When the tense of a statement is understood, the tense marker is often omitted. The command tense marker is often omitted because the tense is almost always understood as immediate, urgent, and present. Sometimes you only need a verb/action word like aumai, ave, salapu, alu, alu ese, fa’avave, fa’avave mai, fa’avave mai lau tuai. You…
The Matou Samoan Language class for Beginners will start January 23, 2024 and ends March 14, 2024. Classes meet every Tuesday and Thursday 7:00pm California, USA time. All classes are recorded, so if you’re unable to attend class you will receive a password to access the exclusive content (recorded classes & worksheets) for students. If…
Anytime you have action you’ll have a place or a location where the action happens If I walk to the store. The action is walk and it happens to the store. If Joseph exercises at home. The action is exercise and it happens at home if there’s a bird on the car. The birds action is existing or being present…
The Samoan language identifies subjects with the particle “O” when there is no action or location given to the noun. The “O” is a noun tense marker that indicates: The “O” noun tense marker is used in complete subject phrases. If you were to ask someone to identify a person, place, thing, or idea in…
Download this worksheet First choose a noun and determine whether it is an a-class or o-class possession. Let’s use penitala or pencil. If there’s no letter in the first column then it’s plural and specific set of penitala. If there’s an l, then it’s singular and specific penitala. If we use “s” then we’re saying…
Telling time in Samoan Telling time in Samoan, of course you’ll need to know numbers in Samoan and then 3 main time structures. When someone asks ‘Ua ta le fia? or It has struck the how many…basically what time is it The first sentece structure, let’s use the hour of 2. ‘Ua ta le lua, ‘Ua kuata le lua, ‘Ua afa le lua ‘Ua is…
E is the “Habitual Present” tense marker. It changes the occurrence of an event to something that usually, habitually, and presently happens. When used with descriptive pronouns, tense marker “E” changes to “te” and combined with a descriptive pronoun (explained in more detail in the “te” lesson. Like all tense markers, it appears before a…
Adjectives Adjectives are words that describe nouns. In English adjectives go before the noun. Example: Big boy The adjective is Big, the noun is boy. Big is what describes the boy. Notice that big goes before the noun in this English phrase. In Samoan, the adjective comes after the noun. Big boy is said Boy…
Samoan verbs are the center of the action phrase. Below is a list of Samoan action words aka verbs” apportion, share fa’asoa extend fa’ateleina alert (awake) mata’ala argue finau, misa ask permission fa’anoi ask question fesili assemble (gather) aofia, fa’apotopoto assist fesoasoagi assumed faapea astray se avenge fa’afetaui awake, to ala baffle fa’apalo bail out…
Video link ina ia = in order to Ina ia is used in the same way in Samoan as it is in English. It can be used in the middle of the sentence or the beginning. Sentence Examples Do this in order to get that. Faia lenei mea ina ia e maua lena mea. In order to receive blessings,…
