Lesson 8: Possessive

How to Use This Lesson

Every lesson is divided into four sections: Grammar, Vocabulary, Exercise, and Review. Please move through these tabs in order.

Do not try to memorize! Just read through the content attentively. We will have plenty of exercises and reviews later!

GrammarVocabularyExercise 1Exercise 2Review

Possessive

Remember the personal pronouns? Try to complete the table:

Oravia	English
	I
	you
	he/she/they (singular)
	we
	you (plural)
	they (plural)

The possessive is very simple, we just add e to the end of the pronoun. Try to complete this table now:

Oravia	English
	my, mine
	your, yours
	his, her, hers... (singular)
	our, ours
	your, yours (plural)
	their, theirs (plural)

Great, we have learned possessive for personal pronouns. But how about other words? For example, if I want to say it's my spouse's? In that case, we use de.

de faibor = spouse's

Or you could also say, de nime faibor. De is very versatile. It means of, about, from. For example, one could ask:

de ceidom run?
↓       ↓    ↓              
from/of where you?

This means where are you from?. Can you guess the meaning of de ceidom rune faibor?

Take a look at the possessive table again:

Oravia	English
nime	my, mine
rune	your, yours
haye	his, her, hers... (singular)
nimae	our, ours
runae	your, yours (plural)
hayae	their, theirs (plural)

In sum, we have:

*e* in the end - for pronouns
*de* before the word - for everything else

Now try to create 3 sentences using possessives:

The AN Subclusters

Today we will take a deeper look into our fourth cluster, AN! Let's explore these AN words.

Oravia	English
ando	can, be capable of, be able to
anita	take
anifou	need
anidai	want
anifi	come
anona	give
anopu	lose
anocari	leave
anolu	out
anefene	rest
anepou	stop
anefe	put
anelem	stay, remain

Notice that the subclusters — ANI, ANO, and ANE — tell us the direction of the action.
ANI is about movement towards. It's for actions that represent an approach orientation, like take, come, need, and want. ANO is about movement away, it's for actions like give, lose, and leave. ANE is about neither movement towards nor away: it's for being static. It's for things like rest, stop, put, and stay.

Some of these verbs are special. They can take not only things as complements, but other verbs too. Take for example the verb to want, or anidai. How would you say "my parent wants a bed?"

nime fare i anidai e bonfene.

But what if your parent wanted to do an action instead? For example, to lie down. How would we say that? Step 1: How to make e bonfene a verb instead of a noun? That's right, we use i instead of e:

nime fare i anidai i bonfene.

Step 2: now, we drop the subcluster sound of the first verb. What remains is what we call the root, like this:

nime fare i dai i bonfene.

Done! There are a few reasons we use just the root of the first verb for a construction like to want to do. First, it sounds more distinct from the noun option, so listeners can tell the difference easily. Second, it's shorter, and these verb stacks come up a lot! You can use many verbs in the first verb role - ando, anifou, anidai, anepou, anelem... These are all verbs that take another action as a complement.

How do you think we would say to need to come? How about to be able to leave?

This construction is so common it will soon become second nature!

You can also use the full verb form, like i anidai i bonfene. It tends to sound a bit formal and stiff for everyday speech. Sometimes you may want to create this effect, but short form is what you will hear and use most naturally in conversation.

In sum, in the AN cluster (actions), we have:

ANI - movement towards  
ANO - movement away     
ANE - static
i do/dai/fou... i [verb] = can/want/need... to [verb]

Matching Games

Time to practice! Match the Oravia words with their English meanings.

If you don't remember or make a mistake, that's totally fine! We will have plenty of opportunities to practice. Right now just give it a try.

Click one word from each column to match them. The game will check automatically when you select both words.

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Matching Games

Time to practice! Match the Oravia words with their English meanings.

If you don't remember or make a mistake, that's totally fine! We will have plenty of opportunities to practice. Right now just give it a try.

Click one word from each column to match them. The game will check automatically when you select both words.

After completing the Exercises and Review, try it again to see how much you've improved.

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Review Missed Words

This section shows only the words you got wrong during practice. If you didn't miss any words, this will be empty - great job! 🎉

🎉 Lesson 8 Complete!

If you missed any words, check the Review tab to practice them again.

Come back tomorrow for Lesson 9.