Returning the shirt in Sinhala

How the whole thing sounds

The situation: at the mall: a customer wants to exchange a shirt whose size did not fit. First the whole conversation, then each line on its own, with a translation.

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  ඊයේ ගත්ත කමිසේ සයිස් එක හරි ගියේ නෑ

  īyē gatta kamisē sayis eka hari giyē nǣ

  The shirt I bought yesterday turned out the wrong size.
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  රිසිට් එක තියෙනවද? ඒක නැතුව බෑ

  risiṭ eka tiyenavada? ēka nætuva bǣ

  Do you have the receipt? Without it we cannot.
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  තියෙනවා, මම තියාගත්තා. මාරු කරන්න පුළුවන්ද?

  tiyenavā, mama tiyāgattā. māru karanna puḷuvanda?

  I do, I kept it. May I exchange it?
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  පුළුවන්. එකම බඩුවම වෙන සයිස් එකකට දෙන්නම්

  puḷuvan. ekama baḍuvama vena sayis ekakaṭa dennam

  Yes. I will give the same item in another size.
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  වෙන පාටකට මාරු කරන්න පුළුවන්ද?

  vena pāṭakaṭa māru karanna puḷuvanda?

  And can I change it for another color?
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  පුළුවන්, හැබැයි ඒ පාට තියෙන්නේ ෂෝ කේස් එකේ විතරයි

  puḷuvan, hæbæyi ē pāṭa tiyennē ṣō kēs ekē vitarayi

  You can, but this color is only in the shop window.
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  මේකේ රෙදි හොඳ ක්වොලිටිද?

  mēkē redi honda kvoliṭida?

  And is the fabric of good quality here?
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  ඔව්, ශක්තිමත්. දෝෂ සහිත එකක් නම් ආපහු ගන්නවා

  ov, śaktimat. dōṣa sahita ekak nam āpahu gannavā

  Yes, sturdy. If it is defective, we will take it back.

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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