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Assess Your Potential

Those of you with a recent history of language learning, especially Romance languages might find it easy. It is designed to see if you can spot language patterns in a language you don't know. It is in fact a made-up language, devised by the authors Terry Doyle and Paul Meara, and is taken from their book "Lingo", a BBC publication (a very worthwhile buy for the aspiring language learner).

Read the examples and their translations trying to spot the language patterns, (i.e. which bit is the verb, which is the subject and so on.) Then try to work out the sentences by applying the patterns that you have seen.

ek kum chuchu	The train is coming
ek namas chuchu	The train is very big
nek kum niva chuchu	The train isn't coming
ek chuchu	It's a train.
ek moris	It's a car.
ek flup trakibus	There isn't any room in the bus
ek tichi moris	The car is very small
ek bast trakibus	The bus has broken down
nek niva bast moris	The car hasn't broken down
nek niva flup trakibus	There's lots of room in the bus
ek bast trakibus akid?	Has the bus broken down?
ek stop chuchu.	The train has stopped
nek stop niva chuchu	The train hasn't stopped

 

Now have a go at translating these sentences. They're not as easy as you might think.

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1. It's a bus	ek trakibus ek chuchu ek moris

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2. The bus is very small

ek namas trakibus ek tichi trakibus ek bast moris

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3. The train is full.

ek flup chuchu ek bast chuchu nek niva flup chuchu

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4. The car has broken down.

nek niva bast moris ek stop moris ek bast moris

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5. Is the train coming?

ek bast chuchu akid? ek kum chuchu akid? nek niva flup chuchu?

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6. Isn't the bus full?

nek niva flup trakibus akid? ek bast trakibus? nek flup trakibus akid?

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7. The car is very big.

ek tichi moris nek namas moris akid ek namas moris

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8. Has the car stopped?

nek stop niva moris akid? ek stop moris akid? ek bast moris

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9. Isn't the bus coming?

nek niva flup trakibus akid? nek kum niva trakibus akid? nek niva bast chuchu akid?

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10. Is the bus full?

ek flup trakibus akid? ek stop trakibus? ek bast moris akid?

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