මට එකක් අහන්න පුළුවන්ද?
“මට එකක් අහන්න පුළුවන්ද?” (maṭa ekak ahanna puḷuvanda?) — may I ask you something? in Sinhala. Phrase, level A2. ma-ta e-kak a-han-na pu-lu-van-da; the ḷ is the curled-tongue l. In a live sentence: “සමාවෙන්න, මට එකක් අහන්න පුළුවන්ද?” — Excuse me, may I ask you something? You can hear how it sounds right here. Written with the characters ම, ට, එ, ක, ක, ්, අ, හ, න, ්, න, ප. A word from the everyday Sinhala course, level A2.
In short
| Written in Sinhala | මට එකක් අහන්න පුළුවන්ද? |
| Read in Latin letters | maṭa ekak ahanna puḷuvanda? |
| Translation | may I ask you something? |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | A2 |
- මට එකක් අහන්න පුළුවන්ද?maṭa ekak ahanna puḷuvanda?may I ask you something?
How to pronounce it
ma-ta e-kak a-han-na pu-lu-van-da; the ḷ is the curled-tongue l
Why it looks that way
Literally 'may I ask one thing?': the familiar 'one' here stands for 'a question'
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.
- සමාවෙන්න, මට එකක් අහන්න පුළුවන්ද?samāvenna, maṭa ekak ahanna puḷuvanda?Excuse me, may I ask you something?
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 “may I ask you something?” in Sinhala?
«මට එකක් අහන්න පුළුවන්ද?», read “maṭa ekak ahanna puḷuvanda?”. ma-ta e-kak a-han-na pu-lu-van-da; the ḷ is the curled-tongue l. In a live sentence: “සමාවෙන්න, මට එකක් අහන්න පුළුවන්ද?” — Excuse me, may I ask you something? You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Phrase, level A2; written with the characters ම, ට, එ, ක, ක, ්, අ, හ, න, ්, න, ප.
How is “මට එකක් අහන්න පුළුවන්ද?” written in Latin letters?
maṭa ekak ahanna puḷuvanda?. 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?
Literally 'may I ask one thing?': the familiar 'one' here stands for 'a question'. 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.