Sinhala and Sri Lanka Online Forum

[slgwh]

Hi,
I run a preschool and we have a new little girl starting in September. I would love to be able to welcome her in Singalese. Could someone please tell me how to write and also pronounce the Singalese for 'Hello', 'please', 'thank you', 'bye', 'my name is'. And any other info you think will help me.

Thanks,
Sally

[lilxmouse]

Just stumbled across this page.. I just came back from a volunteer trip in Sri Lanka, so my memory's still kinda fresh. I haven't learned the correct spellings or anything, but this is as close as I can get:

"thank you" = styutti
"thank you very much" = bohoma styutti
"how are you?" = kohomade
"my name is..." = mage nama ...
"your name?" = oyage nama?
"it's okay" = hari hari

hope this helps!

[slgwh]

Many thanks, was giving up hope of a reply!! Luckily the girl speaks basic English but I wil try out your suggestions to make her feel at home!

[Chars]

I have no idea on the spelling but yeah...

anai (uh-nay) = please

oyage (oh-ya-gay) nama (nuh-ma) mokkada (moh-kah-duh) is "what is your name?" makes more sense than "your name"

Hello will work for Hello....but if you want to be all formal you can use "aiyobowan" (sp?) (ay-yo-boh-wan).

"oh" is yes, "nah" is no.

[slgwh]

Hi,

Thanks for that.

Sally

[Jude]

No point in saying ayubowan, because thats a formal form of hello.

Plain "hello" is good enough.

PM me if u need help with sinhalese words.