First day at the factory in Sinhala

How the whole thing sounds

The situation: first day at the factory: the foreman meets the new worker, issues a pass and explains the order. First the whole conversation, then each line on its own, with a translation.

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  ආයුබෝවන්. ඔයා අද පටන් ගන්න අලුත් කෙනා නේද?

  āyubōvan. oyā ada paṭan ganna alut kenā nēda?

  Hello. Are you the newcomer who starts today?
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  ඔව්. මම කලින් අවුරුදු පහක් මෙකැනික් විදිහට වැඩ කළා.

  ov. mama kalin avurudu pahak mekænik vidihaṭa væḍa kaḷā.

  Yes. I worked as a mechanic for five years before.
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  හොඳයි. මුලින්ම ගේට් පාස් එක ගන්න, ඊට පස්සේ ආරක්ෂක නීති කියලා දෙන්නම්.

  hondayi. mulinma gēṭ pās eka ganna, īṭa passē ārakṣaka nīti kiyalā dennam.

  Good. First get the pass, then I will explain the safety rules.
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  හෙල්මට් එකයි නිල ඇඳුමයි කොහෙන්ද ගන්නේ?

  helmaṭ ekayi nila ændumayi kohenda gannē?

  Where do I get the helmet and the uniform?
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  ගබඩාවෙන්. උපකරණ අතට ගන්න කලින් මට කියන්න.

  gabaḍāven. upakaraṇa ataṭa ganna kalin maṭa kiyanna.

  At the warehouse. Before you take the equipment in hand, tell me.
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  බ්‍රේක් එක කීයටද? මම වෙලාවට ඉවර කරන්න කැමතියි.

  brēk eka kīyaṭada? mama velāvaṭa ivara karanna kæmatiyi.

  What time is the break? I like to be on time.
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  දොළහට. ඔයාගේ වැඩ කරන තැන ලොකු ජනේලේ ළඟ.

  doḷahaṭa. oyāgē væḍa karana tæna loku janēlē ḷanga.

  At twelve. Your workplace is by the big window.
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  ස්තූතියි. හෙට උදේ වාර්තා කරන්නේ ඔයාටද?

  stūtiyi. heṭa udē vārtā karannē oyāṭada?

  Thank you. Do I report to you tomorrow morning?

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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