Lesson Seventeen

Dialogue seventeen: Ladies’ visit to the tailor

NOTE:

Another useful phrase is:

Men: Ordering a pair of sandals

NOTE:

سائ - saa'ee is money paid in advance if goods are made to order. Hence سائیدار - saaydáar means 'made to order'. Here the adjective is inflected to match the feminine plural څپلۍ - tsaplúy so the speaker says سائیدارې - saaydáare.

Pronunciation drill

👆 You have probably found that you are consistently getting some words corrected by helpful friends. Over this next week keep reminding everyone you talk to, to help you in pronunciation, and make a list of words you get wrong. Write them down and get your helper to drill you.

One good idea is to either draw pictures or take photographs of the things which you have trouble pronouncing. Take these pictures with you for practice. Try to avoid translation back to your mother tongue.

Some useful phrases are:

Reviewing Inflection

Before moving on to the past tenses in Lesson Eighteen, it is worthwhile summarising the inflections used so far.

👆 Here are some examples of sentences with words that get inflected because they are connected to different pre/post-positions like د - du (of), ته - ta (to) etc. Look at just the English and try to say the following sentences. Some sentences without inflections are included to clarify the rules.

1. Possesion (د ... - du ...)

NOTE:

انګرېږ - angréz is a general term for westerners.

2. To (... ته - ___ ta, ... له - ... la)

3. Of (د ... - du ...)

4. With (د ... سره - du ... sara)

5. On (په ... باندې - pu ... baande)

6. In (په ... کښې - pu ... ke)

Expressing the ability to do something کولے شی - kawulay shee

NOTE:

The C.S.S. stands for Civil Service Exam.

You can express ability or possibility by adding ـے - -ay on the end of the infinitive and then adding شـ - sh-- plus the present verb endings. Here's how to do that with the verb کول - kawul.

Note that the ـے - -ay on the end of the the infinitive never inflects, regardless of gender or number.

In the negative, the شـ - sh-- is usually flipped up in front of the infinitive, but can also be said in the regular order to make a firm statement or emphasize the negativity.

More examples of expressing ability

👆 Following the above pattern, continue practicing with other verbs that have previously been introduced. Have your helper say a verb and a noun, then construct a sentence using both.

Days of the week

NOTE:

In Khyber Pukhtunkhwa the Urdu names for the days of the week are widely used, in addition to Pukhto ones.

Use days of the week in sentences

NOTES:

1. The days of are inflected just as any other nouns are when used with pre/post-positions like د - du and په - pu.

2. In Pukhtun thought, the new day begins at sunset, so the name of the night is attached to the day that follows. If you want to invite someone over on Thursday night, ask him for Friday night, or you will have your guest arrive on Wednesday night! For example:

Negatives هېجرته - hechărta (nowhere), هېڅ کله - hetskala (never - for people), هېچرې - hechăre (never - for things), هېڅوک - hetsok (no one), هېچا - hechaa (no one - inflected)

Comprehension drill: Learning antonyms

We tend to want to write things down all the time, but this may not be too helpful in the long run. Try to conduct this drill entirely in Pukhto and not write anything down. Use it anytime you want to find out a new descriptive word.

👆 Find two contrasting items that illustrate common descriptives such as sweet–bitter, hot–cold, clean–dirty, new–old, thin–thick, heavy–light, dull–sharp, etc.

A. Learning descriptives

Put some paired objects on a tray and ask these questions:

A. Antonym soup

👆 Put all the objects out on a tray and pick up the correct one when your helper describes it.

Memorising moments

mataloona

NOTE:

Shabaz Gara is a famous village near Mardan.

Exercises for Lesson Seventeen

1. Answer the following questions in the positive:

Now answer the same questions with negative answers.

2. Using the list below, discover the Pukhto for each word plus their opposites. Write them down in Pukhto script or phonetics. Find objects that illustrate these common descriptives, and then practice them according to the method found in the Comprehension drill for this Lesson (Learning antonyms).

3. Find out how new words work. Use this exercise to start developing your own skills in Pukhto grammar.

👆 With a helper fill out the following chart in Pukhto (either script or phonetics). As far as possible just use Pukhto to do your investigation.

Now pick some adjectives and match them with various items of food to test your ability to make sentences with them. Some to try are:.