Welcome to Fijian Language

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Fijian pronunciation isn't difficult for the English speaker, since most of the sounds in English are the same as the one in the Fijian language. The standard Fijian alphabet uses all the English letters, except (x). The letters (h) and (z) occur only rarely, in borrowed words.

Vowels-As with all Pacific languages, the five Fijian vowels are pronounced much as they are in such languages as Spanish, German, and Italian:

  A as in father
E as in bet
I as in machine
O as in more
U as in zoo

when there are two vowels together, they simply retain their original pronunciation , so that mai is pronounced like my., lei like lay, nau like now, and so on.

 

most consonants are pronounced as they are in English, but a small number of differences need to be learned. first the minor differences:
b & d pronounced with preceding nasal consonant, so b sounds like "mb" and d like "nd.
k,p,t as in English, but without the puff of breath that often follows them. the t sounds like "ch" when it occurs before the vowel i, so that tiko is often pronounced as if it were "jiko".

r as in the r in English

v as in the v of English to verify

The following one are a bit more tricky

c pronounced as the "th" this 

j as in ch of loch

q as in ng  for sing

b   mb

c (th)

d (nd)

Fijian is often said to be a relatively easy language to learn, because there are no long lists of verbs conjugations, noun declensions, irregular past tenses, and so on.

    Sentence Structure

All sentences are made up of at least two basic elements: noun phrase and verb phrases. Although there are many possible combinations , most sentences consist of either one verb phrase, two noun phrases, or both, a noun and a verb phrase. Often the order of elements is different from English, with the verb phrase coming before the noun phrase.

 

   Exclamation

 (yes- io) (no-sega) (maybe -de dua) (not yet-se bera)

 

Nouns

There are two major types of noun in Fijian known as common  and proper noun. All the nouns remain unchanged from singular to plural, so for instance, the word vale can mean (one), (house), or (several) houses.

Common Nouns

Commons nouns are all nouns  which are not names, that is, they are general words. They are usually preceded by the article "na":

a/the house, houses             na vale

a/the dog, dogs                    na koli

As you can see, the one article" a" is both definite article "the" and an indefinite article "a, an", if a/an means specially "one" not more  "or" and unknown one use "e dua na:

 

one house/an (unknown) house        e dua na vale

• "na" is often "a" when its the first word in a sentence, so the question "what?" "na cava?" often becomes "a cava?

Proper Nouns

Proper nouns , which include names of people and places , and and also independent pronouns and the word for "who", are usually preceded by the article "o" :

john (O jone)

fiji (o Fiji)

 you (sg) ( O iko)

Who? (O cei?)

Adjectives:

Always follow the noun

the large house- na vale levu

a beautifull house -na vale totoka

a dirty shirt -na vale duka

the red shirt- na sote danudamu

Pronouns

quite difficult because there are so many varieties, English has only singular and plural, Fijian as four number distinctions: singular, dual , paucal, and plural.

it would be better for me to not show you all of them, but the main and the most important ones

(i-au) (he, she, it-o) (you, we they-e), note that "he/she/it ,e, is often omitted, especially before the particle sa: (he/she has gone-Sa lako)

Possession

Possession is another area English speakers find difficult at first, because it is rather more complicated than English . In English there is only one type of possession, for  example there are only one word for "my" .  In Fijian there are four different ways of saying "my":(-qu), (noqu), (kequ), (mequ). fortunaly, the rules are pretty straightforward:

Possessive pronouns

if the noun is  a suffix-possessed" noun, which is usually the case with parts of the body, parts of things, and relationship terms, the possessive noun is added on to the noun. To illustrate with "my" , "-qu" :

my stomach-na- kete-qu

my father- na tama-qu

verbs

A simple verb is one that is never used with a direct object and so never changes its form. ( with the next two verb types you'll see what a direct object is, and how it works with a verb .)

 Examples of simple verbs are "gade" "go for a walk", go on holiday etc" and "madua" ""be ashamed:

 i am on holiday-au gade

he's ashamed-  E madua

 

Active Transitive Verbs

an active transitive verb is similar to a simple verb, but a suffix consist of a consonant plus (-a)

is added when the verb has a direct object. A direct object is something that is directly affected by the verb.

iam drinking-au gunu

iam drinking it- au gunuva

iam drinking the tea- au gunuva na fi

Passive transited verbs

a passive transited verb is one which also has a suffix added when the verb has a direct object, but which has a passive meaning, when the verb is used without the suffix. An example of a passive transitive verb is the word for "close" sogo-ta". In these examples, the fist phrase has an active sense (o closed it) while the second phrase is passive as the verb  imply explains an existing state (its just sitting there, closed)

i closed the shop- au sogota na sitoa

the shop is closed- E sogo na sitoa

transitive only verbs

the first class of verbs is those which are only transitively, so always have a transitive suffix attached to them. An example is the word for "remember" "nanuma":

 i remember your face-- au nanuma na matamu

The final (-a) of the suffix of all transitive verbs changes to (-i) when followed by an object that is  a proper noun or indepedent pronoun

i remember you (sg)-au nanumi iko

 do you remember chartlie?- o nanumi jale?

i am afraid of him/her- au rerevaki koya

 note that of a transitive verb end in -a, the form before a proper noun or independent pronoun object is -ai:

do you know thje house?- o kila na vale?

do you know us?- o kilai keitou?

the verb in the present, past and future

the ways to express the present is that the pronoun acts as a verb, to say the past (a), and the future is (na):

i went-au a lako

i will go- au na lako

Particles sa and se: There is a kind of tense that has no direct equivalent to English, and its indicated by the particles sa, and se. the particle sa is used when the event  is a new development. a, a change from the previous state, whereas its opposite se indicate that the event is not new, but continues a previous state. 

my child is (now) at school- sa vuli na luvequ

we (group) have eaten - keitou sa kana

i am going( i am about to go)- au sa lako

Verb to Have

 There is no direct equivalent  of (to have)

 the most common equivalent is to use (e) dua plus a possessive construction:

do you have a pen?- E dua nomu(ni) peni?

he/she has a house now- Sa dua nona vale

with certain more permanent and substantial possessions, simply prefix  (vaka) to the noun and use it as a verb:

they all have houses- Era vakavale kece

i have a pen- au vakadakai

Note that (vaka) becomes (va) before a word beginning with, k, q, or g:

he has a beard- E vakumi

do you (family) have a dog?- Dou vakoli?

 

 Questions

yes/no questions are marked by a rising intonation, other question words are:

what-cava

who-cei

where-vei

how-vacakava

how much/many- vica

when- naica

when ( at what time)?- ina vica?

for why use the word baleta

Negatives

the negative is formed by sega ni (often sounded like seni in rapid speech) it occurs after the subject pronoun  and tense particles , but before the other particles:

i don't know- au sega ni kila

they don't want to lie down- Era sega ni via davo

Imperative

The imperative is, as in English, the simple form , of the verb. But remember that this is only for the singular- for numbers than the singular, the appropriate subject `pronoun should be used :

go on!- lako!

shut up! ( the two of you)-drau tikolo!

Modals

can- the English "can is translated by rawa ni after the subject pronoun:

can we walk?- O(ni) rawa ni taubale?

Should/ought to:

for should and ought to , use dododonu me

it ought to be open- E dodonu me dola

May/might use the postverbial particle beka:

it may be open- E dola Beka

Must/have to

there's no single translation. when it means obliged to, use the conjunction me/mo:

you must be there at two- mo tiko kina ina rua

want to use the postverbial particle via:

do you want to dance?- O via danisi?

Comparative/superlative

 Often the meaning is already clear in the sentence, or the postverbial particle cake may be used

he/she/its better- E vinaka cake

superlative are formed by placing duadua after the adjective:

 The largest kava bowl-  na tanoa levu duadua

Prepositions

there are only four commonly used prepositions, ie words that mean, in at , to, from, with, about, etc

i- used with things and places

mai- used with distant things and places

vei- used with people (including pronouns) , vei is joined with the third person  singular (he/she) as vua

kei- means )together) with"

iam staying in Suva- au tiko i suva

go away from here- lako tani i ke

they com from new Zealand - era lako mai niusiladi

I HOPE YOU HAVE ENJOYED THE GRAMMAR, ITS ABBREVIATED ALTHOUGH IT GIVES YOU A GOOD START TO LEARN THE LANGUAGE, BESIDES, WITH ALL THIS YOU CAN MAKE IT, YOU CAN SPEAK THE LANGUAGE WITHOUT A PROBLEM, I BET ON THAT, SO ENJOY YOURSELF

[Hit Counter]17/10/29

 

 

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