Pronoun Trouble

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellow,

One of my favourite moments in a Looney Tunes cartoon is when Daffy Duck is trying to encourage Elmer to shoot Bugs. 

"SHOOT HIM NOW! SHOOT HIM NOW!!" he screams.

"Oh be quiet, he doesn't HAVE to shoot you now," replies Bugs.

"YES HE DOES! HE DOES HAVE TO SHOOT ME NOW! I INSIST THAT YOU SHOOT ME NOW!!" shouts Daffy.

Daffy gets shot. 

Daffy insists they try it again but slower. He works through it in his head. "He doesn't have to shoot you now. Yes, yes I insist that he shoots me now."

And he gets shot again. At which point he turns to Bugs and says, "Aha! PRONOUN TROUBLE!!"

This still makes me laugh. 

The reason it is today's title is because of Te Reo. Don't get me wrong. I am still RUBBISH at the language, but I'm still trying, still going to our fortnightly lesson with Briar. 

And in fact, today's homework was to take this picture and describe it. "Kua mahi a Smoosh i te rorohiko pōnaho" ("Smoosh worked on the laptop").

Te Reo is quite a kind language compared to others. There are no female chairs or male pencils. Verbs don't change with different tenses. Nor do they change if you're walking toward them or going away from them or standing still or what effing ever. 

And the order of words doesn't LEAP around depending on the other things*. 

Words AROUND them change. So for example, "I am drinking" is "Kei te inu ahau" but "I drank" is "Kua inu ahau" and "I'm going to drink" is "Ka inu ahau". 

Where "ahau" is "me" and "inu" is "to drink".

Got that? Easy, right?

But the problem is that "ahau". 

Let's say it's me and you (but JUST you drinking) then it's "kei te inu tāua".

But if it's me and you and at least one other then then it's "kei te inu tātou". 

So that's two different forms of "we" right there. 

But if it's me drinking with one person who ISN'T you, then it's "kei te inu māua" and if it's a whole bunch of us (but not you) then it's "kei te inu mātou".

So FOUR forms of "we".

Then there's three forms of "you". There's just you - koe. You plus one other - kōrua. You plus more than one - koutou. 

And two forms of "they" - rāua (two other people) and rātou (more than two other people). 

The good news is that all these different forms don't change word order, gender and there's no sodding dative or accusative or whatever the bloody case is**.

So I still think I have it easy. But still. 

PRONOUN TROUBLE.

S.

* My German homework would always come back covered in helpful red pen screaming WORD ORDER!!!! Encouraging.

** Pejorative?