Episode 9: Irregular Verbs, Bleh

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

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

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:

1. terere: yerba drink
2. ikatu: can, am able to
3. ha’e: am, is, are
4. ime: to be, location
5. iko: live, go
6. kuaa: to know
7. ...kuaa: v.e. to know how
8. pota: to want
9. ...se: v.e. to want to
10. 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

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

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.