kind of makes it sound like you’re holding your nose while you say it, and with all the latrines in Paraguay, you may very well be. We’ll talk more about accents and tildes later.

Just like we did for Nde, we’re going to change the verb beginning for peẽ. This beginning for peẽ gives us a nice little shortcut. Yes, we love shortcuts. The verb beginning is just pe-. You just cut off that nasal “e” and you got yourself a verb beginning. So then what would be “Ya’ll make pizza.” Peẽ pejapo pizza.

To say “him” or “her” you’re going to say Ha’e, which is another one of those words with the apostrophe right smack in the middle. This verb is not gender specific, so people who speak Guaraní don’t have to worry about the whole awkward post-sex-change “him” or “her” choice.

The verb beginning when it is him or her doing the action, is going to be an o-. And it takes that same sound “oh”. So, then, “He makes pizza” is Ha’e ojapo pizza.

If one person, him or her, is ha’e, then multiple people, lots of hims and hers, aka “them” is just going to be the plural form of ha’e. That makes sense. How do you make words plural in Guaraní? Whereas in English we ususally put just an S on the end, in Guaraní you put a big long kuera caboose. This doesn’t apply for all words, but we’ll go with it for now and I’ll explain more when we get into detail later. So if "he" is ha’e, then them will be ha’ekuéra.

For the verb beginning of “them,” we have another wonderful shortcut. The verb beginning is the same as for him or her. It’s just an o-! Oh happy day. So, then, “They make pizza” is going to be.... Ha’ekuéra ojapo pizza.

Perhaps one of the most unusual things about Guaraní is how they break apart the we. Let me explain. Have you ever been walking with a hottie, maybe lookin’ to make out and you come across a friend on the street. You say, “We’re going to the beach.” And they say, “The beach! What a great idea, I’ll get my suit.” And you’re like, Whompty whomp. Will not be making out any time soon. Well, the Paraguayans have come up with an ingenious way to never have their make-out plans foiled again.

They break up the concept of “we” into the inclusive and exclusive. Inclusive is when you want to include everyone. The word they use is ñande. This is inclusive because it includes everyone who is present. Then there is the exclusive, which is ore, which excludes the listener and refers to a smaller group that makes up the “we.” How I remember this is that ore is spelled like core, without the c, so I think of it as the core group, cuttin’ the fat. If you used ore as the "we" in “we are going to the beach,” the person you are speaking to would know that, in this case, three’s a crowd. But if you used ñande, it would be like an invite, because using the ñande form is kind of a way to say, “Let’s!” So it would kind of be like “Let’s go to the beach!”

These are not hard and fast rules. A lot of times people just go for the inclusive ñande, even when they’re talking about just a few people.

So, if you want to invite someone, you would use the inclusive. The verb beginning of the pronoun ñande is ja- (OK, so this can change, in ways I’ll explain later. But I don’t want to scare away those three subscribers still clinging on.) For now, just focus on the ja-. How are we going to say, “We all make pizza.” Nande jajapo pizza.

Now, if you have the date situation. You and the hottie are going to make some pizza, You’re going to use the ore form, so that no one invites themselves along. The verb beginning you’re going to use is ro-. It’s like ore turned backwards without the e. How are you going to say, “We are going to make pizza.” (Hint: Don’t forget to add on that -ta for the future to the verb.) Ore rojapota pizza.

Oh sweet lord, you’ve had a long day.

I think we’ve had some good practice already. But I’m also going to start something at the end of every episode, which I’ll call Putting it all together. Maybe I’ll even find a little theme song for the segment. Anyway, we’re going to practice, drawing on words we’ve already gone over throughout the podcast. I don’t want anything from way back getting dusty in your brain. We don’t have a whole lot to work with just yet, but as time goes one, we will. Ok, let’s go. For the first five, you’re going to get English first, then respond in Guaraní. For the next five, it will be Guaraní first, then the translation in English.

Putting it all together.

1. You make sushi too.
Nde rejapo sushi avei.

2. I’m going to go to Paraguay.
Che ahata Paraguaype.

3. I ate already.
Che ha’uma.

4. They’re making sushi.
Ha’ekuéra ojapohina sushi.

5. You all make sushi well.
Peẽ pejapo porã sushi.

6. Che aha avei.
I’m going too.

7. Ore rojapoma sushi.
We (just us) already made sushi.

8. Che ajuhina.
I’m coming.

9. Ha’e ojapo sushi Japanpe.
He makes sushi in Japan. (We’re just going to use the English word for “Japan” for this one.)

10. Ñande jajapota sushi!
We’re all going to make sushi!

10ish Vocabies for Today!

ha: and
nde: you, your
re-: v.b. for you
peẽ: you all
pe-: v.b. for you all
ha’e: him or her
ha’ekuéra: them
o-: v.b. for him, her or them
ñande: we all (inclusive)
ja-: v.b. for we all
ore: just us
ro-: v.b. for just us

Episode 2: All About You

2009-08-09T10:45:00.000-07:00

It’s important to start speaking as soon as possible, and the thing we can all talk most about is ourselves. So I’m going to use the first person to introduce some topics, which we can expand on later.

So, who are you, in Guaraní. I’m me, you want to say. In Guaraní, that’s che. Che Paulita, I would say.

Che means me, I, or my. Remember last episode we learned the word avei, which means “as well”? Well now you know how to say "me too", which would be che avei. So when you greet someone and they say Che aipora, or “I’m good,” you can say, che avei. Me too.

Now because we want to get speaking as soon as possible, we’re going to get to that other thing you need for a sentence, a verb.

And our first verb is japo. Japo means "to do or to make." These concepts, which are separate in English, are combined into one word in Guaraní, like hacer in Spanish.

You’ll remember that Guaraní verbs are like trains. The verb by itself is like a lonely car. It needs the conductor to drive. So who’s driving this train?

When it’s me driving the train, when I’m doing or making something, we’re going to put an a in the front, which takes the soft a sound like the Spanish a. There are separate beginning for each different pronoun, such as he, we, them, which we’ll discuss in the next episode. Right now let’s talk more about you.

So when someone asks you, “Who’s making dinner?” You can say “Che ajapo.” I’m making it.

For almost all verbs, the root, such as japo, will stay the same, and you will just change the front sound for the personal pronoun. But what fun would life be without irregular verbs?

So what are some irregular verbs we can start with. How about “I go.” To say “I go”, you’re going to start with that same Che and add the verb, aha. Che aha. There’s still that same “a” sound in the front there for the first person, so that’s good. What else? If you’re going somewhere, then you must be coming to another place, so to say I’m coming is “Che aju.”

Here’s one more irregular that you’re going to use a lot. This is one of the few that does not have the a in front. It means “I eat.” Che ha’u.

To say, "I say", its che ha’e. One of the phrases used her to mean I agree is “Che ha’e avei.” Literally, "I say also."

Now you have the conductor car, the verb cargo car, but what about those cabooses, the suffixes if you want to be boring, that latch on to the back of the words to change their meaning?

First, let’s think of some in English. Let’s say "to go", which is aha. And "I go" is Che aha. Well what about "I’m going", with that -ing that indicates that the action is going on right now? In Guaraní, that ending is hina.

The next two endings I want to give you also have to do with time. If things are occuring presently, with hina, then what about things that will occur in the future? For this, you add a ...ta to the end of a word. (I will write the eclipse before word endings) So how would you say, “I will go?” Che ahata. How about, “I will come?” Che ajuta. “I will eat?” Che ha’uta.

The next ending is kind of like a past tense, but it really means more like “already.” The translation for that in Guarani is a verb ending of ...ma. So how would you say, “I’m coming already?” Che ajuma.

A lot of times, people combine ma and ta together, kind of like if you wanted to say, “I’m going to go already.” There’s kind of the future and the present tense there. “I’m going to go already” would be translated to ahatama. You hear that exact phrase a lot when people are just standing around and someone goes to leave.

Now I’m going to give you one more ending, because it will help you get some sentences out. With all this coming and going, you’re going to want to say where. For this, you’re going to use the ending ...pe, to mean "at" or "to" or "in", and you would add it to the end of the place you’re talking about, not the verb. So "I’m going to Disneyland" would be Che ahata Disneylandiape.

Woo, ok, that’s just 10 words, believe it or not.

Now let’s practice.

1. If someone asks where you’ll be spending Christmas, and you have plans to go to Brazil, what will you say?
Che ahata Brazilpe.

2. Your friend calls and asks if you’d like to eat cake, but you currently have cake in your mouth and want to say, “I’m eating already.”
Che ha’umahina.

3. We want to know who will make dessert for our sweet party and you want to offer, how would you say, I will make it.
Che ajapota.

4. You attempt to make a joke in Guarani. After an awkward silence, you want to go. You stand up and say...what?
Che ahatama.

5. You’re friends are going to eat ice cream and you love ice cream as much as the next guy. How do you say, “I’m going too!”
Che ahata avei.

che: Me, my or I
japo: to do or make
aha: I go
aju: I come
ha’u: I eat
ha’e: I say
...hina: ...ing
...ma: already
...ta: future tense
...pe: to, at, in

Episode 1: Greetings

2009-08-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

To Download Episode 1, click Here

Greetings from Yataity, Paraguay. This is the first (notes for the) episode of a podcast I like to call Guaranime. In this podcast we will be learning how to speak Guaraní, the language of the beautiful country of Paraguay, where I am currently living as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

I’m making this podcast as part of my service work, with future and current volunteers in mind, along with state department workers and any other english speakers who are crazy enough to take one the task of learning to speak like a crazy person.

Before I arrived I hadn’t heard one word of Guaraní. I also did not know much Spanish, so the transition was pretty tough. I’m hoping people can benefit from this by learning a little Guaraní before they come down. Also, I’m learning Guarani through Spanish, I really wish I had someone to teach me in English. So that’s something I’m hoping to provide.

So here’s how this podcast going to go down: I’m going to try to make a podcast about every two weeks, if I can and if it’s not raining and the internet is working and I don’t feel like drinking terere in my hammock instead. That’s how we roll in Paraguay. I’m going to aim for 10 new words every podcast. After I give a new word, I’m going to pause so you can repeat it. At the end, I’m going to have a native speaker say the words during the review.

Today we are going to talk about the idea of jopara and I’m going to give you some greetings for vocabulary. Then we are going to talk a little about how words are made up in Guaraní.

I am still a student for sure. I’m just now at the point where I can have little conversations. To make sure all the information is accurate in the podcast, I’m going to have these lessons reviewed by a trainer who speaks English and Guaraní.

But here’s a caveat about Guaraní, as long as we’re talking about what’s right and what’s wrong. Guaraní is an oral language that varies from region to region. The Guaraní that I know is right on my street in Yataity in the region of Guairá. There may be variations in different areas, so the best way to learn is really to practice with the people where you live. You will know that you’ve got it wrong when people point and laugh at you.

Nothing is more frustrating than when you study something and the first time you use it your friends say, “No one talks like that.” It may just be that people talk like that in Takuati, but not in Caazapa. So really, local public shame is going to be your best teacher.

Here’s you’re first major lesson in how people speak, which is the idea of jopara. In Paraguay, there is Guaraní and Spanish. When people say Guaraní Guaraní, they mean total Guaraní, which hardly anyone uses. More popular is jopara, which means mixture, of Spanish and Guaraní. Sometimes you’ll learn the Guaraní word for something, and the first time you use it, someone will be like, Just use the Spanish and you’ll feel like a total dork. And you throw another flash card in the trash. Unfortunately the best way to learn is trial and error, so prepare yourself for a lot of error.

Now it’s time for those 10 vocab words
Let’s start with greetings, because when people stare at you, if you look as foreign as I do, you’re going to want something to break the awkward silence.

Just like in English, there are quite a few ways to say hello.

The most formal, for strangers or older folk, is Mba’éichapa. For people who are your age, or with whom you’re friendly, there is Mba’etekoiko. And also Mba’e la pórte. For either one of these, your response is going to be Ipora, which means you’re doing well. You could also say Tranquilopa, which means everything is tranquilo or chill. There you see a little of the jopara, with the spanish tranquilo and a Guaraní word ending, pa, which we’ll get to later. (So my Guaraní tutor told me that when it's a jopara, in textbooks anything that is jopara is separated with a hyphen, like, tranquilo-pa, to emphasis that one is Spanish and the other Guaraní. But I think that's stupid and I've never seen it written that way in real life, so I will continue with the non-hyphenation school of thought on this one. I will not think different of you if you use the dash.)

After someone says how are you and you say fine, it’s nice to say, “And you?” For that you’re going to say, Ha nde. Most likely, if all is well, they will say Ipora avei. That avei means “as well.” As in, "I’m good as well."

Other less formal greeting are Ha upei? which literally means, And then? In the street, boys and men passing each other yell out Op!

And for one last word, we’re going to say good-bye, for which you can use Jajotopata.

So, there you have it, 10 words to study this week in Guaraní. Now I’m going to have a little conversation.

Mba’e la porte
Iporã, ha nde
Iporã avei.

Mba’etekoiko
Tranquilopa.

Mba’éichapa
Iporã ha nde
Iporã avei

Now, if you’re brain is fried already, pause and take a tv break. If not, let’s go on to talk about how words are made up in Guaraní.

At the risk of sounding a little too elementary schoolish, we’re going to say words in Guaraní are like trains. In Guaraní, you can add different parts to a word, different train cars in front and in back like on a child’s toy train set. Each one changes the meaning.

Let’s look at that long train that we just talked about, that word for good-bye: jajotopata.

In the middle there is the verb car, topa, which means, to find.

The Ja sound which starts the word is the car that carries the message of who is doing the verb. Ja means we do this verb. We find.

The Jo that comes after it, is the car that is reciprocal, meaning we’ll do it to each other. We find each other.

And finally, the caboose back there after topa is ta, which is the car that means the future, that someone will do this verb in the future. We will find each other. Is the literal translation, kind of like a “see ya soon” in English.

Don’t worry too much about this now. But as we go on, you’ll start to be able to pick apart words, to see each car that makes up the train.

Now let’s review!

1. What would you say to an older woman who you’ve just met for the first time?
Mba’éichapa

2. How about someone with whom you are friends?
Mba’etekoico or Mba’e la porte

3. Someone says Mba’e la porte to you, and it’s a totally chill day, relaxing in the hammock. How are you going to respond?
Tranquilopa

4. How about just saying “I’m good”?
Iporã

5. Then how are you going to ask them, “and you”?
Ha nde

6. You ask someone how they are. They say Ipora, ha nde. How are you going to respond?
Iporã avei

7. You’re riding your bike fast down a hill and zoom past a friend. What’s the quickest greeting you can think of?
Op!

8. You greet a buddy in the street and are about to go on your merry way. How do you say Goodbye?
Jajotopata.

That´s it! For more info on Paraguayan Peace Corps life, check out my blog at peacecorpsparaguay.blogspot.com.

Mba’éichapa
Mba’etekoiko
Mba’e la pórte
Tranquilopa
Ha nde
Iporã
Avei
Ha upei?
Op!
Jajotopata