1. Simple present positive sentences:

In some ways Sinhala is easier than English or other European languages. There is no need to change endings in Sinhala depending upon the subject of the sentence as we have to do in French or Spanish. In addition, the tense we are looking at here is can be used to express three tenses in English. You can use this tense to refer to what we do usually - talking about habits or routines (simple present tense – I wake up at 7 o’clock), what you are doing at the moment of speaking (present continuous tense - I am watching TV) and your plans for the future (I am going to visit my grandparents tomorrow).

So, how do we do all this? If you remember from Unit 1 lesson 5 we saw how we make the infinitive form of the verb, which we use to give orders or commands, by adding nn~ / Nn to the end of the verb. To make a positive sentence in the simple present we add n~wa: / nv` to the end of the of the verb. Look at the following examples from the dialogue and note how the verb is placed at the end of the sentence:

T2.1i

Both the above examples show Sinhala fulfilling the job of the Simple Present tense.

As we said this form of the verb can be used to talk about things you do routinely, things you are doing now or things you plan to do in the future.

T2.1j

So, you can use this tense to refer to any of three time states but if the meaning is not clear from the context you should give the time modifier such as every day, now or tomorrow.

2. Prepositions: at, to, for, by and from.

The Sinhalese don’t use prepositions in the way that we do. Rather they modify their nouns by putting an ending on the noun to express these meanings. This is rather complicated but you can start to get a feel for these if you look at the following examples from the dialogue which show how some of the common prepositions in English are expressed in Sinhala.

The ending T~ / t is put on the end of the word to convey the meaning of at, for or to.

From and by are expressed by adding n / N to the end of the noun. The preceding consonant may sometimes carry a vowel stroke. For example: from home / ged~rin / @gqÝN shows the consonant r / r carrying the i / Ý vowel stroke. However, from the well / li`nd~n / ˜@>N the `nd~ / > carries no vowel stroke.

Look at the following examples:

T2.1k

Literally: I morning eight at home from go

Literally: I am married to me children two there are

Literally: I my family members for breakfast make

Literally: I from the well bathe

Literally: I school to bus by go

3. Telling the time - part one

Here we are just going to look at the question what time is it? and the answer of one o’clock, two o’clock etc. To say it is one o’clock you just need to say one or four if it is four o’clock. You don’t need to say anything for the o’clock part.

T2.1l

Literally: the time how much?