Lingoflyපියානෝ ගහනවා
- පියානෝ ගහනවාpiyānō gahanavāto play the piano
“පියානෝ ගහනවා” (piyānō gahanavā) — to play the piano in Sinhala. Phrase, level A1. Giṭāraya gahanavā is 'to play the guitar'. gahanavā is 'to strike' — drums, guitars and pianos are all struck. The bookish vādanaya karanavā sounds on stage. In a live sentence: “දුව පියානෝ ගහනවා” (duva piyānō gahanavā) — My daughter plays the piano. You can hear how it sounds right here. Written with the characters ප, ි, ය, ා, න, ෝ, ග, හ, න, ව, ා. A word from the everyday Sinhala course, level A1.
In short
| Written in Sinhala | පියානෝ ගහනවා (piyānō gahanavā) |
| Read in Latin letters | piyānō gahanavā |
| Translation | to play the piano |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | A1 |
Why it looks that way
Giṭāraya gahanavā is 'to play the guitar'. gahanavā is 'to strike' — drums, guitars and pianos are all struck. The bookish vādanaya karanavā sounds on stage
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.
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 “to play the piano” in Sinhala?
«පියානෝ ගහනවා» (piyānō gahanavā), read “piyānō gahanavā”. In a live sentence: “දුව පියානෝ ගහනවා” (duva piyānō gahanavā) — My daughter plays the piano. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Phrase, level A1; written with the characters ප, ි, ය, ා, න, ෝ, ග, හ, න, ව, ා.
How is “පියානෝ ගහනවා” (piyānō gahanavā) written in Latin letters?
piyānō gahanavā. 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?
Giṭāraya gahanavā is 'to play the guitar'. gahanavā is 'to strike' — drums, guitars and pianos are all struck. The bookish vādanaya karanavā sounds on stage. 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 this 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.