The past tense of a-stem verbs is formed by just adding the ending “-në” to the stem.
Example: harya- (have) > haryanë (had)

Primary verbs also form their past tense with this ending, but there are some things to notice:
* the past tense ending can be added directly to verb stems ending in -r, -m, -n.
Example: cennë (saw)
* when the verb stem ends in another consonant, the “n” changes places with the last consonant of the verb stem. This is called nasal infixion.
Example: mat- (eat) > mantë (ate)
But when the last consonant of the verb stem is “p”, the “infixed” “n” becomes “m” instead.
Example: cap- (jump) > campë (jumped)
*verb stems ending in “-l” form their past tense by adding “-lë”.
Example: mel- (love) > mellë (loved)

There are some irregular past tense forms as well, such as “túlë” (from “tul-“) and “sintë” (from “ista-“) but most verbs follow this pattern.

Just as for the present tense, the ending “-r” is added after the tense ending whenever the verb has a plural subject (or more than one subject).
Example: “i atar mótanë” (the father worked) – “i atari mótaner” (the fathers worked)

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Lesson 6 Vocabulary list

lir- “sing”
mac- “hew with a sword”
varya- “protect”
vinya “new”
yerna “old, worn” (of things)
nessa “young”
linyenwa “old” (of people)
qualin “dead”
lindë “song”
macil “sword”
lómë “night”
aurë “day”

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Tengwar Lesson 6

In this lesson we’ll have a first look at the tengwar that represent an s-sound. Let’s start with the basic ‘s’:

As you can see, it has two variants: an ordinary tengwa and an upside down tengwa (nuquerna means ‘upside down’).

We use silmë nuquerna (30) if there is a tehta that has to be put on it, otherwise we use the ordinary silmë (29).
Thus we use silmë (29):
• at the end of a word,
• before a long vowel or a diphthong,
• before a consonant.

Silmë has a relative that denotes a double ‘ss’ (pronounce it twice as long as a single ‘s’):

Again we use essë nuquerna (32) if there is a tehta that has to be put on it, otherwise we use the ordinary essë (31). This implies that essë (31) is very seldom used: only before a long vowel or a diphthong (as ‘ss’ cannot appear before a consonant or at the end of a word).