Language/Malayalam/Grammar/Word-Order
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As a Malayalam teacher for the past 20 years, I have seen students struggle with the basic sentence structure in Malayalam. In this lesson, we will understand the word order in Malayalam sentences and practice constructing simple sentences.
After mastering this lesson, these related pages might interest you: Pronouns & Questions.
Subject-Object-Verb
The basic word order in Malayalam is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV), unlike English, which is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO).
Let us take an example sentence: "I eat an apple."
In Malayalam, this sentence would be constructed as "I an apple eat," which translates to "ഞാൻ ഒരു ആപ്പിൾ കഴിക്കുന്നു" (naan oru apple kazhikkunnu).
Here, "ഞാൻ" (naan) means "I," "ഒരു" (oru) means "an," "ആപ്പിൾ" (apple) means "apple," and "കഴിക്കുന്നു" (kazhikkunnu) means "eat."
As you can see, the verb "eat" comes at the end of the sentence, after the object "apple."
Practice
Let's practice constructing some basic sentences:
- Example 1:
- Malayalam: നായ വീട്ടിൽ ഉണ്ടാകുന്നു (naaya veettil undaakunnu)
- Pronunciation: /na:ya: ve:ttɪl unda:kunnu/
- English: The dog is in the house.
- Example 2:
- Malayalam: അവൻ പൂക്കൾ വാങ്ങുകയാണ് (avan pookkal vaanghukaayaan)
- Pronunciation: /ʌvaɳ pu:kkaɭ va:ŋgʊha:jɑ:n/
- English: He buys flowers.
- Example 3:
- Malayalam: ഞാൻ സപ്താഹത്തിലേയ്ക്ക് പോകുന്നു (naan saptaahathilekk pokunnu)
- Pronunciation: /na:n səptɑ:həttɪle:k:pokunnu/
- English: I am going to the week.
Try constructing similar basic sentences on your own, and practice with a friend or a language partner to improve your Malayalam sentence structure skills.
Conclusion
Understanding the basic word order in Malayalam sentences is essential to construct coherent and meaningful sentences. In this lesson, we learned that Malayalam uses SOV word order, unlike English. Remember to practice constructing simple sentences to improve your Malayalam sentence structure skills.
Upon wrapping up this lesson, take a look at these related pages: Plurals & Past Tense Verbs.
Other Lessons
- Conditional Mood
- Nouns
- Vowel Markers
- Basic Letters
- Direct and Indirect Speech
- Future Tense
- Past Tense Verbs
- How to Use Have
- Present Tense Verbs
Sources
| ◀️ Subject Pronouns — Previous Lesson | Next Lesson — Nouns and Adjectives ▶️ |