Iaorana!
Survived the first full week of Tahitian instruction! It's a crazy language, but the sentence structure and grammar is not that bad.
The sentence structure is: Tense marker-Verb-subject
ua- past tense
e-future and continuing future tense
te...nei- present tense
ua pure au (I prayed)
e pure au (I'm going to pray)
You don't actually use the present tense for much because the "e" tense is actions you are currently doing that you're going to continue doing...which is most things.
There is no conjugation at all, you throw the tense marker at the beginning of the sentence and say what you want. All verbs are left in the infinitive.
You also turn verbs into the nouns they represent by adding -raa to the end. You can also turn nouns into verbs by adding a haa- or an faa- to the beginning of the noun.
Also the passive voice is easy as well. To make a passive verb you add -hia to the end.
A few examples:
maa - food
tamaa - to eat (This is an exception because maa is such an old word, so you add ta- to make it a verb)
tamaraa - a meal
faatamaraa - to feed a meal
faatamaraahia - to be fed a meal
tamaraahia - to be eaten
maitai - good
haamaitai - to bless
haamaitairaa - a blessing
haamaitaihia - to be blessed
e nehenehe re'o! ( It Beautiful language)
It's really beautiful how it all works out.
I have been continuing reading Jesus the Christ. I think im more than halfway through it now. It is an amazing book. Talmage's rhetoric and spin on events makes for an enticing read, it also is teaching me a TON about the character of Christ. I would recommend it to everyone and anyone who wants to know more about Christ and his divine mission.
Everything is pretty much the same around here. We are all getting really excited as the weeks fly by! Tahiti can't come soon enough. I met an Elder Myers going to the Tokyo Mission, so Kirstin will probably see him when she gets to Tokyo. I don't think I told you but I was sick. For a long time. But, it looks like I'm better now so no worries! I got your package today! It was full of great stuff! Thanks for the extra shirts and pants they are awesome, or as Tahitians would say, nave~! The blue linen shirt is really nice! The Lavalava is très nave aussi; even if they don't wear Lavalavas in Tahiti, it's fun to wear them around the MTC campus on P-Day (because nobody else has to know that :] ). Well...I'm grasping at straws here (whatever that means), so I'll bare my testimony in Tahitian:
Ua ite au e, e Iesu Mesia to tatou faaora, e na roto i te tareahara, e nehenehe ia tatou ia tatarahapa. (I know that, Jesus Christ is our savior, and through the atonement, we can repent.)
Ua ite au e, e buka mau te Buka Moromona. ( I know that, a book true, is the book of mormon)
Ua ite au e, ua here te Atua ia tatou. ( I know that God loves us.)
na roto i te i'oa, o Iesu Mesia amene.
I love how Tahitian words make things so simple. Reading the book of mormon in Tahitian is an amazing experience. For example the word Savior is faaora. The word ora means life. If you remember from above adding faa- make the noun a verb. so in effect Jesus Christ "lifes" us. Everything is so simple and pure in the language!
well that's all.
Ua here au ia tatou!
nana
Elder Molinari
