Guaraní

And now, an introduction to the beautiful language of Guaraní

Yes: Heê
No: Nahaniri

Who, what, where, when, why:

Mava, Mba'e, Moô, Araka'e, Mba'ere

numbers:
1 peteî
2 mokôi
3 mbohapy
4 irundy
5 po


the personal pronouns are
I - Che
you - nde
he\she\it - ha'e
we - ñande (inclusive) ore (exclusive)
you all - peê
them - ha'e kuera


The verbs come in three different types
areals, aireals, and chendalles

areals you add:
Singular Plural
1st person a ja\ña ( for oral\nasal words) ro (exclusive we)
2nd person re pe
3rd person o o

the aireals are the same, but its ai, rei, oi, etc.

the chendalles you just add the personal pronoun and then a word

che kane'o is I am tired, it is like estoy cansado in spanish
but for the third person it isn't just ha'e

you add an i: ikane'o
but for words that begin with vowels you add an ij- if its oral or iñ- if its nasal

and the most important phrase you need:
aipota peteî cerveza penguino rumbyicha
which means: I want a beer like a penguin's ass , which during the summer is apparently quite the necessity.

one of the great things about guaraní in paraguay is that a lot of the jokes and sayings like that are in guaraní

to make things be in the future you add -ta to the end if it is an affirmative statement and -mo'aî if it is a negative statement

for the past when you are asking, you add -ra'e, but when you are responding you add -kuri.

and then there are many, many ¨particles¨ that are little words that indicate things like time, location, desire, necessity, emphasis, and many other things.

-se indicates desire
-ne indicates necessity, and -chene indicates lack of necesity
-hiná indicates an action in progress

Voluntariokuera Cuerpo de Pazndive omba´apo campope opytyvô hagua paraguayokuera
Volunteers with the Peace Corps work in the country to help paraguayans


But all in all learning two languages simultaneously is easier than I thought it would be.

What I will be doing

So we´ve passed our halfway point, and our class now has a much better idea of what we will be doing. With the rural economic development (RED) program, we will have our primary goal of working with cooperatives. These cooperatives can make anything from yogurt to bananas, and clothing to savings and loans services. We help them in a variety of ways be it, helping them with their books, comply with coop regulations, liase between them and other coops or organizations, and helping them design and execute projects, whether it is helping a strawberry coop start a jam service or a coop that gives loans with starting a program for savings. We also have secondary projects that we are encouraged to take on. These include income generating projects like apiculture (beekeeping), pisciculture (fish ponds), adding new products, or microfinance. They can also be for the community, like working with youth or women´s groups, assisting small businesses with project design, feasability studies, marketing and other things. The nice thing about the RED program is that our training is very broad and we have the potential to take on many projects. Although they do keep us very busy with training as a result. Hopefully I will start making funny posts soon, and there are also pictures to come once I get a faster internet connection.