Writing a Diary 1

Although I am calling this series of posts “Writing a Diary”, building up a conversation has many aspects in common with it. These will be mainly concerned with your past activities and future plans, since those are the main things we talk about and write down, e.g. after or before important events such as Christmas, Easter and birthdays.

The following examples are in the simple past tense (preterite). The basic verb is shown in brackets. Suitable objects can be found in a suitable dictionary, such as the Oxford Children's Cornish-English Visual Dictionary[1].

Pronunciation note: stress the bold syllable in each word (usually this is the penultimate syllable).

Rag Nadelik me a dhabras … (debry)	for Christmas I ate …
Rag Nadelik me a evas … (eva)	I drank …
Rag Nadelik me a gemeras … (kemeres)	I got …
Rag Nadelik me a recevas … (receva)	I received …
Rag Nadelik me a dhegemeras … (degemeres)	I received …
Rag Nadelik me a fanjas … (fanja)	I received …
Òja Nadelik me a bernas … (perna)	After Christmas I bought …
E’n gwerthasow me a bernas … (perna)	In the sales I bought …
Me a spendyas … (spendya)	I spent …

                

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[1] Translated by Dr. Jon Mills, pub. Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-273560-7. I like this dictionary, as it is the only commercial one based on Late rather than Mediaeval Cornish.