Doing the sums in Sinhala

How the whole thing sounds

The situation: two calculate how much material the repair needs and argue whether to take it with a margin. First the whole conversation, then each line on its own, with a translation.

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  තීන්ත කීයක් ඕනද? ස්තර දෙකක් ගාන්න ඕන.

  tīnta kīyak ōnada? stara dekak gānna ōna.

  How much paint is needed? Two coats must be applied.
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  ඇහැට බලලා ලීටර් පහක් විතර ඇති.

  æhæṭa balalā līṭar pahak vitara æti.

  Offhand, about five liters will be enough.
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  හරි ගානට ගත්තොත් මදි වෙයි. ඕනවට වඩා අරගමු.

  hari gānaṭa gattot madi veyi. ōnavaṭa vaḍā aragamu.

  If we take it exactly, it will not be enough. Let us take with a margin.
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  එහෙනම් ගාණ තුනෙන් එකකින් වැඩි වෙනවා.

  ehenam gāṇa tunen ekakin væḍi venavā.

  Then the sum will grow by a third.
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  ගිය පාරෙත් ඒ ගාණමයි, ඒත් අවසානෙට ලීටරයක් ඉතුරු වුණා.

  giya pāret ē gāṇamayi, ēt avasāneṭa līṭarayak ituru vuṇā.

  Last time it was the same, and in the end a liter was left.
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  තොග වශයෙන් ගත්තොත් ගාණ ගුණයකින් අඩුයි.

  toga vaśayen gattot gāṇa guṇayakin aḍuyi.

  If you take it wholesale, the price is several times lower.
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  ඒත් ගබඩාවේ ඉඩ මදි. එකින් එක අරන් එමු.

  ēt gabaḍāvē iḍa madi. ekin eka aran emu.

  But the storage is tight. We will take one by one.
• ▶
  හරි. ඔක්කොම ගණන් හදලා හෙට කියන්නම්.

  hari. okkoma gaṇan hadalā heṭa kiyannam.

  Good. I will count everything and say tomorrow.

Lines one by one

How to prepare for a conversation like this

Memorizing the lines is not enough: the other person will say their own thing, not what is written. What helps more is catching the key words by ear and keeping three rescue phrases ready: “I don't understand”, “repeat, please”, “slower”.

And one more thing phrasebooks do not mention: awkwardness gets in the way more than not knowing the words.

• Fear of making mistakes gets in the way of learning a language, and noticeably so. The link turns up study after study, and together those studies cover almost twenty thousand people.checked many times
  Teimouri, Goetze & Plonsky, 2019, Studies in Second Language Acquisition 41(2) · 19,933 participants from 23 countries; correlation with results r = −0.36.
• That fear can be dealt with — the methods have been tested and they work.checked many times
  Xiong et al., 2024, Journal of Language and Social Psychology · 37 studies, anxiety reduced by −0.61. Of the seven conditions examined, only age turned out to matter.

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