උත්සව රෑ කෑම
“උත්සව රෑ කෑම” (utsava rǣ kǣma) — holiday dinner in Sinhala. Noun, level A2. The familiar holiday word in front drops its tail — that's how Sinhala joins two nouns. An ordinary dinner is just 'night food'. In a live sentence: “උත්සව රෑ කෑමට ඥාතියෝ ඔක්කොම ආවා” — All the relatives came to the holiday dinner. You can hear how it sounds right here. Written with the characters උ, ත, ්, ස, ව, ර, ෑ, ක, ෑ, ම.
In short
| Written in Sinhala | උත්සව රෑ කෑම |
| Read in Latin letters | utsava rǣ kǣma |
| Translation | holiday dinner |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A2 |
- උත්සව රෑ කෑමutsava rǣ kǣmaholiday dinner
Why it looks that way
The familiar holiday word in front drops its tail — that's how Sinhala joins two nouns. An ordinary dinner is just 'night food'
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- උත්සව රෑ කෑමට ඥාතියෝ ඔක්කොම ආවාutsava rǣ kǣmaṭa gnātiyō okkoma āvāAll the relatives came to the holiday dinner
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “holiday dinner” in Sinhala?
«උත්සව රෑ කෑම», read “utsava rǣ kǣma”. In a live sentence: “උත්සව රෑ කෑමට ඥාතියෝ ඔක්කොම ආවා” — All the relatives came to the holiday dinner. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Noun, level A2; written with the characters උ, ත, ්, ස, ව, ර, ෑ, ක, ෑ, ම.
How is “උත්සව රෑ කෑම” written in Latin letters?
utsava rǣ kǣma. This is a practical spelling — you need it to read aloud and be understood, not to meet an academic standard.
Why does this word look the way it does?
The familiar holiday word in front drops its tail — that's how Sinhala joins two nouns. An ordinary dinner is just 'night food'. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
Can I hear how it sounds?
Yes, right on this page: click the word and it will play. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.