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- "Is he in the bedroom?"
"Is he in the bedroom?"
Translation:Aia ʻo ia ma ka lumi moe?
18 Comments
542
Sometimes it is "i ka lumi moe" and like here it is "ma ka lumi moe"? Is there a rule for this?
i & ma are interchangeable for location contexts. The difference is that "i" also can mean "to" implying movement, that ma does not have.
Nope. In fact, "i" is accepted here. If you put "i" and you got marked wrong, you either had some other error that you didn't notice or it was a software glitch. Do you have a screen shot? Did you use the report flag to indicate "my answer should have been accepted"?
I guess that is because of the randomness of the system, which choices it would offer. That is my guess. Both i and ma would work here.
I like the program but not enough vocalization. I should be able to point and click on the above sentence and hear it in Hawaiian
- 542
I agree with Hubert wholeheartedly! It would be wonderful (if it is possible logistically) if all of the Hawaiian words and phrases had an audio option. I pronounce the words and phrases myself out loud but I am not always sure I am saying it correctly.
- 731
So, only 4 questions in and I've already seen this same sentence structure used both as a question ("Is he in the bedroom?") and a statement ("He is in the bedroom.") How are these distinguished when speaking? Inflection?
'Ae / Yes. The inflection is what makes it a question. Plus, in Hawaiian the inflection for yes/no questions is different from other questions and it is unlike English where the pitch of the voice rises all the way to the end. For the inflection for yes/no questions in Hawaiian, the pitch of the voice rises and then drops at the very end.
It is possible but they have not taught the locational prepositions yet. In a general sense i and ma can mean in, while i loko o means inside of. It is splitting hairs on meaning, but they just have not introduced those words and that structure yet.
When should "ia" be used? I tried "Aia kona i ka lumi moe" and that was not accepted. When shall I use "ia" oand when "kona"?
"Kona" is a possessive adjective. It isn't used to refer to a person themself, but rather to indicate that they own the following item. So "kona lumi moe" would mean, "his bedroom" (or "her" or "its"). To refer to the person themselves as the subject doing the action of the verb, use "ia".
There's really no English word that's the same. English translations are often clearest by translating it as "to be". However, it really means something more like "there is". So the closest literal translation of this exercise is, "There is he in the bedroom." That's a very odd English sentence so it usually gets translated as, "He is in the bedroom."
