Practical Course in Verdurian
Intro
Contents
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Glossary
Emai!
The Practical Course is designed to provide a working knowledge of Verdurian— the language of 70 million people in the Caďinorian Plain of Almea, a widely used lingua franca outside the Plain, and the most important and rewarding language in Almean studies.
The idea throughout is to provide a growing core of competence in real Verdurian. By contrast with the Reference Grammar, the Practical Course
- is ordered progressively, from the easiest and most important to the harder and more obscure features of the language.
- doesn't assume any grammatical or linguistic knowledge.
- contains readings and exercises to assist in learning.
- is not exhaustive!
Each of the ten lessons contains:
- a reading, drawn from everyday Verdurian life
- vocabulary (new words introduced in the lesson)
- notes on pronunciation
- cultural notes— to assist in providing a context for the language
- grammatical explanations
- exercises— generally open-ended, rather than relying on rote translation.
The vocabulary for the lessons is fairly limited, but you can find it all and learn more words in the Verdurian-English and English-Verdurian dictionaries.
The key to language learning is to relax and enjoy it. Use the language— don't worry about making mistakes; the University grammarians are not going to track you down and punish you. Try it out as much as you can: recall words as you walk down the street; make notes to yourself; translate headlines in the paper. Use it to read about things that interest you, whether it's fiction, or news, or comics. Study with a friend if you can. By all means speak to any Verdurians you meet, or correspond with other Verdurian speakers by e-mail. The best place to meet Verdurian speakers on this planet is the Zompist BBoard.
When you've worked through the lessons, you'll be ready to look through the Reference Grammar for further details. The Grammar contains suggestions for further reading. I've also posted a set of graded short texts, and an introduction to Verdurian poetics. Also see the growing collection of Verdurian texts on Almeopedia.
Students of Caďinor may be interested in Exez's translations of the readings into Caďinor.
—Mark Rosenfelder
Introduction
1 Ke ei? 
Who are you?
Sentence order. Articles. Questions and negatives. To be. Possessive pronouns.
2 So malsfaom The barbarian
Pronouns. Gender. Verbs. Double negatives.
3 Ne meršán At the market
Declension II adjectives. Plurals. Numbers 1 to 10. The accusative.
4 Piro er meď Father and son
Verbs in -n. Past tense. Pronoun objects.
5 Maris žanmei Susane Susana's future husband
Declension I adjectives. The imperative. Reflexive verbs. The genitive.
6 Veturea Vyatán A voyage to Vyat
The dative. Prepositions. Adverbs. Aspect markers. Comparatives. Verbs in -c.
7 Im prusin In the bar
Verbs in -r. Sentence complements. Impersonal expressions. 'There are.' Nouns in -e and -i.
8 Prosizel Errukán An expedition to Erruk
Future tense. Dénuo. Ne, im, u. Nouns in -u and -ë. Impersonal tu. Formal 'you'.
9 Kiel colir culanulei? How do you get some cake?
More on questions. The conditional. The partitive. Preposition + verb.
10 E lenge racont It's a long story
Nouns in -y and -ia. Masculines in -a. 'No longer', 'only'. Word formation.
Glossary
Lesson
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10
Glossary
