WE DID IT!
Today was the first time that my tutor and I had an actual conversation in kreyòl! Now, to be fair, after ten or so weeks it wasn’t beautiful and it wasn’t entirely correct. But we did talk about “stuff” and I was able to form sentences and respond to questions with almost no help on a missing word. I’m still terribly wrong on word order, and sometimes I just don’t “get” it. But we are doing well!
And today we hammered out the meaning of sentences such as “Wi, se dòktè mwen ye,” which if you know the individual words can be confusing. But it’s one form of the answer to the question “Èske ou se dòktè?” With a “question” work such as “Èske,” you have to start the answer with either “Wi” (yes) or “Non” (no), because it’s like a question in English “Do you have a knife?” with the answer, “Yes, I have a knife.” And as part of the response, you use both the word “se” to signify that this is an answer, and “ye” as the “to be” verb. In other cases, both “se” and “ye” are used to mean “to be.” And that can be confusing! (Hey, language is confusing if you examine it too closely!) You can have a question like “Ou se dòktè?” and respond with “Mwen se dòktè” or even “Dòktè mwen ye.” But the fuller answer is “Wi, se dòktè mwen ye.”
So, about the same here:
- Ou se katolik?
- Èske se katolik ou ye?
And the answer can be
- Wi, mwen se katolik
- Wi, mwen katolik
- Wi, se katolik mwen ye
I’m fascinated with this language, and while I’m still very early into the work of learning it, today is the day when I feel that it first “clicked.”
Ann kontinye aprann kreyòl ayisyen!