Writing a Diary 5 (what you paid for things)

What you have paid for things.

We have looked at a variety of food and clothes that you might buy. We now need to look at numbers again to talk about paying. Using numbers we do not need plurals for the money, and in a number with several components the currency unit comes after the first part.

spendya or spenja or spena	to spend/spending
pe	to pay/paying
pens (SWFM peuns)	pound
diner[1]	penny
lies pens[2]	many pounds
mona	money, cash, change
meur a vona	a lot of money
showr a vona	masses of money
bush broas a vona	a vast amount of money
re a vona	too much money

Here are some examples of sentences, with the typical <-as> ending (and the softened initial, where appropriate) of the simple past (preterite):  

Me a spendyas deg pens.	I spent £10.
Me a beas[3] ügens pens.	I paid £20.
Me a beas pemp pens warn ügens.	I spent£25.
Me a spendyas dew bens ha hanter cans diner.	I spent £2.50p.
Nag era dhebm mona luck.	I didn’t have enough money/change.
Nag era mona lowr genam.	I didn’t have enough money with me.
Na wrüga vy spendya bes pajar pens.[4]	I only spent £4.

                  

         

                   

         

         

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[1] sounds like the historic coin “dinar” , not like the American eatery

[2] Some people use <arhans/arghans> for money, but strictly speaking this means silver (from the Latin argentum)

[3] two syllables: sounds like /bayaz/  (though minimise the /y/ sound)

[4] For negative statements you can’t use the simple past; you need the compound preterite with the auxiliary verb to do <gwil> in its own past tense <wrüg>